And his report had crawled through channels for fourteen hours, Vall thought.

“Well, on my authority, and in the name of Chief Tortha, you message Ranthar Jard at once; send him every scrap of information you have on the subject, and forward additional information as it comes in to you.  I doubt he’ll find anything on any time-line that’s being exploited by any legitimate paratimers.  This gang probably work exclusively on unpenetrated time-lines; this business Skordran Kirv came across was a bad blunder on some underling’s part.”  He saw Dalla emerge from the control tower in breeches and boots and a white cloak, buckling on a heavy revolver.  “I’ll go change, now; you get busy calling Ranthar Jard.  I’ll see you when I get back.”

* * * * *

“Are you taking over, Chief’s Assistant?” Skordran Kirv asked, as the aircar lifted from the landing stage.

“Not at all.  My wife and I are starting on our vacation, as soon as I find out what’s been happening here, and report to Chief Tortha.  Did your native troopers catch those slavers?”

“Yes, they got them yesterday afternoon; we’ve had them ever since.  Do you want the whole thing just as it happened, Assistant Verkan, or just a condensation?”

“Give me what you think it indicates, remembering that you’re probably trying to analyze a large situation from a very small sample.”

“It’s big, all right,” Skordran Kirv said.  “This gang can’t number less than a hundred men, maybe several hundred.  They must have at least two two-hundred-foot conveyers and several small ones, and bases on what sounds like some Fifth Level Time line, and at least one air freighter of around five thousand tons.  They are operating on a number of Kholghoor and Esaron time lines.”

Verkan Vall nodded.  “I didn’t think it was any petty larceny,” he said.

“Wait till you hear the rest of it.  On the Kholghoor Sector, this gang is known as the Wizard Traders; we’ve been using that as a convenience label.  They pose as sorcerers—­black robes and hood-masks covered with luminous symbols, voice-amplifiers, cold-light auras, energy-weapons, mechanical magic tricks, that sort of thing.  They have all the Croutha scared witless.  Their procedure is to establish camps in the forest near recently conquered Kharanda cities; then they appear to the Croutha, impress them with their magical powers, and trade manufactured goods for Kharanda captives.  They mainly trade firearms, apparently some kind of flintlocks, and powder.”

Then they were confining their operations to unpenetrated time lines; there had been no reports of firearms in the hands of the Croutha invaders.