TIME PRIME (10 page)

Dalla, who had withdrawn from the discussion and was on a couch at the side of the room, surrounded by reports and abstracts and summaries, looked up. “I took hours and hours of hypno-mech on Kholghoor Sector religions before I went out on that wild-goose chase for psychokinesis and precognition data,” she said. “About six or eight hundred years ago, there were religious wars and heresies and religious schisms all over the Kharanda country. No matter how uniform the Kholghoor Sector may be otherwise, there are dozens and dozens of small belts and sub-sectors of different religions or sects or god-cults.”

“That’s right,” Ranthar Jard agreed, brightening. “We have hagiologists who know all that stuff; we’ll have a couple of them interrogate those slaves. I don’t know how much they can get out of them—lot of peasants, won’t be up on the theological niceties—but a synthesis of what we get from the lot of them—”

“That’s an idea,” Vall agreed. “About the first idea we’ve had here—Oh, how about politics, too? Check on who’s the king, what the stories about the royal family are, that sort of thing.”

Ranthar Jard looked at the map on the wall. “The Croutha have only gotten halfway to Nharkan, here. Say we transpose detectives in at night on some of these time-lines we think are promising, and checkup at the tax-collection offices on a big landowner north of Jhirda named Ghromdour? That might get us something.”

“Well, I don’t want you to think we’re trying to get out of work, Chief ’s Assistant,” one of the deputies said, “but is there any real necessity for our trying to locate the Wizard Trader time-lines? If you can get them from the Esaron Sector, it’ll be the same, won’t it?”

“Marv, in this business you never depend on just one lead,” Ranthar Jard told him. “And besides, when Skordran Kirv’s gang hits the base of operations in North America, there’s no guarantee that they may not have time to send off a radio warning to the crowd at the base here in India. We have to hit both places at once.”

“Well, that, too,” Vall said. “But the main thing is to get these Wizard Trader camps on the Kholghoor Sector cleaned out. How are you fixed for men and equipment for a big raid, Jard?”

Ranthar Jard shrugged. “I can get about five hundred men with conveyers, including a couple of two-hundred-footers to carry airboats,” he said.

“Not enough. Skordran Kirv has one complete armored brigade, one airborne infantry brigade and an air cavalry regiment with Ghaldron-Hesthor equipment for a simultaneous transposition,” Vall said.

“Where in blazes did he get them all?” Ranthar Jard demanded.

“They’re guard troops from Service Sector and Industrial Sector. We’ll get you the same sort of a force. I only hope we don’t have another Prole insurrection while they’re away—”

“Well, don’t think I’m trying to argue policy with you,” Ranthar Jard said, “but that could raise a dreadful stink on Home Time Line. Especially on top of this news-break about the slave trade.”

“We’ll have to take a chance on that,” Vall said. “If you’re worried about what the book says, forget it. We’re throwing the book away on this operation. Do you realize that this thing is a threat to the whole Paratime Civilization?”

“Of course I do,” Ranthar Jard said. “I know the doctrine of Paratime Security as well as you or anybody else. The question is, does the public realize it?”

A buzzer sounded. Ranthar Jard pressed a switch on the intercom-box in front of him and said: “Ranthar here. Well?”

“Visiphone call, top urgency, just came in for Chief ’s Assistant Verkan, from Novilan Equivalent. Where can I put it through, sir?”

“Here; booth seven.” Ranthar Jard pointed across the room, nodding to Vall. “In just a moment.”

Gathon Dard and Antrath Alv—temporary local aliases, Ganadara and Atarazola—sat relaxed in their saddles, swaying to the motion of their horses. They wore the rust-brown hooded cloaks of the northern Jeseru people, in sober contrast to the red and yellow and blue striped robes and sunbonnets of the Caleras in whose company they rode. They carried short repeating carbines in saddle scabbards, with heavy revolvers and long knives on their belts, and each led six heavilyladen packhorses.

Coru-hin-Irigod, riding beside Ganadara, pointed up the trail ahead.

