 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson. Police operation by H. B. Piper. Part 2 The rocket that was to take him to headquarters was being hoisted with a crane and lowered into the firing-stand, and he walked briskly toward it, his rifle and musette slung. A boyish-looking pilot was on the platform, opening the door of the rocket. He stood aside for a verken vault to enter, then followed and closed it, dogging it shut while his passenger stowed his bag and rifle, and strapped himself into a seat. Durgobar commercial terminal, sir, the pilot asked, taking the adjoining seat at the controls. Paratime police field, back of the Paratime administration building. Right, sir, twenty seconds to blast when you are ready. Ready now! Verken vault relaxed, counting seconds subconsciously. The rocket trembled, and Verken vault felt himself being pushed gently back against the upholstery. The seats and the pilot's instrument panel in front of them swung on gimbals, and the finger of the indicator swept slowly over a ninety-degree arc as the rocket rose and leveled. By then the high cirrus clouds Verken vault had watched from the field were far below. They were well into the stratosphere. There would be nothing to do now for the three hours in which the rocket sped northward across the pole and southward to Durgobar. The navigation was entirely in the electronic hands of robot controls. Verken vault got out his pipe and lit it. The pilot lit a cigarette. That's an odd pipe, sir, the pilot said. Out-time item? Yes, fourth probability level. Typical of the whole Paratime belt I was working in. Verken vault handed it over for inspection. The bowl's natural briar root, the stems of sort of plastic made from the sap of certain tropical trees. The little white dot is the maker's trademark. It's made of elephant tusk. Sounds pretty crude to me, sir. The pilot handed it back. Nice workmanship, though. Looks like good machine production. Yes, the sector I was on is really quite advanced for an electrochemical civilization. That weapon I brought back with me, that solid missile projector, is typical of most fourth-level culture. Moving parts machine to the closest tolerances, and interchangeable with similar parts of all similar weapons. The missile is a small bolt of cupro alloy coated lead, propelled by expanding gases from the ignition of some nitrocellulose compound. Most of their scientific advance occurred within the past century, and most of that in the past forty years. Of course, the life expectancy on that level is only about seventy years. Huh! I'm seventy-eight last birthday, the boys' looking pilot snorted. Their medical science must be mostly witchcraft. Until quite recently it was, Verken vault agreed. Same story there as in everything else. Rapid advancement in the past few decades, after thousands of years of cultural inertia. You know, sir, I don't really understand this paratime stuff," the pilot confessed. I know that all time is totally present, and that every moment has its own past-future line of event sequence. And that all events in space-time occur according to maximum probability. But I just don't get this alternate probability stuff at all. If something exists, it's because it's the maximum probability effect of prior causes. Why does anything else exist on any other timeline? Verken vault blew smoke at the air renovator. A lecture on paratime theory would nicely fill in the three-hour interval until the landing at Durgabar. At least this kid was asking intelligent questions. Well, you know the principle of time passage, I suppose, he began. Yes, of course. Rogam's doctrine. The basis of most of our psychical science. We exist perpetually at all moments within our lifespan. Our extra-physical ego component passes from the ego existing at one moment to the ego existing at the next. During unconsciousness, the EPC is time-free. It may detach and connect at some other moment with the ego existing at that time-point. That's how we precog. We take an auto-hypno and recover memories brought back from the future moment and buried in the subconscious mind. That's right, Verken vault told him. And even without the auto-hypno, a lot of precognitive matter leaks out of the subconscious and into the conscious mind, usually in distorted forms. Or else inspires instinctive acts, the motivation for which is not brought to the level of consciousness. For instance, suppose you're walking along North Promenade, in Durgabar, and you come to the Martian Palace Cafe. And you go in for a drink, and meet some girl, and strike up an acquaintance with her. This chance acquaintance develops into a love affair, and, a year later, out of jealousy, she raise you half a dozen times within either. Just about happened to a friend of mine not long ago, the pilot said. Go on, sir. Well, in the microsecond or so before you die, or afterward for that matter, because we know that the extra-physical component survives physical destruction, your EPC slips back a couple of years, and reconnects at some point, pastward, of your first meeting with this girl, and carries with it memories of everything up to the moment of detachment, all of which are indelibly recorded in your subconscious mind. So, when you re-experience the event of standing outside the Martian Palace with a thirst, you go on to the Starway, or Nurgals, or some other bar. In both cases, on both timelines, you followed the line of maximum probability. In the second case, your subconscious future memories are an added causal factor. And when I backslip after I've been needled, I generate a new timeline. Is that it? Verkan Vall made a small sound of impatience. No such thing, he exclaimed. It's semantically inadmissible to talk about the total presence of time with one breath, and about generating new timelines with the next. All timelines are totally present in perpetual coexistence. The theory is that the EPC passes from one moment on one timeline to the next moment on the next timeline, so that the true passage of the EPC from moment to moment is a two-dimensional diagonal. So, in the case we're using, the event of your going into the Martian Palace exists on one timeline, and the event of your passing along to the Starway exists on another, but both are events in real existence. Now, what we do in paratime transposition is to build up a hyper-temporal