“So long, jackal.”  Dalla called to him as he went out.

* * * * *

He spent the half-hour transposition to Police Terminal sleeping.  Paratime-transpositions and rocket-flights seemed to be his only chance to get any sleep.  He was still sleepy when he sat down in front of the radio telescreen behind his duplicate of Tortha Karf’s desk and put through a call to Nharkan Equivalent.  It was 0600 in India; the Sector Regional Deputy Subchief who was holding down Ranthar Jard’s desk looked equally sleepy; he had a mug of coffee in front of him, and a brown-paper cigarette in his mouth.

“Oh, hello, Assistant Verkan.  Want me to call Subchief Ranthar?”

“Is he sleeping?  Then for mercy’s sake don’t.  What’s the present status of the investigation?”

“Well, we were dropping boomerang balls yesterday, while we had sun to mask the return-flashes.  Nothing.  The Croutha have taken the city of Sohram, just below the big bend of the river.  Tomorrow, when we have sunlight, we’re going to start boomerang-balling the central square.  We may get something.”

“The Wizard Traders’ll be moving in near there, about now,” Vall said.  “The Croutha ought to have plenty of merchandise for them.  Have you gotten anything more done on narrowing down the possible area?”

The deputy bit back a yawn and reached for his coffee mug.

“The experts have just about pumped these slaves empty,” he said.  “The local religion is a mess.  Seems to have started out as a Great Mother cult; then it picked up a lot of gods borrowed from other peoples; then it turned into a dualistic monotheism; then it picked up a lot of minor gods and devils—­new devils usually gods of the older pantheon.  And we got a lot of gossip about the feudal wars and faction-fights among the nobility, and so on, all garbled, because these people are peasants who only knew what went on on the estate of their own lord.”

“What did go on there?” Vall asked.  “Ask them about recent improvements, new buildings, new fields cleared, new paddies flooded, that sort of thing.  And pick out a few of the highest IQ’s from both time lines, and have them locate this estate on a large-scale map, and draw plans showing the location of buildings, fields and other visible features.  If you have to, teach them mapping and sketching by hypno-mech.  And then drop about five hundred to a thousand boomerang balls, at regular intervals, over the whole paratemporal area.  When you locate a time line that gives you a picture to correspond to their description, boomerang the main square in Sohram over the whole belt around it, to find Croutha with firearms.”

The deputy looked at him for a moment then gulped more coffee.

“Can do, Assistant Verkan.  I think I’ll send somebody to wake up Subchief Ranthar, right now.  Want to talk to him.”

“Won’t be necessary.  You’re recording this call, of course?  Then play it back to him.  And get cracking with the slaves; you want enough information out of them to enable you to start boomerang balling as soon as the sun’s high enough.”