Time Crime

by H. Beam Piper

started boomeranging the whole belt, time line by timeline. So far, we have ten or fifteen pictures of the main square atSohram showing Croutha with firearms, and pictures of Wizard Tradercamps and conveyer heads on the same time lines. Here, let me showyou; this is from an airboat over the forest outside the equivalent ofSohram."

  There was no jungle visible when the view changed; nothing butclusters of steel towers and platforms and buildings that markedconveyer heads, and a large rectangle of red-and-white antigrav-buoysmoored to warn air traffic out of the area being boomeranged. Thepickup seemed to be pointed downward from the bow of an airboatcircling at about ten thousand feet.

  "Balls ready to go," a voice called, and then repeated a string oftime-line designations. "Estimated return, 1820, give or take fourminutes."

  "Varth," Ranthar Jard said, evidently out of the boat's radio. "Yourtelecast is being beamed on Dhergabar Equivalent; Chief's AssistantVerkan is watching. When do you estimate your next return?"

  "Any moment, now, sir; we're holding this drop till theyrematerialize."

  Vall watched unblinkingly, his fork poised halfway to his mouth.Suddenly, about a thousand feet below the eye of the pickup, there wasa series of blue flashes, and, an instant later, a blossoming ofred-and-white parachutes, ejected from the photo-reconnaissance ballsthat had returned from the Kholghoor Sector.

  "All right; drop away," the boat captain called. There was a gush,from underneath, of eight-inch spheres, their conductor-mesh twinklinggolden-bright in the sunlight. They dropped in a tight cluster for athousand or so feet and then flashed and vanished. From the ground,six or eight aircars rose to meet the descending parachutes and catchthem.

  The screen went cubist for a moment, and then Ranthar Jard's swarthy,wide-jawed face looked out of it again. He took his pipe from hismouth.

  "We'll probably get a positive out of the batch you just saw comingin," he said. "We get one out of about every two drops."

  "Message a list of the time-line designations you've gotten so far toZulthran Torv, at Computer Office here," Vall said. "He's working onthe Esaron Sector dope; we think a pattern can be established. I'll beseeing you in about five hours; I'm rocketing out of here as soon as Iget a few more things cleared up here."

  Zulthran Torv, normally cautious to the degree of pessimism, wasjubilant when Vall called him.

  "We have something, Vall," he said. "It is, roughly, what Dr. Nentrovsuggested--each of the intervals between the designations is a veryminute but very exact fraction of the difference between lesserdesignation and the base-line designation."

  "You have the base-line designation?" Vall demanded.

  "Oh, yes. That's what I was telling you. We worked that out from thedesignations you gave me." He recited it. "All the designations yougave me are--"

  Vall wasn't listening to him. He frowned in puzzlement.

  "That's not a Fifth Level designation," he said. "That's First Level!"

  "That's correct. First Level Abzar Sector."

  "Now why in blazes didn't anybody think of that before?" he marveled,and as he did, he knew the answer. Nobody ever thought of the Abzarsector.

  ]

  Twelve millennia ago, the world of the First Level had beenexhausted; having used up the resources of their home planet, Mars, ahundred thousand years before, the descendants of the population thathad migrated across space had repeated on the third planet thedevastation of the fourth. The ancestors of Verkan Vall's people haddiscovered the principle of paratime transposition and had begun toexploit an infinity of worlds on other lines of probability. Thepeople of the First Level Dwarma Sector, reduced by sheer starvationto a tiny handful, had abandoned their cities and renounced theirtechnologies and created for themselves a farm-and-village culturewithout progress or change or curiosity or struggle or ambition, and away of life in which every day was like every other day that had beenor that would come.

  The Abzar people had done neither. They had wasted their resources tothe last, fighting bitterly over the ultimate crumbs, with fissionbombs, and with muskets, and with swords, and with spears and clubs,and finally they had died out, leaving a planet of almost uniformdesert dotted with vast empty cities which even twelve thousand yearshad hardly begun to obliterate.

  So nobody on the Paratime Sector went to the Abzar Sector. There wasnothing there--except a hiding-place.

