Time Crime
Page 15
won't bothertelling you what'll happen to you if you don't," he added. "You canfigure that out for yourself."
With that, he turned and went out the private door. For a while,Salgath Trod sat staring after him. Once he put his hand out towardthe spool, then jerked it back as though the thing were radioactive.Once he looked at the clock; it was just 1600.
* * * * *
The green aircar settled onto the landing stage; Verkan Vall, on thefront seat beside the driver, opened the door.
"Want me to call for you later, Assistant Verkan?" the driver asked.
"No thank you, Drenth. My wife and I are going to a dinner-party, andwe'll probably go night-clubbing afterward. Tomorrow morning, all theanti-Management commentators will be yakking about my carousing aroundwhen I ought to be battling the Slave Trust. No use advertising myselfwith an official car, and giving them a chance to add, 'at publicexpense.'"
"Well, have some fun while you can," the driver advised, reaching forthe car-radio phone. "Want me to check you in here, sir?"
"Yes, if you will. Thank you. Drenth."
Kandagro, his human servant, admitted him to the apartment six floorsdown.
"Mistress Dalla is dressing," he said. "She asked me to tell you thatyou are invited to dinner, this evening, with Thalvan Dras at hisapartment."
Vall nodded. "Ill talk to her about it now," he said. "Lay out mydress uniform: short jacket, boots and breeches, and needler."
"Yes, master: I'll go lay out your things and get your bath ready."
The servant turned and went into the alcove which gave access to thedressing rooms, turning right into Vall's. Vall followed him, turningleft into his wife's.
"Oh, Dalla!" he called.
"In here!" her voice came out of her bathroom.
He passed through the dressing room, to find her stretched on aplastic-sheeted couch, while her maid, Rendarra, was rubbing her bodyvigorously with some pungent-smelling stuff about the consistency ofmachine-grease. Her face was masked in the stuff, and her hair wascovered with an elastic cap. He had always suspected that beauty wasthe real feminine religion, from the willingness of its devotees tosubmit to martyrdom for it. She wiggled a hand at him in greeting.
"How did it go?" she asked.
"So-so. I organized myself a sort of miniature police force within apolice force and I have liaison officers in every organization down toSector Regional so that I can be informed promptly in case anythingnew turns up anywhere. What's been happening on Home Time Line? Ipicked up a news-summary at Paratime Police Headquarters; it seemsthat a lot more stuff has leaked out. Kholghoor Sector, Wizard Tradersand all. How'd it happen?"
Dalla rolled over to allow Rendarra to rub the blue-green grease onher back.
"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs let a gang of reporters in, today. Ithink they're afraid somebody will accuse them of complicity, and theywant to get their side of it before the public. All our crowd are offthat Time line except a couple of detectives at the plantation."
"I know." He smiled; Dalla was thinking of the Paratime Police as "ourcrowd" now. "How about this dinner at Dras' place?"
"Oh, that was easy." She shifted position again. "I just called Drasup and told him that our vacation was off, and he invited us before Icould begin hinting. What are you going to wear?"
"Short-jacket greens; I can carry a needler with that uniform, evenwear it at the table. I don't think it's smart for me to run aroundunarmed, even on Home Time Line. Especially on Home Time Line," heamended. "When's this affair going to start, and how long willRendarra take to get that goo off you?"
* * * * *
Salgath Trod left his aircar at the top landing stage of his apartmentbuilding and sent it away to the hangars under robot control; heglanced about him as he went toward the antigrav shaft. There were adozen vehicles in the air above; any of them might have followed himfrom the Paratime Building. He had no doubt that he had been underconstant surveillance from the moment the nameless messenger haddelivered the Organization's ultimatum. Until he delivered thatspeech, the next morning, or manifested an intention of refusing to doso, however, he would be safe. After that--
Alone in his office, he had reviewed the situation point by point, andthen gone back and reviewed it again; the conclusion was inescapable.The Organization had ordered him to make an accusation which hehimself knew to be false; that was the first premise. The conclusionwas that he would be killed as soon as he had made it. That was thetrouble with being mixed up with that kind of people--you wereexpendable, and sooner or later, they would decide that they wouldhave to expend you. And what could you do?
