, Dalla! Don't let the old scoundrel play on your feelings!

* * * * *

"Well, what do you want me to do, Chief?" Vall was asking.

"Well, I have to know just what this situation's likely to develop
into, and I want to know why Vulthor Tharn's been sitting on this ever
since Skordran Kirv reported it to him--"

"I can answer the second one now," Vall replied. "Vulthor Tharn is due
to retire in a few years. He has a negatively good, undistinguished
record. He's trying to play it safe."

Tortha Karf nodded. "That's what I thought. Look, Vall; suppose you
and Dalla transpose from here to Police Terminal, and go to Novilan
Equivalent, and give this a quick look-over and report to me, and then
rocket to Zarabar Equivalent and go on with your trip to the Dwarma
Sector. It may delay you eight or ten hours, but--"

"Closer twenty-four," Vall said. "I'd have to transpose to this
plantation, on the Esaron Sector. How about it, Dalla? Would you want
to do that?"

She hesitated for a moment, angry with him. He didn't want to refuse,
and he was trying to make her do it for him.

"I know, it's a confounded imposition, Dalla," Tortha Karf told her.
"But it's important that I get a prompt and full estimate of the
situation. This may be something very serious. If it's an isolated
incident, it can be handled in a routine manner, but I'm afraid it's
not. It has all the marks of a large-scale operation, and if this is a
matter of mass kidnapings from one sector and transpositions to
another, you can see what a threat this is to the Paratime Secret."

"Moral considerations entirely aside," Vall said. "We don't need to
discuss them; they're too obvious."

She nodded. For over twelve millennia, the people of her race and
Vall's and Tortha Karf's had been existing as parasites on all the
innumerable other worlds of alternate probability on the lateral
dimension of time. Smart parasites never injure their hosts, and try
never to reveal their existence.

"We could do that, couldn't we, Vall?" she asked, angry at herself now
for giving in. "And if you want to question these slaves, I speak
Kharanda, and I know how they think. And I'm a qualified and licensed
narco-hypnotic technician."

"Well, that's splendid, Dalla!" Tortha Karf enthused. "Wait a moment;
I'll message Police Terminal to have a rocket ready for you."

"I'll need a hypno-mech for Kharanda, myself," Vall said. "Dalla, do
you know Acalan