't know
about the raid on the temple. On their way back, they were surrounded
by Chuldun archers and taken prisoner. They had no weapons but their
sacrificial knives." He threw another dirty look at Brannad Klav. "So
they're due to go up on the triangles at sunset tomorrow."

"We'll have to get them out before then," Verkan Vall stated. "They're
our people, and we can't let them down; even the native is under our
protection, whether he knows it or not. And in the second place, if
those priests are sacrificed to Muz-Azin," he told Brannad Klav, "you
can shut down everything on this time-line, pull out or disintegrate
your installations, and fill in your mine-tunnels. Yat-Zar will be
through on this time-line, and you'll be through along with him. And
considering that your fissionables franchise for this sector comes up
for renewal next year, your company will be through in this paratime
area."

"You believe that would happen?" Brannad Klav asked anxiously.

"I know it will, because I'll put through a recommendation to that
effect, if those six men are tortured to death tomorrow," Verkan Vall
replied. "And in the fifty years that I've been in the Police
Department, I've only heard of five such recommendations being ignored
by the commission. You know, Fourth Level Mineral Products Syndicate
is after your franchise. Ordinarily, they wouldn't have a chance of
getting it, but with this, maybe they will, even without my
recommendation. This was all your fault, for ignoring Stranor Sleth's
proposal and for denying those men the right to carry energy weapons."

"Well, we were only trying to stay inside the Paratime Code," Brannad
Klav pleaded. "If it isn't too late, now, you can count on me for
every co-operation." He fiddled with some papers on the desk. "What do
you want me to do to help?"

"I'll tell you that in a minute." Verkan Vall walked to the wall and
looked at the map, then returned to Stranor Sleth's desk. "How about
these dungeons?" he asked. "How are they located, and how can we get
in to them?"

"I'm afraid we can't," Stranor Sleth told him. "Not without fighting
our way in. They're under the palace citadel, a hundred feet below
ground. They're spatially co-existent with the heavy water barriers
around one of our company's plutonium piles on the First Level, and
below surface on any unoccupied time-line I know of, so we can't
transpose in to them. This palace is really a walled city inside a
city. Here, I'