field to include the timeline we want to reach, and then shift over to it. Same point in the plenum, same point in primary time, plus primary time elapsed during mechanical and electronic lag in the relays, but a different line of secondary time. Then why don't we have past future time travel on our own timeline? the plight had wanted to know. That was a question every paratimer has to answer every time he talks paratime to the laity. Verkan Vahl had been expecting it. He answered patiently. The Galdron Hestor Field Generator is like every other mechanism. It can operate only in the area of primary time in which it exists. It can transpose to any other timeline and carry with it anything inside its field, but it can't go outside its own temporal area of existence. Any more than a bullet from that rifle can hit a target a week before it's fired, Verkan Vahl pointed out. Anything inside the field is supposed to be unaffected by anything outside. Supposed to be is the way to put it, it doesn't always work. Once in a while something pretty nasty gets picked up in transit. He thought briefly of the man in the black tunic. That's why we have armed guards at terminals. Suppose you'll pick up a blast from a nucleonic bomb, the pilot asked, or something red hot or radioactive. We have a monument at Paratime Police Headquarters in Durgabar bearing the names of our own personnel who didn't make it back. It's a large monument. Over the past ten thousand years it's been inscribed with quite a few names. You can have it. I'll stick to rockets, the pilot replied. Tell me another thing, though. What's all this about levels and sectors and belts? What's the difference? Purely arbitrary terms. There are five main probability levels derived from the five possible outcomes of the attempt to colonize this planet 75,000 years ago. We're on the first level, complete success, and colony fully established. The fifth level is the probability of complete failure. No human population established on this planet and indigenous quasi-human life evolved indigenously. On the fourth level the colonists evidently met with some disaster and lost all memory of their extraterrestrial origin as well as all extraterrestrial culture. As far as they know they are an indigenous race. They have a long prehistory of stone age savagery. Sectors are areas of Paratime on any level in which the prevalent culture has a common origin and common characteristics. They are divided more or less arbitrarily into sub-sectors. Belts are areas within sub-sectors where conditions are the result of recent alternate probabilities. For instance, I've just come from the Europo-American sector of the fourth level, an area of about 10,000 peri-years in depth, in which the dominant civilization developed on the northwest continent of the major landmass, and spread from there to the minor landmass. The line on which I was operating is also part of a sub-sector of about 3,000 peri-years depth and a belt developing from one of several probable outcomes of a war concluded about three elapsed years ago. On that timeline the field at the Hagriban Synthetics Works, where we took off, is part of an abandoned farm. On the side of Hagriban City is a little farming village. Those things are there, right now, both in primary time and in the plenum. They are about 250,000 peri-years perpendicular to each other, and each is of the same general order of reality. The red light overhead flashed on. The pilot looked into his visor and put his hands to the manual controls in case of failure of the robot controls. The rocket landed smoothly, however. It was a slight jar as it was grappled by the crane and hoisted upright, the seats turning in their gimbals. Pilot and passenger unstrapped themselves and hurried through the refrigerated outlet and away from the glowing hot rocket. An air taxi, emblazoned with the device of the paratime police, was waiting. Verkan Vahl said good-bye to the rocket pilot and took his seat beside the pilot of the air cab. The latter lifted his vehicle above the building level and then set it down on the landing stage of the paratime police building in a long side-swooping glide. An express elevator took Verkan Vahl down to one of the middle stages, where he showed his sigil to the guard outside the door of Tortha Karf's office and was admitted at once. The paratime police chief rose from behind his semicircular desk in an array of keyboards and viewing screens and communicators. He was a big man, well past his two hundredth year. His hair was iron gray and thinning in front. He had begun to grow thick at the waist. And his calm features bore the lines of middle age. He wore the dark green uniform of the paratime police. Well, Vahl, he greeted. Everything secure? Exactly, sir. Verkan Vahl came around the desk, deposited his rifle and bag on the floor and sat down in one of the spare chairs. I'll have to go back again. So his chief lit a cigarette and waited. I traced Gavron's sarn. Verkan Vahl got out his pipe and began to fill it. But that's only the beginning. I have to trace something else. Gavron's sarn exceeded his paratime permit and took one of his pets along. A Venusian nighthound. Torthakarff's expression did not alter. It merely grew more intense. He used one of the short, semantically ugly terms which serve in place of profanity as the emotional release of a race that has forgotten all the taboos and terminologies of super naturalistic religion and sex inhibition. You're sure of this, of course? It was less a question than a statement. Verkan Vahl bent and took cloth-wrapped objects from his bag, unwrapping them and laying them on the desk. They were casts in hard black plastic of the footprints of some large three-toed animal. What do these look like, sir? He asked. Torthakarff fingered them and nodded. Then he became as visibly angry as a man of his civilization and culture level ever permitted himself. What does that fool think we have a paratime code for, he demanded? It's entirely illegal to transpose any extraterrestrial animal or object to any timeline on which space travel is unknown. I don't care if he is a green seal, Thavrad. He'll face charges when he gets back for this. He was a green seal, Thavrad, Verkan Vahl corrected, and he won't be coming back. I hope you didn't have to deal summarily with him, Torthakarff said. With his title