“Unless they’ve gotten the wind up and closed down all their operations,” Tortha Karf said.

“I doubt if they’ve done that, Chief,” Vall replied.  “We don’t know who these people are, of course, and it’s hard to judge their reactions, but they’re willing to take chances for big gains.  I believe they think they’re safe, now that they’ve closed out the compromised time line and killed the only witness against them.”

“Well, what’s Ranthar Jard doing?”

“Trying to locate the sub-sector and probability belt from what the slaves can tell him about their religious beliefs, about the local king, and the prince of Jhirda, and the noble families of the neighborhood,” Vall said.  “When he has it localized as closely as he can, he’s going to start pelting the whole paratemporal area with photographic auto-return balls dropped from aircars on Police Terminal over the spatial equivalents of a couple of Croutha-conquered cities.  As soon as he gets a photo that shows Croutha with firearms, he’ll have a Wizard Trader time line.”

“Sounds simple,” the Chief said.  The car landed, and he helped Dalla out.  “I suppose both you and he know how many chances against one he has of finding anything.”  They went over to an antigrav-shaft and floated down to the floor on which Tortha Karf had a duplicate of the office in the Paratime Building on Home Time Line.  “It’s the only chance we have, though.”

“There’s one thing that bothers me,” Dalla said, as they entered the office and went back behind the horseshoe-shaped desk.  “I understand that the news about this didn’t break on Home Time Line till the late morning of One-Six-One Day.  Nebu-hin-Abenoz was murdered at about 1700 local time, which would be 0100 this morning Dhergabar time.  That would give this gang fourteen hours to hear the news, transmit it to their base, and get these three men hypno-conditioned, disguised, transposed to this Esaron Sector time line, and into Careba.”  She shook her head.  “That’s pretty fast work.”

Tortha Karf looked sidewise at Verkan Vall.  “Your girl has the makings of a cop, Vall,” he commented.

“She’s been a big help, on Esaron and Kholghoor Sectors,” Vall said.  “She wants to stay with it and help me; I’ll be very glad to have her with me.”

Tortha Karf nodded.  He knew, too, that Dalla wouldn’t want to have to go back to Home Time Line and wait the long investigation out.

“Of course; we can use all the help we can get.  I think we can get a lot from Dalla.  Fix her up with some kind of a title and police status—­technical-expert, assistant, or something like that.”  He clasped hands, man-fashion, with her.  “Glad to have you on the cops with us, Dalla,” he said.  Then he turned to Vall.  “There was almost twenty-four hours between the time I heard about this and when this blasted Yandar Yadd got hold of the story.  Of all the infernal, irresponsible—­” He almost choked with indignation.  “And it was another fourteen hours between the time Skordran sent in his report and I heard about it.”