eactions, but they're willing to take chances for big gains. I
believe they think they're safe, now that they've closed out the
compromised time line and killed the only witness against them."

"Well, what's Ranthar Jard doing?"

"Trying to locate the sub-sector and probability belt from what the
slaves can tell him about their religious beliefs, about the local
king, and the prince of Jhirda, and the noble families of the
neighborhood," Vall said. "When he has it localized as closely as he
can, he's going to start pelting the whole paratemporal area with
photographic auto-return balls dropped from aircars on Police Terminal
over the spatial equivalents of a couple of Croutha-conquered cities.
As soon as he gets a photo that shows Croutha with firearms, he'll
have a Wizard Trader time line."

"Sounds simple," the Chief said. The car landed, and he helped Dalla
out. "I suppose both you and he know how many chances against one he
has of finding anything." They went over to an antigrav-shaft and
floated down to the floor on which Tortha Karf had a duplicate of the
office in the Paratime Building on Home Time Line. "It's the only
chance we have, though."

"There's one thing that bothers me," Dalla said, as they entered the
office and went back behind the horseshoe-shaped desk. "I understand
that the news about this didn't break on Home Time Line till the late
morning of One-Six-One Day. Nebu-hin-Abenoz was murdered at about 1700
local time, which would be 0100 this morning Dhergabar time. That
would give this gang fourteen hours to hear the news, transmit it to
their base, and get these three men hypno-conditioned, disguised,
transposed to this Esaron Sector time line, and into Careba." She
shook her head. "That's pretty fast work."

Tortha Karf looked sidewise at Verkan Vall. "Your girl has the makings
of a cop, Vall," he commented.

"She's been a big help, on Esaron and Kholghoor Sectors," Vall said.
"She wants to stay with it and help me; I'll be very glad to have her
with me."

Tortha Karf nodded. He knew, too, that Dalla wouldn't want to have to
go back to Home Time Line and wait the long investigation out.

"Of course; we can use all the help we can get. I think we can get a
lot from Dalla. Fix her up with some kind of a title and police
status--technical-expert, assistant, or something like that." He
clasped hands, man-fashion, with her. "Glad to have you on the cops
with us, Dalla," he said. Then he turned