“In the permanent conveyer room,” Skordran Kirv said.  “You can look at them there; we didn’t want to bring them in here, for fear these poor devils would think we were going to chain them again.  They’re very light, very strong; some kind of alloy steel.  Files and power saws only polish them; it takes fifteen seconds to cut a link with an atomic torch.  One long chain, and short lengths, fifteen inches long, staggered, every three feet, with a single hinge-shackle for the ankle.  The shackles were riveted with soft wrought-iron rivets, evidently made with some sort of a power riveting-machine.  We cut them easily with a cold chisel.”

“They ought to be sent to Dhergabar Equivalent, Police Terminal, for study of material and workmanship.  Now, you mentioned some scheme you had for capturing this conveyer that brings in the slaves for Nebu-hin-Abenoz.  What have you in mind?”

“We still have Coru-hin-Irigod and all his gang, under hypno.  I’d thought of giving them hypnotic conditioning, and sending them back to Careba with orders to put out some kind of signal the next time Nebu-hin-Abenoz starts out on a buying trip.  We could have a couple of men posted in the hills overlooking Careba, and they could send a message-ball through to Police Terminal.  Then, a party could be sent with a mobile conveyer to ambush Nebu-hin-Abenoz on the way, and wipe out his party.  Our people could take their horses and clothing and go on to take the conveyer by surprise.”

“I’d suggest one change.  Instead of relying on visual signals by the hypno-conditioned Coru-hin-Irigod, send a couple of our men to Careba with midget radios.”

Skordran Kirv nodded.  “Sure.  We can condition Coru-hin-Irigod to accept them as friends and vouch for them at Careba.  Our boys can be traders and slave buyers.  Careba’s a market town; traders are always welcome.  They can have firearms to sell—­revolvers and repeating rifles.  Any Calera’ll buy any firearm that’s better than the one he’s carrying; they’ll always buy revolvers and repeaters.  We can get what we want from Commercial Four-Oh-Seven; we can get riding and pack horses here.”

Vall nodded.  “And the post overlooking or in radio range of Careba on this time line, and another on PolTerm.  For the ambush of Nebu-hin-Abenoz’s gang and the capture of the conveyer, use anything you want to—­sleep-gas, paralyzers, energy-weapons, antigrav-equipment, anything.  As far as regulations about using only equipment appropriate to local culture-levels, forget them entirely.  But take that conveyer intact.  You can locate the base time line from the settings of the instrument panel, and that’s what we want most of all.”

Dalla and the police psychist, having finished with and dismissed their subject, came over to the long table.

“...  That poor creature,” Dalla was saying.  “What sort of fiends are they?”

“If that made you sick, remember we’ve been listening to things like that for the last eight hours.  Some of the stories were even worse than that one.”