phone and turned to
them.

"Sorry about this," he said. "Sit down, if you please. Cigarettes?"

She shook her head and sat down in one of the chairs behind the desk;
she started to relax and then caught herself and sat erect, her hands
on her lap.

"This won't interfere with your vacation, Vall," Tortha Karf was
saying. "I just need a little help before you transpose out."

"We have to catch the rocket for Zarabar in an hour and a half," Dalla
reminded him.

"Don't worry about that; if you miss the commercial rocket, our police
rockets can give it an hour's start and pass it before it gets to
Zarabar," Tortha Karf said. Then he turned to Vall. "Here's what's
happened," he said. "One of our field agents on detached duty as guard
captain for Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs on a fruit plantation in
western North America, Third Level Esaron Sector, was looking over a
lot of slaves who had been sold to the plantation by a local slave
dealer. He heard them talking among themselves--in Kharanda."

Dalla caught the significance of that before Vall did. At first, she
was puzzled; then, in spite of herself, she was horrified and angry.
Tortha Karf was explaining to Vall just where and on what paratemporal
sector Kharanda was spoken.

"No possibility that this agent, Skordran Kirv, could have been
mistaken. He worked for a while on Kholghoor Sector, himself; knew the
language by hypno-mech and by two years' use," Tortha Karf was saying.
"So he ordered himself back on duty, had the slaves isolated and the
slave dealers arrested, and then transposed to Police Terminal to
report. The SecReg Subchief, old Vulthor Tharn, confirmed him in
charge at this Esaron Sector plantation, and assigned him a couple of
detectives and a psychist."

"When was this?" Vall asked.

"Yesterday. One-Five-Nine Day. About 1500 local time."

"Twenty-three hundred Dhergabar time," Vall commented.

"Yes. And I just found out about it. Came in in the late morning
generalized report-digest; very inconspicuous item, no special urgency
symbol or anything. Fortunately, one of the report editors spotted it
and messaged Police Terminal for a copy of the original report."

"It's been a long time since we had anything like that," Vall said,
studying the glowing tip of his cigarette, his face wearing the
curiously withdrawn expression of a conscious memory recall. "Fifty
years ago; the time that gang kidnaped some girls from Second Level
Triplanetary Em