Time Crime Page 7

others.

  Vall made a point of the fact that Dalla was his wife, in case any ofthe cops began to get ideas, and mentioned that she spoke Kharanda,had spent some time on the Fourth Level Kholghoor, and was a qualifiedpsychist.

  "What have you got, so far?" he asked.

  "Two different time lines, and two different gangs of WizardTraders," Phrakor Vuln said. "We've established the latter fromphysical descriptions and because both batches were sold by theCroutha at equivalent periods of elapsed time."

  Vall picked up one of the kidnap-story cards and glanced at it.

  "I notice there's a fair verbal description of these firearms, andmention of electric whips," he said. "I'm curious about where theycame from."

  "Well, this is how we reconstructed them, Chief's Assistant," one ofthe girls said, handing him a couple of sheets of white drawing paper.

  The sketches had been done with soft pencil; they bore repeatederasures and corrections. That of the whip showed a cylindricalhandle, indicated as twelve inches in length and one in diameter,fitted with a thumb-switch.

  "That's definitely Second Level Khiftan," Vall said, handing it back."Made of braided copper or silver wire and powered with a littlenuclear-conversion battery in the grip. They heat up to about twohundred centigrade; produce really painful burns."

  "Why, that's beastly!" Dalla exclaimed.

  "Anything on the Khiftan Sector is." Skordran Kirv looked at the fourslaves at the tables. "We don't have a really bad case here, now. Afew of these people were lash-burned horribly, though."

  Vall was looking at the other sketches. One was a musket, with a widebutt and a band-fastened stock; the lock-mechanism, vaguely flintlock,had been dotted in tentatively. The other was a long pistol, similarlydefinite in outline and vague in mechanical detail; it was merely aknob-butted miniature of the musket.

  "I've seen firearms like these; have a lot of them in my collection,"he said, handing back the sketches. "Low-order mechanical orhigh-order pre-mechanical cultures. Fact is, things like those couldhave been made on the Kholghoor Sector, if the Kharandas had learnedto combine sulfur, carbon and nitrates to make powder."

  The interrogator at one of the tables had evidently heard all hissubject could tell him. He rose, motioning the slave to stand.

  "Now, go with that man," he said in Kharanda, motioning to one of thedetectives in native guard uniform. "You will trust him; he is yourfriend and will not harm you. When you have left this room, you willforget everything that has happened here, except that you were kindlytreated and that you were given wine to drink and your hurts wereanointed. You will tell the others that we are their friends and thatthey have nothing to fear from us. And you will not try to remove themark from the back of your left hand."

  As the detective led the slave out a door at the other side of theroom, the psychist came over to the long table, handing over a cardand lighting a cigarette.

  "Suicide story," he said to one of the girls, who took the card.

  "Anything new?"

  "Some minor details about the sale to the Caleras on this time line. Ithink we've about scraped bottom."

  "You can't say that," Phrakor Vuln objected. "The very last one maygive us something nobody else had noticed."

  Another subject was sent out. The interrogator came over to the table.

  "One of the kidnap-story crowd," he said. "This one was right besidethat Croutha who took the shot at the wild pig or whatever it was onthe way to the Wizard Traders' camp. Best description of the gunswe've gotten so far. No question that they're flintlocks." He sawVerkan Vall. "Oh, hello, Assistant Verkan. What do you make of them?You're an authority on outtime weapons, I understand."

  "I'd have to see them. These people simply don't think mechanicallyenough to give a good description. A lot of peoples make flintlockfirearms."

  He started running over, in his mind, the paratemporal areas in whichgunpowder but not the percussion-cap was known. Expanding cultures,which had progressed as far as the former but not the latter. Staticcultures, in which an accidental discovery of gunpowder had never beenfollowed up by further research. Post-debacle cultures, in which a fewstray bits of ancient knowledge had survived.

