“Why, if this has been going on for ten years, there must have been millions upon millions of people dragged from their own time lines into slavery!” Dalla said in a shocked voice.

“Ten years may not be all of it,” Vall said.  “This Nebu-hin-Abenoz looks like the only tangible lead we have, at present.  How does he operate?”

“About once every ten days, he’ll take ten or fifteen men and go a day’s ride—­that may be as much as fifty miles; these Caleras have good horses and they’re hard riders—­into the hills.  He’ll take a big bag of money, all gold.  After dark, when he has made camp, a couple of strangers in Calera dress will come in.  He’ll go off with them, and after about an hour, he’ll come back with eight or ten of these strangers and a couple of hundred slaves, always chained in batches of ten.  Nebu-hin-Abenoz pays for them, makes arrangements for the next meeting, and the next morning he and his party start marching the slaves to Careba.  I might add that, until now, these slaves have been sold to the mines east of Careba; these are the first that have gotten into the coastal country.”

“That’s why this hasn’t come to light before, then.  The conveyer comes in every ten days, at about the same place?”

“Yes.  I’ve been thinking of a way we might trap them,” Skordran Kirv said.  “I’ll need more men, and equipment.”

“Order them from Regional or General Reserve.”  Vall told him.  “This thing’s going to have overtop priority till it’s cleared up.”

He was mentally cursing Vulthor Tharn’s procedure-bound timidity as the conveyer flickered and solidified around them and the overhead red light turned green.

* * * * *

They emerged into the interior of a long shed, adobe-walled and thatch-roofed, with small barred windows set high above the earth floor.  It was cool and shadowy, and the air was heavy with the fragrance of citrus fruits.  There were bins along the walls, some partly full of oranges, and piles of wicker baskets.  Another conveyer dome stood beside the one in which they had arrived; two men in white cloaks and riding boots sat on the edge of one of the bins, smoking and talking.

Skordran Kirv introduced them—­Gathon Dard and Krador Arv, special detectives—­and asked if anything new had come up.  Krador Arv shook his head.

“We still have about forty to go,” he said.  “Nothing new in their stories; still the same two time lines.”

[Illustration:]

“These people,” Skordran Kirv explained, “were all peons on the estate of a Kharanda noble just above the big bend of the Ganges.  The Croutha hit their master’s estate about a ten-days ago, elapsed time.  In telling about their capture, most of them say that their master’s wife killed herself with a dagger after the Croutha killed her husband, but about one out of ten say that she was kidnaped by the Croutha.  Two different time lines, of course.  The ones who tell the suicide story saw no firearms among the Croutha; the ones who tell the kidnap story say that they all had some kind of muskets and pistols.  We’re making synthetic summaries of the two stories.”