ted with soft wrought-iron rivets,
evidently made with some sort of a power riveting-machine. We cut them
easily with a cold chisel."

"They ought to be sent to Dhergabar Equivalent, Police Terminal, for
study of material and workmanship. Now, you mentioned some scheme you
had for capturing this conveyer that brings in the slaves for
Nebu-hin-Abenoz. What have you in mind?"

"We still have Coru-hin-Irigod and all his gang, under hypno. I'd
thought of giving them hypnotic conditioning, and sending them back to
Careba with orders to put out some kind of signal the next time
Nebu-hin-Abenoz starts out on a buying trip. We could have a couple of
men posted in the hills overlooking Careba, and they could send a
message-ball through to Police Terminal. Then, a party could be sent
with a mobile conveyer to ambush Nebu-hin-Abenoz on the way, and wipe
out his party. Our people could take their horses and clothing and go
on to take the conveyer by surprise."

"I'd suggest one change. Instead of relying on visual signals by the
hypno-conditioned Coru-hin-Irigod, send a couple of our men to Careba
with midget radios."

Skordran Kirv nodded. "Sure. We can condition Coru-hin-Irigod to
accept them as friends and vouch for them at Careba. Our boys can be
traders and slave buyers. Careba's a market town; traders are always
welcome. They can have firearms to sell--revolvers and repeating
rifles. Any Calera'll buy any firearm that's better than the one he's
carrying; they'll always buy revolvers and repeaters. We can get what
we want from Commercial Four-Oh-Seven; we can get riding and pack
horses here."

Vall nodded. "And the post overlooking or in radio range of Careba on
this time line, and another on PolTerm. For the ambush of
Nebu-hin-Abenoz's gang and the capture of the conveyer, use anything you
want to--sleep-gas, paralyzers, energy-weapons, antigrav-equipment,
anything. As far as regulations about using only equipment appropriate
to local culture-levels, forget them entirely. But take that conveyer
intact. You can locate the base time line from the settings of the
instrument panel, and that's what we want most of all."

Dalla and the police psychist, having finished with and dismissed
their subject, came over to the long table.

"... That poor creature," Dalla was saying. "What sort of fiends are
they?"

"If that made you sick, remember we've been listening to things like
that for the last eight hours. Some of the stor