Paratime Police Chief Verkan Vail watched while the trees and scrub brush of Fourth Level flickered through the wavering silver sheen of the Ghaldron-Hesthor transposition-field, as the transtemporal conveyer carried him toward Fourth Level Aryan-Transpacific, Kalvan Time-Line. The civilized Second and Third Levels were behind him now. Once in a while Verkan caught flickering glimpses of Fourth Level-buildings, airports, occasionally a raging battle. Fourth Level was the high-probability level of all the inhabited Paratime Levels. There the First Colony had come to complete disaster fifty thousand years ago, losing all knowledge of its origins. It was the most barbaric level, as well as the largest. Its cultures ranged from idol worshippers on Indo-Turanian to the nuclear priesthood on some time-lines in the Europo-American, Hispano-Columbian Subsector.
The conveyer was now entering the low-level probability Fifth Level, where nature not man was triumphant. The only humans were Service and Industrial Sectors proles and their First Level overseers who labored there to keep heavy and light industry off First Level, Home Time-Line. On Fifth Level only the mountains remained constant. Occasionally, a large beast could be made out, while several times large pools of water, appeared and disappeared. There was always a bit of variability between time-lines, sometimes nothing more than trees growing in different spots, other times bodies of water flowing in otherwhen deserts.
The Service Sector Proles were not indigenous to the Fifth Level, but were brought from time-lines of near savagery, which they voluntarily left for a better life. The Paratime Transpositional Code limited the colonization of Service Sector time-lines to natives below second-order barbarism. The Serv-Sec Proles were the ones who did most of the administrative and record keeping for Home Time-Line. The proles who were dumped in the Fifth Level, Industrial Sectors, where the machines and robots of First Level were manufactured, were at the bottom rung of the Service Sector. Here were the survivors of Paratime screw-ups, when policy or criminal mistakes had made it necessary to transplant entire tribes and sometimes nations to protect them from their hostile neighbors, or to protect the Paratime secret. No matter-it seemed-how diligently the undermanned and overworked Paratime Police worked, there were always new bodies to fill another industrial time-line on Fifth Level.
Few, on First Level, realized the majority of these uncountable timelines had never been visited by Home Timeliners, even after twelve thousand years of parasitism upon Second, Third, and Fourth level time-lines. First Level Para-topographers had described less than one tenth of one percent of all the 'known' time-lines. In actuality it was an impossible job and most current Paratime theorists did not believe they would ever completely map this near infinity of diverging time-lines.
In theory the transposition field was impenetrable; however when two craft going in the opposite direction interpenetrated, other objects and life forms could and did pass through. It was why unscheduled trips like Verkan's were limited to the highest echelon of the Paratime Police. It was also Paratime Policy to have a weapon drawn just in case the hitchhiker was dangerous, or a threat to the Paratime secret. Most human pickups were killed immediately and disposed of back at the conveyer head. Only a few escaped, and even fewer flourished in their new 'homes.'
His friend Kalvan, who ruled an unruly kingdom on Fourth Level Aryan Transpacific, was the exception. There, Great King Kalvan, formerly Corporal Calvin Morrison of the Pennsylvania State Police, had accidentally boarded a conveyer in Europo-American, Hispano-Columbian as a Paratemporal hitchhiker, and was bumped off on Aryan-Transpacific,
Styphon's House Subsector. This was an even ruder and deadlier culture than Pennsylvania, ruled by a mafia of priests who worshipped a god named Styphon. Styphon's theocracy only held their power because they held the secret of how to make "fireseed"-or gunpowder.
Kalvan not only survived, he had prospered. In less than a year, he'd married a princess, founded an empire, broken Styphon's House's monopoly of gunpowder and more than held his own against the worst that band of priestly tyrants could throw against him. Styphon's House had met him with the unholy Holy Host, the largest army ever assembled on that backward time-line, and he had destroyed it.
