?" When she shook her head, he turned back to Tortha
Karf. "Look; it's about a four-hour rocket hop to Novilan Equivalent.
Say we have the hypno-mech machines installed in the rocket; Dalla and
I can take our language lessons on the way, and be ready to go to work
as soon as we land."

"Good idea," Tortha Karf approved. "I'll order that done, right away.
Now--"

Oddly enough, she wasn't feeling so angry, now that she had committed
herself and Vall. Come to think of it, she had never been on Police
Terminal Time Line; very few people, outside the Paratime Police, ever
had. And, she had always wanted to learn more about Vall's work, and
participate in it with him. And if she'd made him refuse, it would
have been something ugly between them all the time they would be on
the Dwarma Sector. But this way--

* * * * *

The big circular conveyer room was crowded, as it had been every
minute of every day for the past ten thousand years. At the great
circular desk in the center, departing or returning police officers
were checking in or out with the flat-topped cylindrical robot
clerks, or talking to human attendants. Some were in the regulation
green uniform; others, like himself, were in civilian clothes; more
were in outtime costumes from all over paratime. Fringed robes and
cloth-of-gold sashes and conical caps from the Second Level Khiftan
Sector; Fourth Level Proto-Aryan mail and helmets; the short tunics
and kilts of Fourth Level Alexandrian-Roman Sector; the Zarkantha
loincloth and felt cap and daggers; there were priestly vestments
stiff with gold, and military uniforms; there were trousers and
jackboots and bare legs; blasters, and swords, and pistols, and bows
and quivers, and spears. And the place was loud with a babel of voices
and the clatter of teleprinters.

[Illustration:]

Dalla was looking about her in surprised delight; for her, the
vacation had already begun. He was glad; for a while, he had been
afraid that she would be unhappy about it. He guided her through the
crowd to the desk, spoke for a while to one of the human attendants,
and found out which was their conveyer. It was a fixed-destination
shuttler, operative only between Home Time Line and Police Terminal,
from which most of the Paratime Police operations were routed. He put
Dall in through the sliding door, followed, and closed it behind him,
locking it. Then, before he closed the starting switch, he drew a
pi