To begin with, an accusation of criminal malfeasance made against aManagement or Paratime Commission agency on the floor of ExecutiveCouncil was tantamount to an accusation made in court; automatically,the accuser became a criminal prosecutor, and would have to repeat hisaccusation under narco-hypnosis. Then the whole story would come out,bit by bit, back to its beginning in that first illegal deal inIndo-Turanian opium, diverted from trade with the Khiftan Sector andsold on Second Level Luvarian Empire Sector, and the deals inradioactive poisons, and the slave trade. He would be able to name fewnames--the Organization kept its activities too well compartmented forthat--but he could talk of things that had happened, and when, andwhere, and on what paratemporal areas.
No. The Organization wouldn't let that happen, and the only way itcould be prevented would be by the death of Salgath Trod, as soon ashe had made his speech. All the talk of providing him withcorroborative evidence was silly; it had been intended to lead himmore trustingly to the slaughter. They'd kill him, of course, in someway that would be calculated to substantiate the story he would nolonger be able to repudiate. The killer, who would be promptly rayeddead by somebody else, would wear a Paratime Police uniform, orsomething like that. That was of no importance, however; by then, he'dbe beyond caring.
* * * * *
One of his three ServSec Prole servants--the slim brown girl who washis housekeeper and hostess, and also his mistress--admitted him tothe apartment. He kissed her perfunctorily and closed the door behindhim.
"You're tired," she said. "Let me call Nindrandigro and have him bringyou chilled wine; lie down and rest until dinner."
"No, no; I want brandy." He went to a cellaret and got out a decanterand goblet, pouring himself a drink. "How soon will dinner be ready?"
The brown girl squeezed a little golden globe that hung on a chainaround her neck; a tiny voice, inside it, repeated: "Eighteentwenty-three ten, eighteen twenty-three eleven, eighteen twenty-threetwelve--"
"In half an hour. It's still in the robo-chef," she told him.
He downed half the goblet-full, set it down, and went to a painting, abrutal scarlet and apple-green abstraction, that hung on the wall.Swinging it aside and revealing the safe behind it, he used hisidentity-sigil, took out a wad of Paratemporal Exchange Bank notes andgave them to the girl.
"Here, Zinganna; take these, and take Nindrandigro and Calilla out forthe evening. Go where you can all have a good time, and don't comeback till after midnight. There will be some business transacted here,and I want them out of this. Get them out of here as soon as you can;I'll see to the dinner myself. Spend all of that you want to."
The girl riffled through the wad of banknotes. "Why, _thank_ you,Trod!" She threw her arms around his neck and kissed himenthusiastically. "I'll go tell them at once."
"And have a good time, Zinganna; have the best time you possibly can,"he told her, embracing and kissing her. "Now, get out of here; I haveto keep my mind on business."
When she had gone, he finished his drink and poured another. He drewand checked his needler. Then, after checking the window-shielding andactivating the outside viewscreens, he lit a cheroot and sat down atthe desk, his goblet and his needler in front of him, to wait untilthe servants were gone.
There was only one way out alive. He knew that, and yet he need
edbrandy, and a great deal of mental effort, to steel himself for it.Psycho-rehabilitation was a dreadful thing to face. There would bealmost a year of unremitting agony, physical and mental, worse than aKhiftan torture rack. There would be the shame of having his innermostsecrets poured out of him by the psychotherapists, and, at the end,there would emerge someone who would not be Salgath Trod, or anybodylike Salgath Trod, and he would have to learn to know this stranger,and build a new life for him.
In one of the viewscreens, he saw the door to the service hallwayopen. Zinganna, in a black evening gown and a black velvet cloak, andCalilla, the housemaid, in what she believed to be a reasonablefacsimile of fashionable First Level dress, and