nty angle of
his silver-feathered cap, the fit of his short jacket, and the way his
weapon hung at his side. This last was not instantly recognizable as a
weapon; it looked more like a portable radio, which indeed it was. It
was, none the less, a potent weapon. One flick of his finger could
connect that radio with one at Tri-Planet News Service, and within the
hour anything he said into it would be heard by all Terra, Mars and
Venus. In consequence, there existed around the Paratime Building a
marked and understandable reluctance to antagonize Yandar Yadd.

He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes short of 1000, when he
had an appointment with Baltan Vrath, the comptroller general.
Glancing about, he saw that he was directly in front of the doorway of
the Outtime Claims Bureau, and he strolled in, walking through the
waiting room and into the claims-presentation office. At once, he
stiffened like a bird dog at point.

Sphabron Larv, one of his young legmen, was in altercation across the
counter-desk with Varkar Klav, the Deputy Claims Agent on duty at the
time. Varkar was trying to be icily dignified; Sphabron Larv's black
hair was in disarray and his face was suffused with anger. He was
pounding with his fist on the plastic counter-top.

"You have to!" he was yelling in the older man's face. "That's a
public document, and I have a right to see it. You want me to go into
Tribunes' Court and get an order? If I do, there'll be a Question in
Council about why I had to, before the day's out!"

"What's the matter, Larv?" Yandar Yadd asked lazily. "He trying to
hold something out on you?"

Sphabron Larv turned; his eyes lit happily when he saw his boss, and
then his anger returned.

"I want to see a copy of an indemnity claim that was filed this
morning," he said. "Varkar, here, won't show it to me. What does he
think this is, a Fourth Level dictatorship?"

"What kind of a claim, now?" Yandar Yadd addressed Larv, ignoring
Varkar Klav.

"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs--one of the Thalvan Interests
companies--just claimed forty thousand P.E.U. for a hundred slaves
bought by one of their plantation managers on Third Level Esaron from
a local slave dealer. The Paratime Police impounded the slaves for
narco-hypnotic interrogation, and then transposed the lot of them to
Police Terminal."

Yandar Yadd still held his affectation of sleepy indolence.

"Now why would the Paracops do that, I wonder? Slavery's an
est