and social position and his family's political importance, that might make difficulties. Not that it wouldn't be all right with me, of course, but we never seem to be able to make either the management or the public realize the extremities to which we are forced at times. He sighed. We probably never shall. Verkan Vahl smiled faintly. Oh no, sir, nothing like that. He was dead before I transposed to that timeline. He was killed when he wrecked a self-propelled vehicle he was using, one of those fourth-level automobiles. I posed as a relative and tried to claim his body for the burial ceremony observed on that cultural level, but was told that it had been completely destroyed by fire when the fuel tank of his automobile burned. I was given certain of his effects which had passed through the fire. I found his sigil concealed inside what appeared to be a cigarette case. He took a green disk from the bag and laid it on the desk. There's no question, Gavran Sarn died in the wreck of that automobile. And the night hound. It was in the car with him, but it escaped. You know how fast those things are. I found that track, he indicated one of the black casts, in some dried mud near the scene of the wreck. As you see, the cast is slightly defective. The others were fresh this morning when I made them. And what have you done so far? I rented an old farm near the scene of the wreck and installed my field-generator there. It runs through to the Hagraban Synthetics Works, about a hundred miles east of Thalna Jarvazar. I have my this-line terminal in the girl's restroom at the Durable Plastics Factory. Handled that on a local police-power writ. Since then I've been hunting for the night hound. I think I can find it, but I'll need some special equipment and a hypnomech indoctrination. That's why I came back. Has it been attracting any attention? Torthacarf asked anxiously. Killing cattle in the locality, causing considerable excitement. Fortunately it's a locality of forested mountains and valley farms, rather than a built-up industrial district. Local police and wild game-protection officers are concerned. All the farmers excited and going armed. The theory is that it's either a wildcat of some sort, or a maniac armed with a cutlass. Either theory would conform, more or less, to the nature of its depredations. Nobody has actually seen it. That's good! Torthacarf was relieved. Well, you'll have to go and bring it out, or kill it and obliterate the body. You know why as well as I do. Certainly, sir, Verkanvall replied. In a primitive culture, things like this would be assigned supernatural explanations, and embedded in the locally accepted religion. But this culture, while nominally religious, is highly rationalistic in practice. Typical lag effect, characteristic of all expanding cultures. And this Europo-American sector really has an expanding culture. A hundred and fifty years ago the inhabitants of this particular timeline didn't even know how to apply steam power. Now they've begun to release nuclear energy in a few crude forms. Torthacarf whistled softly. That's quite a jump. There's a sector that'll be in for trouble in the next few centuries. That is, realized locally, sir. Verkanvall concentrated on relighting his pipe for a moment, then continued. I would predict space travel on that sector within the next century. Maybe the next half-century, at least to the moon. And the art of taxidermy is very highly developed. Now, suppose some farmer shoots that thing. What would he do with it, sir? Torthacarf grunted. Nice logic, Vol. On a most uncomfortable possibility. He'd have it mounted, and it'd be put in a museum somewhere. And as soon as the first spaceship reaches Venus, and they find those things in a wild state, they'll have the mounted specimen identified. Exactly. And then, instead of beating their brains about where their specimen came from, they'll begin asking when it came from. They're quite capable of such reasoning, even now. A hundred years isn't a particularly long time, Torthacarf considered. I'll be retired then, but you'll have my job, and it'll be your headache. You'd better get this cleaned up now while it can be handled. What are you going to do? I'm not sure now, sir. I want a hypnomech indoctrination first. Verkanvall gestured toward the communicator on the desk. May I, he asked. Certainly, Torthacarf stood the instrument across the desk. Anything you want. Thank you, sir. Verkanvall snapped on the code index, found the symbol he wanted, and then punched it on the keyboard. Special Chief's assistant, Verkanvall, he identified himself. Speaking from the office of Torthacarf, Chief I want a complete hypnomech on Venusian nighthounds, emphasis on wild state. Special emphasis domesticated nighthounds reverted to wild state in terrestrial surroundings. Extra special emphasis hunting techniques applicable to same. The word nighthound will do for trigger symbol. He turned to Torthacarf. Can I take it here? Torthacarf nodded, pointing to a row of booths along the far wall of the office. Make setup for wire transmission. I'll take it here. Very well, sir, in fifteen minutes. A voice replied out of the communicator. Verkanvall slid the communicator back. By the way, sir, I had a hitchhiker on the way back. Carried him about a hundred or so para-years. Picked him up about three hundred para-years after leaving my other-line terminal. Nasty-looking fellow in a black uniform. Look like one of those private army stormtroopers you find all through that sector. Armed and hostile. I thought I'd have to ray him, but he blundered outside the field almost at once. I have a record if you'd care to see it. Yes, put it on. Torthacarf gestured toward the Solitograph projector. It's set for miniature reproduction here on the desk. That'll be all right? Verkanvall nodded, getting out the film and loading it into the projector. When he pressed a button, a dome of radiance appeared on the desktop, two feet in width and a foot in height. In the middle of this appeared a small Solitograph image of the interior of the conveyor, showing the desk and the control board and the figure of Verkanvall seated at it. The little figure of the stormtrooper appeared, pistol in hand. The little Verkanvall snatched up his tiny needler. The stormtrooper moved into one side of the dome and vanished. Verkanvall flipped a switch and