  Another interrogator came over, and then the fourth. For a while theysat and talked and drank coffee, and then the next quartet of slaves,two men and two women, were brought in. One of the women had beenbadly blistered by the electric whips of the Wizard Traders; in spiteof reassurances, all were visibly apprehensive.

  "We will not harm you," one of the psychists told them. "Here; here ismedicine for your hurts. At first, it will sting, as good medicineswill, but soon it will take away all pain. And here is wine for you todrink."

  A couple of detectives approached, making a great show of pouring wineand applying ointment; under cover of the medication, they jabbed eachslave with a hypodermic needle, and then guided them to seats at thefour tables. Vall and Dalla went over and stood behind one of thepsychists, who had a small flashlight in his hand.

  "Now, rest for a while," the psychist was saying. "Rest and let thegood medicine do its work. You are tired and sleepy. Look at thismagic light, which brings comfort to the troubled. Look at the light.Look ... at ... the ... light."

  They moved to the next table.

  "Did you have hand in the fighting?"

  "No, lord. We were peasant folk, not fighting people. We had noweapons, nor weapon-skill. Those who fought were all killed; we heldup empty hands, and were spared to be captives of the Croutha."

  "What happened to your master, the Lord Ghromdour, and to his lady?"

  "One of the Croutha threw a hatchet and killed our master, and thenhis lady drew a dagger and killed herself."

  The psychist made a red mark on the card in front of him, and circledthe number on the back of the slave's hand with red indelible crayon.Vall and Dalla went to the third table.

  "They had the common weapons of the Croutha, lord, and they also hadthe weapons of the Wizard Traders. Of these, they carried the longweapons slung across their backs, and the short weapons thrust throughtheir belts."

  A blue mark on the card; a blue circle on the back of the slave'shand.

  They listened to both versions of what had happened at the sack of theLord Ghromdour's estate, and the march into the captured city ofJhirda, and the second march into the forest to the camp of the WizardTraders.

  "The servants of the Wizard Traders did not appear until after theCroutha had gone away; they wore different garb. They wore shortjackets, and trousers, and short boots, and they carried small weaponson their belts--"

  "They had whips of great cruelty that burned like fire; we were alllashed with these whips, as you may see, lord--"

  "The Croutha had bound us two and two, with neck-yokes; these theservants of the Wizard Traders took off from us, and they chained ustogether by tens, with the chains we still wore when we came to thisplace--"

  "They killed my child, my little Zhouzha!" the woman with the horriblyblistered back was wailing. "They tore her out of my arms, and one ofthe servants of the Wizard Traders--may Khokhaat devour his soulforever!--dashed out her brains. And when I struggled to save her. Iwas thrown on the ground, and beaten with the fire-whips until Ifainted. Then I was dragged into the forest, along with the others whowere chained with me." She buried her head in her arms, sobbingbitterly.

  Dalla stepped forward, taking the flashlight from the interrogatorwith one hand and lifting the woman's head with the other. She flashedthe light quickly in the woman's eyes.

  "You will grieve no more for your child," she said. "Already, you areforgetting what happened at the Wizard Traders' camp, and rememberingonly that your child is safe from harm. Soon you will remember heronly as a dream of the child you hope to have, some day." She flashedthe light again, then handed it back to the psychist. "Now, tell uswhat happened when you were taken into the forest; what did you seethere?"

  The psychist nodded approvingly, made a note on the card, andlistened while the woman
spoke. She had stopped sobbing, now, and hervoice was clear and cheerful.

  Vall went over to the long table.

  "Those slaves were still chained with the Wizard Traders' chains whenthey were delivered here. Where are the chains?" he asked SkordranKirv.

  "In the permanent conveyer room," Skordran Kirv said. "You can look atthem there; we didn't want to bring them in here, for fear these poordevils would think we were going to chain them again. They're verylight, very strong; some kind of alloy steel. Files and power sawsonly polish them; it takes fifteen seconds to cut a link with anatomic torch. One long chain, and short lengths, fifteen inches