* * * * *

He broke off the connection and sent out for coffee for himself.  Then he put through a call to Novilan Equivalent, in western North America.

It was 1530, there, when he got Vulthor Tharn on the screen.

“Good afternoon.  Assistant Verkan.  I suppose you’re calling about the slave business.  I’ve turned the entire matter over to Field Agent Skordran; gave him a temporary rank of Deputy Subchief.  That’s subject to your approval and Chief Tortha’s, of course—­”

“Make the appointment permanent,” Vall said.  “I’ll have a confirmation along from Chief Tortha directly.  And let me talk to him now, if you please.  Subchief Vulthor.”

“Yes, sir.  Switching you over now.”  The screen went into a beautiful burst of abstract art, and cleared, after a while, with Skordran Kirv looking out of it.

“Hello, Deputy Skordran, and congratulations.  What’s come up since we had Nebu-hin-Abenoz cut out from under us?”

“We went in on that time line, that same night, with an airboat and made a recon in the hills back of Careba.  Scared the fear of Safar into a party of Caleras while we were working at low altitude, by the way.  We found the conveyer-head site:  hundred-foot circle with all the grass and loose dirt transposed off it and a pole pen, very unsanitary where about two-three hundred slaves would be kept at a time.  No indications of use in the last ten days.  We did some pretty thorough boomeranging on that spatial equivalent over a couple of thousand time lines and found thirty more of them.  I believe the slavers have closed out the whole Esaron Sector operation, at least temporarily.”

That was what he’d been afraid of; he hoped they wouldn’t do the same thing on the Kholghoor Sector.

“Let me have the designations of the time lines on which you found conveyer heads,” he said.

“Just a moment, Chief’s Assistant; I’ll photoprint them to you.  Set for reception?”

Vall opened a slide under the screen and saw that the photoprint film was in place, then closed it again, nodding.  Skordran Kirv fed a sheet of paper into his screen cabinet and his arm moved forward out of the picture.

“On, sir,” he said.  He and Vall counted ten seconds together, and then Skordran Kirv said:  “Through to you.”  Vall pressed a lever under his screen, and a rectangle of microcopy print popped out.

“That’s about all I have, sir.  Want me to keep my troops ready here, or shall I send them somewhere else?”

“Keep them ready, Kirv,” Vall told him.  “You may need them before long.  Call you later.”