cut out the image. Yes, I don't know what causes that, but it happens now and then, Torthacarf said, usually at the beginning of a transposition. I remember when I was just a kid, about a hundred and fifty years ago, a hundred and thirty-nine, to be exact. I picked up a fellow on the fourth level, just about where you're operating, and dragged him a couple of hundred peri-years. I went back to find him and return him to his own timeline, but before I could locate him he'd been arrested by the local authorities as a suspicious character and got himself shot trying to escape. I felt badly about that, but Torthacarf shrugged. Anything else happen on the trip? I ran through a belt of intermittent nucleonic bombing on the second level. Verkanvall mentioned an approximate paratime location. Ugh, that kiften civilization. By courtesy so called, Torthacarf pulled a rye face. I suppose the intra-family enmities on the Vodka dynasty have reached critical mass again. They'll fool around till they blast themselves back to the Stone Age. Intellectually they're about there now. I had to operate in that sector once. Yes, another thing, this rifle. Verkanvall picked it up, emptied the magazine, and handed it to his superior. The supply's office slipped up on this. It's not appropriate to my line of operation. It's a lovely rifle, but it's about two hundred percent in advance of existing arms design on my line. It excited the curiosity of a couple of police officers and a game protector who should be familiar with the weapons of their own timeline. I evaded by disclaiming ownership or intimate knowledge and they seemed satisfied, but it worried me. Yes, that was made in our duplicating shops here in Durgabar. Torthacarf carried it to a photographic bench behind his desk. I'll have it checked while you're taking your hypnomech. Want to exchange it for something authentic? Why, no, sir. It's been identified to me, and I'd excite less suspicion with it than I would if I abandoned it and mysteriously acquired another rifle. I just wanted to check and supplies warned to be more careful in the future. Torthacarf nodded approvingly. The young Maverad of Naros was thinking as a paratimer should. What's the designation of your line again? Verkanvall told him. It was a short numerical term of six places, but it expressed a number of the order of ten to the fortieth power, exact to the last digit. Torthacarf repeated it into his steno-memograph with explanatory comment. There seems to be quite a few things going wrong in that area, he said. Let's see now. He punched the designation on a keyboard. Instantly it appeared on a translucent screen in front of him. He punched another combination and at the top of the screen under the number there appeared, events past elapsed five years. He punched again below this line appeared the subheading. Events involving paratime transposition. Another code combination added a third line. Attracting public notice among inhabitants. He pressed the start button. The headings vanished to be replaced by page after page of print, succeeding one another on the screen as the two men read. They told strange and apparently disconnected stories of unexplained fires and explosions, of people vanishing without trace, of unaccountable disasters to aircraft. There were many stories of an epidemic of mysterious, disk-shaped objects seen in the sky singly or in numbers. To each account was appended one or more reference numbers. Sometimes Torthacarf or Verkanvall would punch one of these and read on an adjoining screen the explanatory material referred to. Finally Torthacarf leaned back and lit a fresh cigarette. Yes, indeed, Val. Very definitely we will have to take action in the matter of the runaway night-hound of the late Gavron Sarn, he said. I'd forgotten that that was the timeline onto which the Ardrath expedition launched those anti-grav disks. If this extraterrestrial monstrosity turns up on the heels of that flying saucer business, everybody above the order of intelligence of a Cretan will suspect some connection. What really happened in the Ardrath matter, Verkanvall inquired. I was on the third level on that Louverian Empire operation at the time. That's right, you missed that. Well, it was one of these joint operation things. The Paratime Commission and the Space Patrol were experimenting with a new technique for throwing a spaceship into Paratime. They used the cruiser Ardrath, Calzar and Jan commanding. Went into space about half way to the moon and took up orbit, keeping on the sunlit side of the planet to avoid being observed. That was all right, but then Captain Calzar ordered away a flight of anti-grav disks, fully manned to take pictures, and finally authorized a landing in the western mountain range, northern continent minor landmass. That's when the trouble started. He flipped the run-back switch till he had recovered the page he wanted. Verkanvall read of a fourth-level aviator in his little air-screw drive craft, citing nine high-flying saucer-like objects. That was how it began, Torthacarf told him. Before long, as other incidents of the same sort occurred, our people on that line began sending back to know what was going on. Naturally, from the different descriptions of these saucers, they recognized the objects as anti-grav landing disks from a spaceship. So I went to the commission and raised atomic blazes about it, and the Ardrath was ordered to confine operations to the lower areas of the fifth level. Then our people on that timeline went to work with corrective action. Here. He wiped the screen and then began punching combinations. Page after page appeared, bearing accounts of people who had claimed to have seen the mysterious disks, and each report was more fantastic than the last. The standard smother-out technique, Verkanvall grinned. I only heard a little talk about the flying saucers, and all of that was in a joke. In that order of culture you can always discredit one true story by setting up ten others, palpably false, parallel to it. Wasn't that the timeline the Tharmax Trading Corporation almost lost their paratime license on? That's right, it was. They bought up all the cigarettes, and caused some spiky with shortage, after fourth-level cigarettes had been introduced on this line and had become popular. They should have spread their purchases over a number of lines, and