“From up there,” he said, speaking in Acalan, the lingua franca of the North American West Coast on that sector, “we can see across the valley to Careba. It will be an hour, as we ride, with the packhorses. Then we will rest, drink wine and feast.”

Ganadara nodded. “It was the guidance of our gods—and yours, Coru-hin- Irigod—that we met. Such slaves as you sold at the outlanders’ plantation would bring a fine price in the North. The men are strong and have the look of good field-workers; the women are comely and well-formed. Though I fear that my wife would little relish it did I bring home such handmaidens.”

Coru-hin-Irigod laughed. “For your wife, I will give you one of our riding whips.” He leaned to the side, slashing at a cactus with his quirt. “We in Careba have no trouble with our wives, about handmaidens or anything else.”

“By Safar, if you doubt your welcome at Careba, wait till you show your wares,” another Calera said. “Rifles and revolvers like those come to our country seldom, and then old and battered, sold or stolen many times before we see them. Rifles that fire seven times without taking butt from shoulder!” He invoked the name of the Great Lord Safar again.

The trail widened and leveled; they all came up abreast with the packhorses strung out behind, and sat looking across the valley to the adobe walls of the town that perched on the opposite ridge. After a while, riders began dismounting and checking and tightening saddle-girths; a couple of Caleras helped Ganadara and Atarazola inspect their pack-horses. When they remounted, Atarazola bowed his head, lifting his left sleeve to cover his mouth, and muttered into it at some length. The Caleras looked at him curiously, and Coru-hin-Irigod inquired of Ganadara what he did.

“He prays,” Ganadara said. “He thanks our gods that we have lived to see your town, and asks that we be spared to bring many more trains of rifles and ammunition up this trail.”

The slaver nodded understandingly. The Caleras were a pious people, too, who believed in keeping on friendly terms with the gods.

“May Safar’s hand work with the hands of your gods for it,” he said, making what, to a non-Calera, would have been an extremely ribald sign.

“The gods watch over us,” Atarazola said, lifting his head. “They are near us even now; they have spoken words of comfort in my ear.”

Ganadara nodded. The gods to whom his partner prayed were a couple of Paratime Policemen, crouching over a radio a mile or so down the ridge.

“My brother,” he told Coru-hin-Irigod, “is much favored by our gods. Many people come to him to pray for them.”

“Yes. So you told me, now that I think on it.” That detail had been included in the pseudo-memories he had been given under hypnosis.

“I serve Safar, as do all Caleras, but I have heard that the Jeserus’ gods are good gods, dealing honestly with their servants.”

An hour later, under the walls of the town, Coru-hin-Irigod drew one of his pistols and fired all four barrels in rapid succession into the air, shouting, “Open! Open for Coru-hin-Irigod, and for the Jeseru traders, Ganadara and Atarazola, who are with him!”

A head, black-bearded and sunbonneted, appeared between the brick merlons of the wall above the gate, shouted down a welcome, and then turned away to bawl orders. The gate slid aside, and, after the caravan had passed through, naked slaves pushed the massive thing shut again.

Although they were familiar with the interior of the town, from photographs taken with boomerang-balls—automatic-return transposition spheres like messageballs— they looked around curiously. The central square was thronged—Caleras in striped robes, people from the south and east in baggy trousers and embroidered shirts, mountaineers in deerskins. A slave market was in progress, and some hundred- odd items of human merchandise were assembled in little groups, guarded by their owners and inspected by prospective buyers. They seemed to be all natives of that geographic and paratemporal area.

“Don’t even look at those,” Coru-hin-Irigod advised. “They are but culls; the market is almost over. We’ll go to the house of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, where all the considerable men gather, and you will find those who will be able to trade slaves worthy of the goods you have with you. Meanwhile, let my people take your horses and packs to my house; you shall be my guests while you stay in Careba.”

It was perfectly safe to trust Coru-hin-Irigod. He was a murderer and a brigand and a slaver, but he would never incur the scorn of men and the curse of the gods by dealing foully with a guest. The horses and packs were led away by his retainers; Ganadara and Atarazola pushed their horses after his and Faru-hin-Obaran’s through the crowd.