  "Well, message that to Subchief Ranthar Jard, Kholghoor Sector atNharkan Equivalent, and to Subchief Vulthor, Esaron Sector, NovilanEquivalent," Vall said. "And be sure to mark what you send Vulthor,'Immediate attention Deputy Subchief Skordran.'"

  That reminded him of something; as soon as he was through withZulthran, he got out an order in the name of Tortha Karf authorizingSkordran Kirv's promotion on a permanent basis and messaged it out.Something was going to have to be done with Vulthor Tharn, too. Apromotion of course--say Deputy Bureau Chief. Hypno-Mech Tape Libraryat Dhergabar Home Time Line; there Vulthor's passion for procedure andhis caution would be assets instead of liabilities. He called VlasthorArph, the Chief's Deputy assigned to him as adjutant.

  "I want more troops from ServSec and IndSec," he said. "Go over theTO's and see what can be spared from where; don't strip any time line,but get a force of the order of about three divisions. And locate allthe big antigrav-equipped ship transposition docks on Commercial andPassenger Sectors, and a list of freighters and passenger ships thatcan be commandeered in a hurry. We think we've spotted the time linethe Organization's using as a base. As soon as we raid a couple ofplaces near Nharkan and Novilan Equivalents, we're going to move infor a planet-wide cleanup."

  "I get it, Chief's Assistant. I do everything I can to get ready for abig move, without letting anything leak out. After you strike thefirst blow, there won't be any security problem, and the lid will beoff. In the meantime, I make up a general plan, and alert all our ownpeople. Right?"

  "Right. And for your information, the base isn't Fifth Level; it'sFirst Level Abzar." He gave the designation.

  Vlasthor Arph chuckled. "Well, think of that! I'd even forgotten therewas an Abzar Sector. Shall I tell the reporters that?"

  "Fangs of Fasif, no!" Vall fairly howled. Then, curiously: "Whatreporters? How'd they get onto PolTerm?"

  "About fifty or sixty news-service people Chief Tortha sent down here,this morning, with orders to prevent them from filing any stories fromhere but to let them cover the raids, when they come off. We wereinstructed to furnish them weapons and audio-visual equipment andvocowriters and anything else they needed, and--"

  Vall grinned. "That was one I'd never thought of," he admitted. "Theold fox is still the old fox. No, tell them nothing; we'll just takethem along and show them. Oh, and where are Dr. Hadron Dalla and thatgirl of Salgath Trod's?"

  "They're sleeping, now. Rest Room Eighteen."

  * * * * *

  Dalla and Zinganna were asleep on a big mound of silk cushions in onecorner, their glossy black heads close together and Zinganna's brownarm around Dalla's white shoulder. Their faces were calmly beautifulin repose, and they smiled slightly, as though they were wanderingthrough a happy dream. For a little while, Vall stood looking at them,then he began whistling softly. On the third or fourth bar, Dallawoke and sat up, waking Zinganna, and blinked at him perplexedly.

  "What time is it?" she asked.

  "About 1245," he told her.

  "Ohhh! We just got to sleep," she said. "We're both bushed!"

  "You had a hard time. Feel all right after your narco-hyp, Zinganna?"

  "It wasn't so bad, and I had a nice sleep. And Dalla ... Dr. Hadron, Imean--"

  "Dalla," Vall's wife corrected. "Remember what I told you?"

  "Dalla, then," Zinganna smiled. "Dalla gave me some hypno-treatment,too. I don't feel so badly about Trod, any more."

  "Well, look, Zinganna. We're going to have a man impersonateCouncilman Salgath on a telecast. The cosmeticians are making him overnow. Would you find it too painful to meet him, and talk to him?"

/>   "No, I wouldn't mind. I can criticize the impersonation; remember, Iknew Trod very well. You know, I was his hostess, too. I met many ofthe people with whom he was associated, and they know me. Would thingslook more convincing if I appeared on the telecast with your man?"

  "It certainly would; it would be a great help!" he told herenthusiastically. "Maybe you girls ought to get up, now. The telecastisn't till 1930, but there's a lot to be done getting ready."

  Dalla yawned. "What I get, trying to be a cop,"