"You can go to PolTerm if you want to," Tortha Karf retorted. "I'm
going to stay here and fight back, and if they try to serve me with a
summons, they'd better send a robot for a process server."

"Fight back!" Zostha Olv echoed. "You can't fight the Council and the
whole Management! They'll tear you into inch bits!"

"I can hold them off till Vall's able to raid those Abzar Sector
bases," Tortha Karf said. He thought for a moment. "Maybe this is all
for the best, after all. If it distracts the Organization's
attention--"

* * * * *

"I wish we could have made a boomerang-ball reconnaissance," Ranthar
Jard was saying, watching one of the viewscreens, in which a film,
taken from an airboat transposed to an adjoining Abzar sector time
line, was being shown. The boat had circled over the Ganges, a mere
trickle between wide, deeply cut banks, and was crossing a gullied
plain, sparsely grown with thornbush. "The base ought to be about
there, but we have no idea what sort of changes this gang has made."

"Well, we couldn't: we didn't dare take the chance of it being
spotted. This has to be a complete surprise. It'll be about like the
other place, the one the slaves described. There won't be any
permanent buildings. This operation only started a few months ago,
with the Croutha invasion; it may go on for four or five months, till
the Croutha have all their surplus captives sold off. That country,"
he added, gesturing at the screen, "will be flooded out when the rains
come. See how it's suffered from flood-erosion. There won't be a thing