kept them within the local supply-demand frame. And they also got into trouble with the local government for selling un-rassioned petrol and automobile tires. We had to send in a special operations group, and they came closer to having to engage in out-time local politics than I care to think of. Torthekarf quoted a line from a currently popular song about the sorrows of a policeman's life. We're jugglers of all, trying to keep our traders and sociological observers and tourists and plain idiots like the late Gavran Tsar not of trouble. Trying to prevent panics and disturbances and dislocations of local economy as a result of our operations. Trying to keep out of out-time politics. And at all times, at all costs and hazards, by all means, guarding the secret of paratime transposition. Sometimes I wish Galdran Karth and Hester Grom had strangled in their cradles. No chief, he said. You don't mean that. Not really, he said. We've been paratiming for the past ten thousand years. When the Galdran Historic Trans-Temporal Field was discovered, our ancestors had pretty well exhausted the resources of this planet. We had a world population of half a billion, and it was all they could do to keep alive. After we began paratime transposition, our population climbed to ten billion, and there it stayed for the last eight thousand years. Just enough of us to enjoy our planet and the other planets of our system to the fullest. Enough of everything for everybody that nobody needs to fight anybody for anything. We've tapped the resources of those other worlds on other timelines, a little here, a little there, and not enough to really hurt anybody. We've left our mark in a few places. The Dakota Badlands and the Gobi on the fourth level, for instance, but we've done no great damage to any of them. Except the time they blew up half the Southern Island continent over about five hundred peri-years on the third level, Torthacarf mentioned. Regrettable accident, to be sure, Birkenvall conceded. And look how much we've learned from the experiences of those other timelines. During the crisis, after the fourth interplanetary war, we might have adopted Palnar Sarn's Dictatorship of the Chosen Scheme. If we hadn't seen what an exactly similar scheme had done on the Jack-Hakka civilization on the second level, when Palnar Sarn was told about that, he went into paratime to see for himself, and when he returned, he renounced his proposal in horror. Torthacarf nodded. He wouldn't be making any mistake in turning his post over to the Maverad of Narros on his retirement. Yes, Val, I know, he said. But when you've been at this desk as long as I have, you'll have a sour moment or two now and then too. A blue light flashed over one of the booths across the room. Birkenvall got to his feet, removing his coat and hanging it on the back of his chair, and crossed the room, rolling up his left shirt sleeve. There was a relaxer chair in the booth, with a blue plastic helmet above it. He glanced at the indicator screen to make sure he was getting the indoctrination he called for, and then sat down in the chair and lowered the helmet over his head, inserting the earplugs and fasting the chin strap. Then he touched his left arm with an injector which was lying on the arm of the chair, and at the same time flipped the starter switch. Soft, slow music began to chant out of the earphones. The insidious fingers of the drug blocked off his senses one by one. The music diminished, and the words of the hypnotic formula lulled him to sleep. He woke, hearing the lively strains of dance music. For a while he lay relaxed. Then he snapped off the switch, took out the earplugs, removed the helmet, and rose to his feet. Deep in his subconscious mind was the entire body of knowledge about the Venusian Nighthound. He mentally pronounced the word, and at once it began flooding into his conscious mind. He knew the animal's evolutionary history, its anatomy, its characteristics, its dietary and reproductive habits, how it hunted, how it fought its enemies, how it eluded pursuit, and how best it could be tracked down and killed. He nodded. Already a plan for dealing with Gavron's sarn's renegade pet was taking shape in his mind. He picked up a plastic cup from the dispenser, filled it from a cooler tap with amber-colored spiced wine and drink, tossing the cup into the disposal bin. He placed a fresh injector on the chair, ready for the next user of the booth. Then he emerged, glancing at his fourth-level wristwatch and mentally translating to the first-level timescale. Three hours had passed. There had been more to learn about his quarry than he had expected. Torthacarf was sitting behind his desk, smoking a cigarette. It seemed as though he had not moved since Verkanvall had left him, though the special agent knew that he had dined, attended several conferences, and done many other things. I checked up on your hitchhiker, Val, the chief said. We won't bother about him. He's a member of something called the Christian Avengers, one of those typical Europo-American race and religious hate groups. He belongs in a belt that is the outcome of the Hitler victory of 1940, whatever that was. Something unpleasant, I dare say. We don't owe him anything. People of that sort should be stepped on, like cockroaches. And he won't make any more trouble on the line where you dropped him than they have there already. It's in a belt of complete social and political anarchy. Somebody probably shot him as soon as he emerged because he wasn't wearing the right sort of uniform. 