“I know, it’s a confounded imposition, Dalla,” Tortha Karf told her.  “But it’s important that I get a prompt and full estimate of the situation.  This may be something very serious.  If it’s an isolated incident, it can be handled in a routine manner, but I’m afraid it’s not.  It has all the marks of a large-scale operation, and if this is a matter of mass kidnapings from one sector and transpositions to another, you can see what a threat this is to the Paratime Secret.”

“Moral considerations entirely aside,” Vall said.  “We don’t need to discuss them; they’re too obvious.”

She nodded.  For over twelve millennia, the people of her race and Vall’s and Tortha Karf’s had been existing as parasites on all the innumerable other worlds of alternate probability on the lateral dimension of time.  Smart parasites never injure their hosts, and try never to reveal their existence.

“We could do that, couldn’t we, Vall?” she asked, angry at herself now for giving in.  “And if you want to question these slaves, I speak Kharanda, and I know how they think.  And I’m a qualified and licensed narco-hypnotic technician.”

“Well, that’s splendid, Dalla!” Tortha Karf enthused.  “Wait a moment; I’ll message Police Terminal to have a rocket ready for you.”

“I’ll need a hypno-mech for Kharanda, myself,” Vall said.  “Dalla, do you know Acalan?” When she shook her head, he turned back to Tortha Karf.  “Look; it’s about a four-hour rocket hop to Novilan Equivalent.  Say we have the hypno-mech machines installed in the rocket; Dalla and I can take our language lessons on the way, and be ready to go to work as soon as we land.”

“Good idea,” Tortha Karf approved.  “I’ll order that done, right away.  Now—­”

Oddly enough, she wasn’t feeling so angry, now that she had committed herself and Vall.  Come to think of it, she had never been on Police Terminal Time Line; very few people, outside the Paratime Police, ever had.  And, she had always wanted to learn more about Vall’s work, and participate in it with him.  And if she’d made him refuse, it would have been something ugly between them all the time they would be on the Dwarma Sector.  But this way—­

* * * * *

The big circular conveyer room was crowded, as it had been every minute of every day for the past ten thousand years.  At the great circular desk in the center, departing or returning police officers were checking in or out with the flat-topped cylindrical robot clerks, or talking to human attendants.  Some were in the regulation green uniform; others, like himself, were in civilian clothes; more were in outtime costumes from all over paratime.  Fringed robes and cloth-of-gold sashes and conical caps from the Second Level Khiftan Sector; Fourth Level Proto-Aryan mail and helmets; the short tunics and kilts of Fourth Level Alexandrian-Roman Sector; the Zarkantha loincloth and felt cap and daggers; there were priestly vestments stiff with gold, and military uniforms; there were trousers and jackboots and bare legs; blasters, and swords, and pistols, and bows and quivers, and spears.  And the place was loud with a babel of voices and the clatter of teleprinters.