urious."

"We'll have to take a chance on that," Vall said. "Are the
interrogations still going on? Then let's have a look-in at them."

The big double doors at the end of the shed were barred on the inside.
Krador Arv unlocked a small side door, letting Vall, Dalla and Gathon
Dard out. In the yard outside, a gang of slaves were unloading a big
wagon of oranges and packing them into hampers; they were guarded by a
couple of native riflemen who seemed mostly concerned with keeping
them away from the shed, and a man in a white cloak was watching the
guards for the same purpose. He walked over and introduced himself to
Vall.

"Golzan Doth, local alias Dosu Golan. I'm Consolidated Outtime
Foodstuffs' manager here."

"Nasty business for you people," Vall sympathized. "If it's any
consolation, it's a bigger headache for us."

"Have you any idea what's going to be done about these slaves?"
Golzan Doth asked. "I have to remember that the Company has forty
thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units invested in them. The top office
was very specific in requesting information about that."

Vall shook his head. "That's over my echelon," he said. "Have to be
decided by the Paratime Commission. I doubt if your company'll suffer.
You bought them innocently, in conformity with local custom. Ever buy
slaves from this Coru-hin-Irigod before?"

"I'm new, here. The man I'm replacing broke his neck when his horse
put a foot in a gopher hole about two ten-days ago."

Beside him, Vall could see Dalla nod as though making a mental note.
When she got back to Home Time Line, she'd put a crew of mediums to
work trying to contact the discarnate former plantation manager; at
Rhogom Institute, she had been working on the problem of return of a
discarnate personality from outtime.

"A few times," Skordran Kirv said. "Nothing suspicious; all local
stuff. We questioned Coru-hin-Irigod pretty closely on that point, and
he says that this is the first time he ever brought a batch of
Nebu-hin-Abenoz's outlanders this far west."

* * * * *

The interrogations were being conducted inside the plantation house,
in the secret central rooms where the paratimers lived. Skordran Kirv
used a door-activator to slide open a hidden door.

"I suppose I don't have to warn either of you that any positive
statement made in the hearing of a narco-hypnotized subject--" he
began.

"... Has the effect of hypnotic suggestion--" Vall pi