1940 what, by the way? He elapsed years since the birth of some religious leader, Verkanvall explained. And did you find out about my rifle? Oh yes. It's reproduction of something that's called a Sharps Model 37-235 Electric Speed Express. Made on an adjoining paratime belt by a company that went out of business sixty-seven years ago, elapsed time, on your line of operation. What made the difference was the second war between the states. I don't know what that was either. I'm not too well up on fourth level history. But whatever, your line of operation didn't have it. Probably just as well for them, though they very lightly had something else, as bad or worse. I put in a complaint to supplies about it, and you got some more ammunition and reloading tools. Now, tell me what you're going to do about this nighthound business. Torthacarf was silent for a while after Verkanvall had finished. You're taking some awful chances, Val, he said at length. The way you plan doing it, the advantages will all be with the nighthound. Those things can see as well at night as you can in daylight. I suppose you know that, though. You're the nighthound specialist now. Yes, but they're accustomed to Venus hotland marshes. It's been dry weather for the last two weeks, all over the northeastern section of the northern continent. I'll be able to hear it, long before it gets close to me. And I'll be wearing an electric headlamp. When I snap that on, it'll be dazzled for a moment. Well, as I said, you're the nighthound specialist. There's the communicator. Order anything you need. He lit a fresh cigarette from the end of the old one before crushing it out. But be careful, Val. It took me close to 40 years to make a paratimer out of you. I don't want to have to repeat the process with somebody else before I can retire. End of Police Operation Part 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson. Police Operation by H. B. Piper. Part 3 The grass was wet as Verkan Vall, who reminded himself that here, he was called Richard Lee, crossed the yard from the farmhouse to the ramshackle barn in the early autumn darkness. It had been raining that morning when the strato rocket from Durgabar had landed him at the Hegraban Synthetic Works on the first level. Unaffected by the probabilities of human history, the same rain had been coming down on the old Kinchwalter Farm, near Rutter's Fort, on the fourth level. And it had persisted all day in a slow, deliberate drizzle. He didn't like that. The woods would be wet, muffling his quarry's footsteps, and canceling his only advantage over the night-prower he hunted. He had no idea, however, of postponing the hunt. If anything, the rain had made it all the more imperative that the night-hound be killed at once. At this season a falling temperature would speedily follow. The night-hound, a creature of the hot Venus Marshes, would suffer from the cold, and, taught by years of domestication to find warmth among human habitations, it would invade some isolated farmhouse, or worse, one of the little valley villages. If it were not killed to-night, the incident he had come to prevent would certainly occur. Going to the barn he spread an old horse-blanket on the seat of the jeep, laid his rifle on it, and then backed the jeep outside. Then he took off his coat, removing his pipe and tobacco from the pockets, and spread it on the wet grass. He unwrapped a package and took out a small plastic spray-gun he had brought with him from the first level, aiming it at the coat and pressing the trigger until it blew itself empty. The thickening rancid fetter tainted the air, the scent of the giant poison-roach of Venus, the one creature for which the night-hound bore an inborn, implacable hatred. It was because of this compulsive urge to attack and kill the deadly poison-roach that the first human settlers on Venus, long millennia ago, had domesticated the ugly and savage night-hound. He remembered that the Gavron family derived their title from their vast Venus hot-lands estates. That Gavron Sarn, the man who had brought this thing to the fourth level, had been born on the inner planet. When Verkanvall donned that coat, he would become his own living bait for the murderous fury of the creature he sought. At that moment, mastering his queasiness and putting on the coat, he objected less to that danger than to the hideous stench of the scent. To obtain which, a valuable specimen had been sacrificed at the Durgobar Museum of Extraterrestrial Zoology the evening before. Carrying the wrapper and the spray-gun to an outside fireplace, he snapped his lighter to them and tossed them in. They were highly inflammable, blazing up and vanishing in a moment. He tested the electric headlamp on the front of his cap, checked his rifle, drew the heavy revolver, an authentic product of his line of operation, and flipped the cylinder out and in again. Then he got into the jeep and drove away. For half an hour he drove quickly along the valley roads. Now and then he passed farmhouses and dogs, puzzled and angered by the alien scent his coat bore, barked furiously. At length he turned into a back road and from this to the barely discernable trace of an old log road. The rain had stopped and in order to be ready to fire in any direction at any time he had removed the top of the jeep. Now he had to crouch below the windshield to avoid overhanging branches. Once three deer, a buck and two does, stopped in front of him and stared for a moment, then bounded away in a flutter of white tails. He was driving slowly now, laying behind him a reeking trail of scent. There had been another stock-killing the night before while he had been on the first level. The locality of the latest depredation had confirmed his estimate of the beast's probable movements and indicated where it might be prowling tonight. He was certain that it was somewhere near. Sooner or later it would pick up the scent. Finally he stopped snapping out his lights. He had chosen this spot carefully while studying the geological survey map that afternoon. He was on the grade of an old railroad line, now abandoned and its track long removed, which had served the logging operations of fifty years ago. On one side the mountain slanted sharply upward. On the other it fell away sharply. If the night-hound were below him it would have to climb that forty-five degree slope and could not avoid dislodging loose stones or otherwise making a noise. He would get out on that side. If the night-hound were above him the jeep would protect him when it charged. He got to the ground, thumbing off the safety of his rifle. And an instant later he knew that he had made a mistake which could easily cost him his life. A mistake from which neither his comprehensive logic nor his hypnotically acquired knowledge of the beast's habits had saved him. As he stepped to the ground facing toward the front of the jeep he heard a low, whining cry behind him and a rush of padded feet. He whirled, snapping on the headlamp with his left hand and thrusting out his rifle pistol-wise in his right. For a split second he saw the charging animal, its long, lizard-like head split in a toothy grin, its talon-tipped