Kalvan's intervention into local politics had created a new time-line. In many ways Kalvan's Time-Line was unique. It was the first time in First Level history when Paratime observers had been present at the start of a new subsector, identified from the exact point of divarication. The Paratimers had been close before, the President John F. Kennedy assassination, only a few years earlier, had been the critical event in the formation of the Europo-American, Kennedy Subsector. The Kennedy assassination, while newsworthy, had not been considered a divarication event until months later. The Kalvan split had been discovered as it happened: Verkan Vail himself had been on-hand, when the very conveyer that former Pennsylvania State Trooper Calvin Morrison had stumbled onto and exited on Aryan Transpacific, had arrived at the Fifth Level conveyer-head rotunda.
Because of growing instability between the two competing nuclear-powered sovereignties, the Kennedy Subsector was far too dangerous to risk intensive study and monitoring. Kalvan's Time-Line, on the other hand, was technologically backward so there was little danger to outtimers. The Dhergabar University had sent out a Kalvan Study Team to survey Kalvan Prime, as they called it, and other teams to study as many of the nearby Styphon's House Subsector 'control' time-lines as possible.
True, there were some-mostly do-gooders and professors who'd never traveled outtime-who still believed it was Home Time-Line's duty to colonize these barren time-lines, even here on Fifth Level. Or worse, that it was their duty to spread the 'benefits' of First Level civilization and Psycho Hygiene. Worlds without number, thought Verkan, only a politician or do-gooder would think they could be tamed in even ten thousand lifetimes.
Finally the conveyer came to rest outside a white marble villa. Solid mesh appeared overhead, out of the iridescence, and Verkan holstered his sigma-ray needier. He opened the door and saw two lovely prole girls, draped in white togas, tending flowers in the garden. So much for ex-Chief Tortha Karf's solitude, he thought!
Verkan watched with amusement as a small brown, long-eared 'beast' scurried through the flowers, causing the girls to squeal in assumed outrage. It appeared that Tortha was losing in his attempt to rid his hideaway, known on Fourth Level, Europo-American as Sicily, of its indigenous rabbit population. He caught the girls' coy glances in his direction, and was glad his wife, Dalla, wasn't along. Jealousy, along with overwork, had brought an end to their first marriage and, while Dalla was less possessive these days, the sight of two half-naked serving girls ogling Verkan would not be taken lightly. A catfight would not be the proper introduction for the bad news he had to share with his former boss and the ex-Paratime Police Chief.
The commotion brought Tortha Karf to the doorway. "Verkan! From your message ball, I didn't expect you for several hours."
"We managed to home-in on the missing Paracop's beacon and were able to extricate him from the Fourth Level mess he'd fallen into. His mission was locating and then extracting French Impressionist paintings from a gautlatiers mansion on a particularly nasty Fourth Level, Europo-American time-line. Unfortunately, someone had already removed the paintings and he was picked up by the Gestapo, a rather brutal quasi-police force."
"Must have been in the Axis Subsector."
Verkan nodded.
"I remember that Subsector well," Tortha continued, "it's impact reverberated across the entire Fourth Level. Adolph Hitler's public works and culling of the regional populations on that subsector makes your Pennsylvania State Trooper's transtemporal interference look like a tempest in a teapot-to use a Europo-American Sector cliche! Remember when the Opposition Party claimed that Hitler was really a renegade Paratime Policeman?"
Verkan refused to be baited.
Tortha noticing his discomfort, added, "Come on in. I've been by myself too long. I've forgotten all my manners."
Verkan gave a pointed look at the girls who were watching them closely.
Tortha shrugged his shoulders in feigned ignorance and led Verkan through the foyer and into the main room, where the rich gold-veined white marble walls displayed Cretan murals. The floor was covered with Fourth Level, Etruscan-Zoroastrian rugs and contained several embroidered purple divans, decked with gold fringe, which appeared to be Alexandrian-Roman in origin.
"So this your 'little cottage?'" Verkan asked.
"Compared to Paratime Headquarters, this place is tiny. And much quieter. So what brings you to paradise?"
To Verkan his ex-Chief looked a little twitchy. Too much of a good thing? Maybe paradise was better dreamed about than lived. He was sure Kalvan, in the midst of a war with three great kingdoms, might very well agree. "The Wizard Traders have popped up again."
