“I’ll be willing to bet that if we pick up some of these Wizard Traders, say, or a gang that’s selling slaves to some Nebu-hin-Abenoz personality on some other time line, and narco-hypnotize them, all they’ll be able to do will be name a few immediate associates, and the group leader will know that he’s contacted from time to time by some stranger with orders, and that he can make emergency contacts only through some blind accommodation-address.  The men who are running this are right on Home Time Line, many of them in positions of prominence, and if we can catch one of them and narco-hyp him, we can start a chain-reaction of disclosures all through this Slave Trust.”

“How are we going to get at these top men?” Tortha Karf wanted to know.  “Advertise for them on telecast?”

“They’ll leave traces; they won’t be able to avoid it.  I think, right now, that Salgath Trod is one of them.  I think there are other prominent politicians, and business people.  Look for irregularities and peculiarities in outtime currency-exchange transactions.  For instance, to sections in Esaron Sector obus.  Or big gold bullion transactions.”

“Yes.  And if they have any really elaborate outtime bases, they’ll need equipment that can only be gotten on Home Time Line,” Tortha Karf added.  “Paratemporal conveyer parts, and field-conductor mesh.  You can’t just walk into a hardware store and buy that sort of thing.”

Dalla leaned forward to drop her cigarette ash into a tray.

“Try looking into the Bureau of Psychological Hygiene,” she suggested.  “That’s where you’ll really strike it rich.”

Vall and Tortha Karf both turned abruptly and looked at her for an instant.

“Go on,” Tortha Karf encouraged.  “This sounds interesting.”

“The people back of this,” Dalla said, “are definitely classifiable as criminals.  They may never perform a criminal act themselves, but they give orders for and profit from such acts, and they must possess the motivation and psychology of criminals.  We define people as criminals when they suffer from psychological aberrations of an antisocial character, usually paranoid—­excessive egoism, disregard for the rights of others, inability to recognize the social necessity for mutual cooeperation and confidence.  On Home Time Line, we have universal psychological testing, for the purpose of detecting and eliminating such characteristics.”

“It seems to have failed in this case,” Tortha Karf began, then snapped his fingers.  “Of course!  How blasted silly can I get, when I’m not trying?”

“Yes, of course,” Verkan Vall agreed.  “Find out how these people missed being spotted by psychotesting; that’ll lead us to who missed being tested adequately, and also who got into the Bureau of Psychological Hygiene who didn’t belong there.”

“I think you ought to give an investigation of the whole BuPsychHyg setup very high priority,” Dalla said.  “A psychotest is only as good as the people who give it, and if we have criminals administering these tests—­”