“And with this barbarian invasion going on on the Kholghoor Sector, slaves could be picked up cheaply,” Tortha Karf added.

In spite of her determination to boycott the conversation, curiosity began to get the better of her.  She had spent a year and a half on the Kholghoor Sector, investigating alleged psychic powers of the local priests.  There’d been nothing to it—­the prophecies weren’t precognition, they were shrewd inferences, and the miracles weren’t psychokinesis, they were sleight-of-hand.  She found herself asking: 

“What barbarian invasion’s this?”

“Oh, Central Asian nomadic people, the Croutha,” Tortha Karf told her.  “They came down through Khyber Pass about three months ago, turned east, and hit the headwaters of the Ganges.  Without punching a lot of buttons to find out exactly, I’d say they’re halfway to the delta country by now.  Leader seems to be a chieftain called Llamh Droogh the Red.  A lot of paratime trading companies are yelling for permits to introduce firearms in the Kholghoor Sector to protect their holdings there.”

She nodded.  The Fourth Level Kholghoor Sector belonged to what was known as Indus-Ganges-Irriwady Basic Sector-Grouping—­probability of civilization having developed late on the Indian subcontinent, with the rest of the world, including Europe, in Stone Age savagery or early Bronze Age barbarism.  The Kharandas, the people among whom she had once done field-research work, had developed a pre-mechanical, animal-power, handcraft, edge-weapon culture.  She could imagine the roads jammed with fugitives from the barbarian invaders, the conveyer hidden among the trees, the lurking slavers—­

Watch it, Dalla!  Don’t let the old scoundrel play on your feelings!

* * * * *

“Well, what do you want me to do, Chief?” Vall was asking.

“Well, I have to know just what this situation’s likely to develop into, and I want to know why Vulthor Tharn’s been sitting on this ever since Skordran Kirv reported it to him—­”

“I can answer the second one now,” Vall replied.  “Vulthor Tharn is due to retire in a few years.  He has a negatively good, undistinguished record.  He’s trying to play it safe.”

Tortha Karf nodded.  “That’s what I thought.  Look, Vall; suppose you and Dalla transpose from here to Police Terminal, and go to Novilan Equivalent, and give this a quick look-over and report to me, and then rocket to Zarabar Equivalent and go on with your trip to the Dwarma Sector.  It may delay you eight or ten hours, but—­”

“Closer twenty-four,” Vall said.  “I’d have to transpose to this plantation, on the Esaron Sector.  How about it, Dalla?  Would you want to do that?”

She hesitated for a moment, angry with him.  He didn’t want to refuse, and he was trying to make her do it for him.