got Vulthor Tharn on the screen.

"Good afternoon. Assistant Verkan. I suppose you're calling about the
slave business. I've turned the entire matter over to Field Agent
Skordran; gave him a temporary rank of Deputy Subchief. That's subject
to your approval and Chief Tortha's, of course--"

"Make the appointment permanent," Vall said. "I'll have a confirmation
along from Chief Tortha directly. And let me talk to him now, if you
please. Subchief Vulthor."

"Yes, sir. Switching you over now." The screen went into a beautiful
burst of abstract art, and cleared, after a while, with Skordran Kirv
looking out of it.

"Hello, Deputy Skordran, and congratulations. What's come up since we
had Nebu-hin-Abenoz cut out from under us?"

"We went in on that time line, that same night, with an airboat and
made a recon in the hills back of Careba. Scared the fear of Safar
into a party of Caleras while we were working at low altitude, by the
way. We found the conveyer-head site: hundred-foot circle with all the
grass and loose dirt transposed off it and a pole pen, very unsanitary
where about two-three hundred slaves would be kept at a time. No
indications of use in the last ten days. We did some pretty thorough
boomeranging on that spatial equivalent over a couple of thousand time
lines and found thirty more of them. I believe the slavers have closed
out the whole Esaron Sector operation, at least temporarily."

That was what he'd been afraid of; he hoped they wouldn't do the same
thing on the Kholghoor Sector.

"Let me have the designations of the time lines on which you found
conveyer heads," he said.

"Just a moment, Chief's Assistant; I'll photoprint them to you. Set
for reception?"

Vall opened a slide under the screen and saw that the photoprint film
was in place, then closed it again, nodding. Skordran Kirv fed a sheet
of paper into his screen cabinet and his arm moved forward out of the
picture.

"On, sir," he said. He and Vall counted ten seconds together, and then
Skordran Kirv said: "Through to you." Vall pressed a lever under his
screen, and a rectangle of microcopy print popped out.

"That's about all I have, sir. Want me to keep my troops ready here,
or shall I send them somewhere else?"

"Keep them ready, Kirv," Vall told him. "You may need them before
long. Call you later."

He put the microcopy in an enlarger, and carried the enlarged print
with him to the conveyer room. There was something odd about t