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Time Crime
H. Beam Piper
Time Crime
Table of Contents
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Time Crime
H. Beam Piper
This page formatted 2005 Blackmask Online.
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Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
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Transcriber's note.
This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction Magazine
February and March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
TIME CRIME
BY H. BEAM PIPER
Part 1
First of Two Parts. The Paratime Police had a real headache this time! Tracing one man in a population of
millions is easy−−compared to finding one gang hiding out on one of billions of probability lines!
Illustrated by Freas
[Illustration:]
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE−FICTION
Kiro Soran, the guard captain, stood in the shadow of the veranda roof, his white cloak thrown back to display
the scarlet lining. He rubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver and watched the four
men at the table.
"And ten tens are a hundred," one of the clerks in blue jackets said, adding another stack to the pile of gold
coins.
"Nineteen hundreds," one of the pair in dirty striped robes agreed, taking a stone from the box in front of him
and throwing it away. Only one stone remained. "One more hundred to pay."
One of the blue−jacketed plantation clerks made a tally mark; his companion counted out coins, ten and ten
and ten.
Dosu Golan, the plantation manager, tapped impatiently on his polished boot leg with a thin riding whip.
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[Illustration:]
"I don't like this," he said, in another and entirely different language. "I know, chattel slavery's an established
custom on this sector, and we have to conform to local usages, but it sickens me to have to haggle with these
swine over the price of human beings. On the Zarkantha Sector, we used nothing but free wage−labor."
"Migratory workers," the guard captain said. "Humanitarian considerations aside, I can think of a lot better
ways of meeting the labor problem on a fruit plantation than by buying slaves you need for three months a
year and have to feed and quarter and clothe and doctor the whole twelve."
"Twenty hundreds of
obus
," the clerk who had been counting the money said. "That is the payment, is it not,
Coru−hin−Irigod?"
"That is the payment," the slave dealer replied.
The clerk swept up the remaining coins, and his companion took them over and put them in an iron−bound
chest, snapping the padlock. The two guards who had been loitering at one side slung their rifles and picked
up the chest, carrying it into the plantation house. The slave dealer and his companion arose, putting their
money into a leather bag; Coru−hin−Irigod turned and bowed to the two men in white cloaks.
"The slaves are yours, noble lords," he said.
Across the plantation yard, six more men in striped robes, with carbines slung across their backs, approached;
with them came another man in a hooded white cloak, and two guards in blue jackets and red caps, with
bayoneted rifles. The man in white and his armed attendants came toward the house; the six Calera slavers
continued across the yard to where their horses were picketed.
"If I do not offend the noble lords, then," Coru−hin−Irigod said, "I beg their sufferance to depart. I and my
men have far to ride if we would reach Careba by nightfall. The Lord, the Great Lord, the Lord God Safar
watch between us until we meet again."
Urado Alatana, the labor foreman, came up onto the porch as the two slavers went down.
"Have a good look at them, Radd?" the guard captain asked.
"You think I'm crazy enough to let those bandits out of here with two thousand
obus
−−forty thousand
Paratemporal Exchange Units−−of the Company's money without knowing what we're getting?" the other
parried. "They're all right−−nice, clean, healthy−looking lot. I did everything but take them apart and inspect
the pieces while they were being unshackled at the stockade. I'd like to know where this
Coru−hin−Whatshisname got them, though. They're not local stuff. Lot darker, and they're jabbering among
themselves in some lingo I never heard before. A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they have
odd−looking sandals. I noticed that most of them showed marks of recent whipping. That may mean they're
troublesome, or it may just mean that these Caleras are a lot of sadistic brutes."
"Poor devils!" The man called Dosu Golan was evidently hoping that he'd never catch himself talking about
fellow humans like that. The guard captain turned to him.
"Coming to have a look at them, Doth?" he asked.
"You go, Kirv; I'll see them later."
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"Still not able to look the Company's property in the face?" the captain asked gently. "You'll not get used to it
any sooner than now."
"I suppose you're right." For a moment Dosu Golan watched Coru−hin−Irigod and his followers canter out of
the yard and break into a gallop on the road beyond. Then he tucked his whip under his arm. "All right, then.
Let's go see them."
The labor foreman went into the house; the manager and the guard captain went down the steps and set out
across the yard. A big slat−sided wagon, drawn by four horses, driven by an old slave in a blue smock and a
thing like a sunbonnet, rumbled past, loaded with newly−picked oranges. Blue woodsmoke was beginning to
rise from the stoves at the open kitchen and a couple of slaves were noisily chopping wood. Then they came
to the stockade of close−set pointed poles. A guard sergeant in a red−trimmed blue jacket, armed with a
revolver, met them with a salute which Kiro Soran returned: he unfastened the gate and motioned four or five
riflemen into positions from which they could fire in between the poles in case the slaves turned on their new
owners.
There seemed little danger of that, though Kiro Soran kept his hand close to the butt of his revolver. The
slaves, an even hundred of them, squatted under awnings out of the sun, or stood in line to drink at the
water−butt. They furtively watched the two men who had entered among them, as though expecting blows or
kicks; when none were forthcoming, they relaxed slightly. As the labor foreman had said, they were clean and
looked healthy. They were all nearly naked; there were about as many women as men, but no children or old
people.
"Radd's right," the captain told the new manager. "They're not local. Much darker skins, and different
face−structure; faces wedge−shaped instead of oval, and differently shaped noses, and brown eyes instead of
black. I've seen people like that, somewhere, but−−"
He fell silent. A suspicion, utterly fantastic, had begun to form in his mind, and he stepped closer to a group of
a dozen−odd, the manager following him. One or two had been unmercifully lashed, not long ago, and all
bore a few lash−marks. Odd sort of marks, more like burn−blisters than welts. He'd have to have the
Company doctor look at them. Then he caught their speech, and the suspicion was converted to certainty.
"These are not like the others: they wear fine garments, and walk proudly. They look stern, but not cruel. They
are the real masters here; the others are but servants."
He grasped the manager's arm and drew him aside.
"You know that language?" he asked. When the man called Dosu Golan shook his head, he continued: "That's
Kharanda; it's a dialect spoken by a people in the Ganges Valley, in India, on the Kholghoor Sector of the
Fourth Level."
Dosu Golan blinked, and his face went blank for a moment.
"You mean they're from outtime?" he demanded. "Are you sure?"
"I did two years on Fourth Level Kholghoor with the Paratime Police, before I took this job," the man called
Kiro Soran replied. "And another thing. Those lash−marks were made with some kind of an electric whip. Not
these rawhide quirts the Caleras use."
It took the plantation manager all of five seconds to add that up. The answer frightened him.
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