rra to rub the blue-green grease on
her back.

"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs let a gang of reporters in, today. I
think they're afraid somebody will accuse them of complicity, and they
want to get their side of it before the public. All our crowd are off
that Time line except a couple of detectives at the plantation."

"I know." He smiled; Dalla was thinking of the Paratime Police as "our
crowd" now. "How about this dinner at Dras' place?"

"Oh, that was easy." She shifted position again. "I just called Dras
up and told him that our vacation was off, and he invited us before I
could begin hinting. What are you going to wear?"

"Short-jacket greens; I can carry a needler with that uniform, even
wear it at the table. I don't think it's smart for me to run around
unarmed, even on Home Time Line. Especially on Home Time Line," he
amended. "When's this affair going to start, and how long will
Rendarra take to get that goo off you?"

* * * * *

Salgath Trod left his aircar at the top landing stage of his apartment
building and sent it away to the hangars under robot control; he
glanced about him as he went toward the antigrav shaft. There were a
dozen vehicles in the air above; any of them might have followed him
from the Paratime Building. He had no doubt that he had been under
constant surveillance from the moment the nameless messenger had
delivered the Organization's ultimatum. Until he delivered that
speech, the next morning, or manifested an intention of refusing to do
so, however, he would be safe. After that--

Alone in his office, he had reviewed the situation point by point, and
then gone back and reviewed it again; the conclusion was inescapable.
The Organization had ordered him to make an accusation which he
himself knew to be false; that was the first premise. The conclusion
was that he would be killed as soon as he had made it. That was the
trouble with being mixed up with that kind of people--you were
expendable, and sooner or later, they would decide that they would
have to expend you. And what could you do?

To begin with, an accusation of criminal malfeasance made against a
Management or Paratime Commission agency on the floor of Executive
Council was tantamount to an accusation made in court; automatically,
the accuser became a criminal prosecutor, and would have to repeat his
accusation under narco-hypnosis. Then the whole story would come out,
bit by bit, back t