forepaws extended. He fired and the bullet went wild. The next instant the rifle was knocked from his hand. Instinctively he flung up his left arm to shield his eyes. Claws raked his left arm and shoulder. Something struck him heavily along the left side and his caplight went out as he dropped and rolled under the jeep, drawing in his legs and fumbling under his coat for the revolver. In that instant he knew what had gone wrong. His plan had been entirely too much of a success. The Nighthound had winded him as he had driven up the old railroad grade and had followed. Its best-running speed had been just good enough to keep it a hundred or so feet behind the jeep, and the motor-noise had covered the padding of its feet. In the few moments between stopping the little car and getting out, the Nighthound had been able to close the distance and spring upon him. It was characteristic of first-level mentality that Verkanvall wasted no moments on self-reproach or panic. While he was still rolling under his jeep, his mind had been busy with plans to retrieve the situation. Something touched the heel of one boot and he froze his leg into immobility, at the same time trying to get the big smith and wesson free. The shoulder holster he found was badly torn, though made of the heaviest skirting leather, and the spring which retained the weapon in place had been wrenched and bent until he needed both hands to draw. The eight-inch slashing claw of the Nighthound's right intermediary limb had raked him. Only the instinctive motion of throwing up his arm and the fact that he wore the revolver in a shoulder holster had saved his life. The Nighthound was prowling around the jeep, whining frantically. It was badly confused. It could see quite well, even in the close darkness of the night. Its eyes were of a nature capable of perceiving infrared radiations as light. There were plenty of these. The jeep's engine, lately running on four-wheel drive, was quite hot. Had he been standing alone, especially on this raw, chilly night, Verkan Vall's own body heat would have lighted him up like a jack-o'-lantern. Now, however, the hot engine above him masked his own radiations. Moreover, the poison-roach scent on his coat was coming up through the floorboard and mingling with the scent on the seat. Yet the Nighthound couldn't find the two-and-a-half-foot insect-like thing that should have been producing it. Verkan Vall lay motionless, wondering how long the next move would be in coming. Then he heard a thud above him, followed by a furious tearing as the Nighthound ripped the blanket and began rending at the seat cushion. Hope it gets a paw full of seat-springs, Verkan Vall commented mentally. He had already found a stone about the size of his two fists, and another slightly smaller, and had put one in each of the side pockets of the coat. Now he slipped his revolver into his waist-belt and writhed out of the coat, shedding the ruined shoulder holster at the same time. Wiggling on the flat of his back, he squirmed between the rear wheels until he was able to sit up behind the Jeep. Then, swinging the weighted coat, he flung it forward over the Nighthound and the Jeep itself at the same time drawing his revolver. Immediately the Nighthound, lured by the sudden movement of the principal source of the scent, jumped out of the Jeep and bounded after the coat, and there was considerable noise in the brush on the lower side of the railroad grade. At once, Verkan Vall swarmed into the Jeep and snapped on the lights. His stratagem had succeeded beautifully. The stinking coat had landed on the top of a small bush about ten feet in front of the Jeep and ten feet from the ground. The Nighthound, erect on its haunches, was reaching out with its front paws to drag it down and slashing angrily at it with its single-clawed intermediary limbs. Its back was to Verkan Vall. His sights clearly defined by the lights in front of him the Peritimer centered them on the base of the creature's spine, just above its secondary shoulders, and carefully squeezed the trigger. The big 357 magnum bucked in his hand and belched flame and sound, if only these fourth-level weapons weren't so confoundedly boisterous, and the Nighthound screamed and fell. Re-cocking the revolver, Verkan Vall waited for an instant, then nodded in satisfaction. The beast's spine had been smashed, and its hindquarters and even its intermediary fighting limbs had been paralyzed. He aimed carefully for a second shot and fired into the base of the thing's skull. It quivered and died. Getting a flashlight, he found his rifle, sticking muzzle down in the mud a little behind and to the right of the Jeep, and swore briefly in the local fourth-level idiom. For Verkan Vall was a man who loved good weapons, be they the Sigma Ray needlers, neutron disruption blasters, or the solid missile projectors of the lower levels. By this time he was feeling considerable pain from the claw wounds he had received. He peeled off his shirt and tossed it over the hood of the Jeep. Torthakarff had advised him to carry a needler, or a blaster, or a Neurostat gun, but Verkan Vall had been unwilling to take such arms onto the fourth level. In event of mishap to himself it would be all too easy for such a weapon to fall into the hands of someone able to deduce from it scientific principles too far in advance for the general fourth-level culture. But there had been one first-level item which he had permitted himself. Mainly because, suitably packaged, it was not readily identified as such. Digging a respectable fourth-level leatherette case from under the seat, he opened it and took out a pint bottle with a red poison label and a towel. Saturating the towel with the contents of the bottle, he rubbed every inch of his torso with it, so as not to miss even the smallest break made in his skin by the septic claws of the nighthound. Whenever the lotion-soaked towel touched raw skin, a pain like the burn of a hot iron shot through him. Before he was through, he was in agony. Satisfied that he had disinfected every wound, he dropped the towel and clung weakly to the side of the jeep. He grunted out a string of English oaths and capped them with an obscene Spanish blasphemy he had picked up among the fourth-level inhabitants of his island home of Narrows to the south and a wandering curse in the name of Maga, Fire-God of