m, and made up this
impostor--"

Tortha Karf began, alphabetically, to blaspheme every god he had ever
heard of. He had only gotten as far as a Fourth Level deity named
Allah when a red light began flashing in front of Asthar Varn, and the
voice of a page-robot, amplified, roared:

"Point of special urgency! Point of special urgency! It has been
requested that the news telecast screen be activated at once, with
playback to 1107. An important bulletin has just come in from
Nagorabar, Home Time Line, on the Indian subcontinent--"

"You can stop swearing, now, Karf," Dalgroth Sorn grinned. "I think
this is it."

* * * * *

Kostran Galth sat on the edge of the couch, with one arm around
Zinganna's waist; on the other side of him, Hadron Dalla lay at full
length, her elbows propped and her chin in her hands. The screen in
front of them showed a fading sunset, although it was only a little
past noon at Dhergabar Equivalent. A dark ship was coming slowly in
against the red sky; in the center of a wire-fenced compound a
hundred-foot conveyer hung on antigrav twenty feet from the ground,
and beyond, a long metal prefab-shed was spilling light from open
doors and windows.

"That crowd that was just taken in won't be finished for a couple of
hours," a voice was saying. "I don't know how much they'll be able to
tell; the psychists say they're all telling about the same stories.
What those stories are, of course, I'm not able to repeat. After the
trouble caused by a certain news commentator who shall be
nameless--he's not connected with this news service, I'm happy to
say--we're all leaning over backward to keep from breaking Paratime
Police security.

"One thing; shortly after the arrival of the second ship from Police
Terminal--and believe me, that ship came in just in the nick of
time!--the dead Abzar city which the criminals were using as their
main base for this time line, and from which they launched the air
attack against us, was located, and now word has come in that it is
entirely in the hands of the Paratime Police. Personally, I doubt if a
great deal of information has been gotten from any prisoners taken
there. The lengths to which this Organization went to keep their own
people in ignorance is simply unbelievable."

A man appeared for a moment in the lighted doorway of the shed, then
stepped outside.

"Look!" Dalla cried. "There's Vall!"

"There's Assistant Verkan, now," the