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Salgath Trod made a noise of angry disgust.
"That's ridiculous! I suppose these Kharandas will be given what is
deludedly known as memory obliteration, and a set of pseudo-memories;
how long do you think that would last? About three ten-days. There
is no such thing as memory obliteration; there's memory-suppression,
and pseudo-memory overlay. You can't get behind that with any quickie
narco-hypnosis in the back room of any police post, I'll admit that," he said.
"But a skilled psychist can discover, inside of five minutes, when a
narco-hypnotized subject is carrying a load of false memories, and in time,
and not too much time, all that top layer of false memories and blockages can
be peeled off. And then where would we be?"
"Now wait a minute, Councilman. This isn't just something I dreamed up," the
visitor said. "This was de
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cided upon at the top. At the very top."
"I don't care whose idea it was," Salgath Trod snapped. "The whole thing is
idiotic, and I won't have anything to do with it."
The visitor's face froze. All the respect vanished from his manner and tone;
his voice was like ice cakes grating together in a winter river.
"Look, Salgath; this is an Organization order," he said. "You don't refuse to
obey Organization orders, and you don't quit the Organization. Now get smart,
big boy; do what you're told to." He took a spool of record tape from his
pocket and laid it on the desk. "Outline for your speech; put it in your own
words, but follow it exactly." He stood watching Salgath Trod for a moment. "I
won't bother telling you what'll happen to you if you don't," he added. "You
can figure that out for yourself."
With that, he turned and went out the private door. For a while, Salgath Trod
sat staring after him. Once
he put his hand out toward the spool, then jerked it back as though the thing
were radioactive. Once he looked at the clock; it was just 1600.
The green aircar settled onto the landing stage; Verkan Vall, on the front
seat beside the driver, opened the door.
"Want me to call for you later, Assistant Verkan?" the driver asked.
"No thank you, Drenth. My wife and I are going to a dinner-party, and we'll
probably go night-clubbing afterward. Tomorrow morning, all the
anti-Management commentators will be yakking about my carousing around
when I ought to be battling the Slave Trust. No use advertising myself with an
official car, and giving them a chance to add, 'at public expense.'"
"Well, have some fun while you can," the driver advised, reaching for the
car-radio phone. "Want me to check you in here, sir?"
"Yes, if you will. Thank you. Drenth."
Kandagro, his human servant, admitted him to the apartment six floors down.
"Mistress Dalla is dressing," he said. "She asked me to tell you that you are
invited to dinner, this evening, with Thalvan Dras at his apartment."
Vall nodded. "Ill talk to her about it now," he said. "Lay out my dress
uniform: short jacket, boots and breeches, and needler."
"Yes, master: I'll go lay out your things and get your bath ready."
The servant turned and went into the alcove which gave access to the dressing
rooms, turning right into
Vall's. Vall followed him, turning left into his wife's.
"Oh, Dalla!" he called.
"In here!" her voice came out of her bathroom.
He passed through the dressing room, to find her stretched on a
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plastic-sheeted couch, while her maid, Rendarra, was rubbing her body vig
[Pg 53]
orously with some pungent-smelling stuff about the consistency of
machine-grease. Her face was masked in the stuff, and her hair was covered
with an elastic cap. He had always suspected that beauty was the real feminine
religion, from the willingness of its devotees to submit to martyrdom for it.
She wiggled a hand at him in greeting.
"How did it go?" she asked.
"So-so. I organized myself a sort of miniature police force within a police
force and I have liaison officers in every organization down to Sector
Regional so that I can be informed promptly in case anything new turns up
anywhere. What's been happening on Home Time Line? I picked up a
news-summary at
Paratime Police Headquarters; it seems that a lot more stuff has leaked out.
Kholghoor Sector, Wizard
Traders and all. How'd it happen?"
Dalla rolled over to allow Rendarra to rub the blue-green grease on her back.
"Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs let a gang of reporters in, today. I think
they're afraid somebody will accuse them of complicity, and they want to get
their side of it before the public. All our crowd are off that Time line
except a couple of detectives at the plantation."
"I know." He smiled; Dalla was thinking of the Paratime Police as "our crowd"
now. "How about this dinner at Dras' place?"
"Oh, that was easy." She shifted position again. "I just called Dras up and
told him that our vacation was off, and he invited us before I could begin
hinting. What are you going to wear?"
"Short-jacket greens; I can carry a needler with that uniform, even wear it at
the table. I don't think it's smart for me to run around unarmed, even on Home
Time Line. Especially on Home Time Line," he amended. "When's this affair
going to start, and how long will Rendarra take to get that goo off you?"
Salgath Trod left his aircar at the top landing stage of his apartment
building and sent it away to the hangars under robot control; he glanced
about him as he went toward the antigrav shaft. There were a dozen vehicles in
the air above; any of them might have followed him from the Paratime Building.
He had no doubt that he had been under constant surveillance from the moment
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