Duel, in a third-level tongue. He even mentioned Fasif, Great-God of Kift, in a matter which would have gotten him an acid bath if the Kifton priest had heard him. He alluded to the baroque amatory practices of the third-level Ilyala people and soothed himself in the classic Dar-Helma tongue with one of those rambling genealogical insults favored in the Indo-Terranian sector of the fourth-level. By this time the pain had subsided to an overall smarting itch. He'd have to bear with that until his work was finished and he could enjoy a hot bath. He got another bottle out of the first aid-kit, a flat pint labeled Old Overhold, containing a locally manufactured specific for inward and subjective wounds, and medicated himself copiously from it, corking it and slipping it into his hip pocket against future need. He gathered up the ruined shoulder-holster and threw it under the back seat. He put on his shirt. Then he went and dragged the dead knight-hound onto the grade by its stumpy tail. It was an ugly thing, weighing close to two hundred pounds, with powerfully muscled hind legs which furnished the bulk of its motive power and sturdy three-clawed front legs. Its secondary limbs, about a third of the way back from its front shoulders, were long and slender. Normally they were carried folded closely against the body, and each was armed with a single curving claw. The revolver bullet had gone in at the base of the skull and emerged under the jaw. The head was relatively undamaged. Verkan Vahl was glad of that. He wanted that head for the trophy-room of his home on Narrows. Grunting and straining, he got the thing into the back of the jeep, and flung his almost shredded tweed coat over it. A last look around assured him that he'd left nothing visible or suspicious. The brush was broken where the knight-hound had been tearing at the coat. A bear might have done that. There were splashes of the viscid stuff the thing had used for blood, but they wouldn't be there long. Terrestrial rodents liked knight-hound blood, and the woods were full of mice. He climbed in under the wheel, backed, turned, and drove away. Inside the paratime transposition dome Verkan Vahl turned from the body of the knight-hound, which he had just dragged in, and considered the inert form of another animal, a stump-tailed, tough-eared, tawny Canada lynx. That particular animal had already made two paratime transpositions. Captured in the vast wildlands of fifth level North America, it had been taken to the first level and placed in the Urgobar Zoological Gardens. And then, requisitioned on authority of Torthacarf, it had been brought to the fourth level by Verkan Vahl. It was almost at the end of all its travels. Verkan Vahl prodded the supine animal with a toe of his boot. It twitched slightly. Its feet were cross-bound with straps, but when he saw that the narcotic was wearing off, Verkan Vahl snatched a syringe, parted the fur at the base of its neck, and gave it an injection. After a moment he picked it up in his arms and carried it out to the jeep. All right, pussycat, he said, placing it under the rear seat. This is a one-way ride. The way you're doped up, it won't hurt a bit. He went back and rummaged in the debris of the long-deserted barn. He picked up a hoe and discarded it as too light. An old plowshare was too unhandy. He considered a great bar from a heating furnace, and then he found the poleaxe, lying among a pile of worm-eaten boards. Its handle had been shortened at some time to about twelve inches, converting it into a heavy hatchet. He weighed it and tried it on a block of wood. And then, making sure that the secret door was closed, he went out again and drove off. An hour later he returned. Opening the secret door he carried the ruined shoulder holster and the straps that had bound the bobcat's feet and the axe, now splotched with blood and tawny cat-hairs into the dome. Then he closed the secret room and took a long drink from the bottle on his hip. The job was done. He would take a hot bath and sleep in the farmhouse till noon. And then he would return to the first level. Maybe Torthacarf would want him to come back here for a while. The situation on this timeline was far from satisfactory, even if the crisis threatened by Gavran Sarn's renegade pet had been averted. The presence of a chief's assistant might be desirable. At least he had a right to expect a short vacation. He thought of the little redhead at the Hagraband Synthetics Works. What was her name? Something Kara. Morvan Kara, that was it. She'd be coming off shift about the time he'd make first level to-morrow afternoon. The claw-wounds were still smarting vexatiously. A hot bath and a night's sleep. He took another drink, lit his pipe, picked up his rifle and started across the yard to the house. Private Zinkowski cradled the telephone and got up from the desk, stretching. He left the orderly room and walked across the hall to the recreation room, where the rest of the boys were loafing. Sergeant Haynes, in a languid gin-rummy game with Corporal Connor, a sheriff's deputy, and a mechanic from the service station down the road, looked up. Well, Sarge, I think we can write off those stock killings, the Private said. Yeah, the sergeant's interest quickened. Yeah, I think the Wattsettes had it. I just got a buzz from the railroad cops at Logan's Port. It seems a track-walker found a dead bobcat on the Logan River Ranch, about a mile or so below MMY Signal Tower. Looks like it tangled with that night-fraid-up river and came off second best. It was near chop to hamburger. MMY Signal Tower. That's right below Yoder's Crossing, the sergeant considered. The Strawmire Farm, night before last. The Amrine Farm last night. Yeah, that would be about right. That'll suit Steve Parker. Bobcats aren't protected, so it's not his trouble. And they're not a violation of state law, so it's none of our worry, Connor said. Your deal, isn't it, Sarge? Yeah. Wait a minute. The sergeant got to his feet. I promised Sam Kane, the AP man at Logan's Port, that I'd let him in on anything new. He got up and started for the phone. Phantom killer. He blew an impolite noise. Well, it was just a lot of excitement while it lasted, the Deputy Sheriff said. Just like that flying saucer thing. The end of police operation by H. Beam Piper, read by Mark Nelson. This recording is in the public domain.