The house of Nebu-hin-Abenoz, like every other building in Careba, was flat-roofed, adobe-walled and window-less except for narrow rifle-slits. The wide double-gate stood open, and five or six heavily armed Caleras lounged just inside. They greeted Coru and Faru by name, and the strangers by their assumed nationality. The four rode through, into what appeared to be the stables, turning their horses over to slaves, who took them away. There were between fifty and sixty other horses in the place.

Divesting themselves of their weapons in an anteroom at the head of a flight of steps, they passed under an arch and into a wide, shady patio, where thirty or forty men stood about or squatted on piles of cushions, smoking cheroots, drinking from silver cups, talking in a continuous babel. Most of them were in Calera dress, though there were men of other communities and nations in other garb. As they moved across the patio, Gathon Dard caught snatches of conversations about deals in slaves and horse trades, about bandit raids and blood feuds, about women and horses and weapons.

An old man with a white beard and an unusually clean robe came over to intercept them. “Ha, lord of my daughter, you’re back at last. We had begun to fear for you,” he said.

“Nothing to fear, father of my wife,” Coru-hin-Irigod replied. “We sold the slaves for a good price and tarried the night feasting in good company. Such good company that we brought some of it with us—Atarazola and Ganadara, men of the Jeseru; Cavu-hin-Avoran, whose daughter mothered my sons.”

He took his father-in-law by the sleeve and pulled him aside, motioning Gathon Dard and Antrath Alv to follow.

“They brought weapons; they want outland slaves of the sort I took to sell in the Big Valley country,” he whispered. “The weapons are repeating rifles from across the ocean, and six-shot revolvers. They also have much ammunition.”

“Oh, Safar bless you!” the white-beard cried, his eyes brightening. “Name your own price; satisfy yourselves that we have dealt fairly with you; go, and return often again! Come, lord of my daughter; let us make them known to Nebu-hin- Abenoz. But not a word about the kind of weapons you have, strangers, until we can speak privately. Say only that you have rifles to trade.”

Gathon Dard nodded. Evidently there was some sort of power struggle going on in Careba; Coru-hin-Irigod and his wife’s father were of the party of Nebu-hin- Abenoz, and wanted the repeaters and six-shooters for themselves.

Nebu-hin-Abenoz, swarthy, hook-nosed, with a square-cut graying beard, lounged in a low chair across the patio; near him four or five other Caleras sat or squatted or reclined, all smoking the rank black tobacco of the country and drinking wine or brandy. Their conversation ceased as Cavu-hin-Avoran and the others approached. The chief of Careba listened to the introduction, then heaved himself to his feet and clapped the newcomers on the shoulders.

“Good, good!” he said. “We know you Jeseru people; you’re honest traders. You come this far into our mountains too seldom. We can trade with you. We need weapons. As for the sort of slaves you want, we have none too many now, but in eight days we will have plenty. If you stay with us that long—”

“Careba is a pleasant place to be,” Ganadara said. “We can wait.”

“What sort of weapons have you?” the chief asked.

“Pistols and rifles, lord of my father’s sister,” Coru-hin-Irigod answered for them. “The packs have been taken to my house, where our friends will stay. We can bring a few to show you, the hour after evening prayers.”

Nebu-hin-Abenoz shot a keen glance at his brother-in-law’s son and nodded. “Or, better, I will come to your house then; thus I can see the whole load. How will that be?”

“Better; I will be there, too,” Cavu-hin-Avoran said, then turned to Gathon Dard and Antrath Alv. “You have been long on the road; come, let us drink cool wine, and then we will eat,” he said. “Until this evening, Nebu-hin-Abenoz.”

He led his son-in-law and the traders to one side, where several kegs stood on trestles with cups and flagons beside them. They filled a flagon, took a cup apiece, and went over to a pile of cushions at one side.

As they did, three men came pushing through the crowd toward Nebu-hin- Abenoz’s seat. They wore a costume unfamiliar to Gathon Dard—little round caps with red and green streamers behind, and long, wide-sleeved white gowns—and one of them had gold rings in his ears.