off the switch, took out the ear plugs, removed
the helmet and rose to his feet. Deep in his subconscious mind was the
entire body of knowledge about the Venusian nighthound. He mentally
pronounced the word, and at once it began flooding into his conscious
mind. He knew the animal's evolutionary history, its anatomy, its
characteristics, its dietary and reproductive habits, how it hunted,
how it fought its enemies, how it eluded pursuit, and how best it could
be tracked down and killed. He nodded. Already, a plan for dealing with
Gavran Sarn's renegade pet was taking shape in his mind.

He picked a plastic cup from the dispenser, filled it from a cooler-tap
with amber-colored spiced wine, and drank, tossing the cup into the
disposal-bin. He placed a fresh injector on the arm of the chair, ready
for the next user of the booth. Then he emerged, glancing at his Fourth
Level wrist watch and mentally translating to the First Level
time-scale. Three hours had passed; there had been more to learn about
his quarry than he had expected.

Tortha Karf was sitting behind his desk, smoking a cigarette. It seemed
as though he had not moved since Verkan Vall had left him, though the
special agent knew that he had dined, attended several conferences,
and done many other things.

"I checked up on your hitchhiker, Vall," the chief said. "We won't
bother about him. He's a member of something called the Christian
Avengers--one of those typical Europo-American race-and-religious hate
groups. He belongs in a belt that is the outcome of the Hitler victory
of 1940, whatever that was. Something unpleasant, I daresay. We don't
owe him anything; people of that sort should be stepped on, like
cockroaches. And he won't make any more trouble on the line where you
dropped him than they have there already. It's in a belt of complete
social and political anarchy; somebody probably shot him as soon as
he emerged, because he wasn't wearing the right sort of a uniform.
Nineteen-forty what, by the way?"

"Elapsed years since the birth of some religious leader," Verkan Vall
explained. "And did you find out about my rifle?"

"Oh, yes. It's reproduction of something that's called a Sharp's Model
'37 .235 Ultraspeed-Express. Made on an adjoining paratime belt by a
company that went out of business sixty-seven years ago, elapsed time,
on your line of operation. What made the difference was the Second War
Between The States. I don't know what that was, eit