"Wizard Traders. You mean slave traders, Verkan. We busted that outfit up just before I retired as Chief."
"You weren't so sure a year ago. True, we arrested the obvious ones; those who were passing themselves off as wizards on backward Third and Fourth Level worlds, using their privileges to steal forbidden artifacts and buy and sell people to unscrupulous Home Timeliners. Plus, a couple of First Level dupes, who were manning their secret conveyer heads. Now, we've uncovered evidence that they may be connected to the Opposition Party. Remember how you always told me 'follow the money trail.' I've been following your advice and we've found some evidence that much of it went into the Opposition Party coffers."
"But that doesn't make sense, Verkan. The Oppositionists run on a policy of non-interference and prole equal representation. You're trying to tell me that blood money has been paying for prole equality votes?"
"I think you've been on this big island for too long. Yes, I do. Don't you remember: the end justifies the means. The lesser evil for the greater good!"
"Maybe I have been outtime too long. Could this be the break we've been looking for, Verkan? Get word of this out to our friends in the media and we can break their backs once and for all."
"Break is not the right word. The Opposition Party has been gaining adherents and I'm afraid they may well find a way to point the blame right back at the Department."
"How? We've never been linked to the Oppositionists-just the opposite."
"True, but it did happen on our watch. Didn't it?"
"Don't look at me like that, old son. It's not my watch anymore. I've got some grapes to harvest."
"What should I do about it?"
"What you have to do, according to your commission. You're the top Paracop. Find out who they are, who's supporting them; then root them out. Who's your goat?"
"Hadron Tharn."
"That fatuous prig," Tortha said. "Your brother-in-law's not smart enough to be behind stale bread much less the Wizard Traders."
"He's not behind them, but we've linked one of the Wizard Traders to his University action team."
"You mean that University of Dhergabar crowd that's been crying about Paratime Police barriers to First Level outtime studies?"
"Same group, Tortha. I'd like to hijack the whole lot and dump them on a time-line where the locals have had a brush with the Wizard Traders. The survivors would come back a lot wiser."
"It's too bad they used hypno-conditioning to commit suicide."
"We never got all the trigger words, Verkan said, lighting his pipe. "Everyone of the important Wizard Traders committed suicide, when one of the implanted suggestions froze the Vagas Nerve-instant heart attack." Verkan shook his head. "No two of them shared the same trigger words either; it left the experts at Bureau of Psychological Hygiene in a state of paralysis. The rest of the Wizard Traders were just proles doing a job. I'm still getting bad press over the casualties."
"Not your fault, Verkan," Tortha said, shaking his head. "It does lend credence to the big conspiracy theory, though. That kind of deep conditioning doesn't come cheap. Anything more?"
"Yes, we've traced a new batch of Wizard Traders to Aryan-Transpacific."
Tortha's mouth dropped open. "Already!"
"Yes, they've gotten into bed with Styphon's House on every time-line they've entered. Trading the upper priests weapons technology in exchange for young bodies and precious metals."
"Have they penetrated the Kalvan Time-Line?"
"No. Although, we do have a potential spy on one of the University study teams."
"Why don't you bring him in for questioning?"
"It's a she. And we don't have any evidence other than a family relationship with Hadron Tharn. We do have an agent on the Kalvan Study Team keeping an eye on her. Besides, Tharn is too flighty to set up and run any decent spy ring. We suspect she's a red herring, as it's called on Fourth Level, Europo-American. Just as Tharn himself is a cat's-paw to lead us astray."
"From what?"
"A potentially embarrassing incident or some other criminal enterprise."
"Good hunting," Tortha said, shaking his head. "Every time I start to think back fondly of my time Chief, you come along and remind me of why I retired."
"Tortha!" one of the girls called. "It's time for our swimming lessons. Will you be joining us?"
"Yes, of course. Must not neglect my guests. Please, excuse me Verkan, but I've got my duties here to contend with. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help."
Verkan nodded, as Tortha waddled off with a girl tucked under each arm. He wondered whom the show was for, him or Tortha? It must be tough, Verkan thought, trying to have a good time twenty-four hours a day. I'll have to try it sometime!