around on its treads; he filled a glass and sent it to the chair where
Dalla had seated herself; when she got a drink, she sent it to Vall.
Vall sent if back to Tortha Karf, who turned it off.

"No; you have the modifier in the wrong place. You're Chief of
Duplicate Paratime Police. You take the setup you have now, and expand
it; continue the present lines of investigation, and be ready to
exploit anything new that comes up. You won't bother with any of this
routine flying-saucer-scare stuff; just handle the Organization
business. That'll keep you busy for a long time, I'm afraid."

"I notice you slammed down on the first Council member who began
shouting about how you'd wiped out the Great Paratemporal Crime-Ring,"
Vall said.

"Yes. It isn't wiped out, and it won't be wiped out for a long time. I
shall be unspeakably delighted if, when I turn my job over to you, you
have it wiped out. And even then, there'll be a loose end to pick up
every now and then till you retire."

"We have Council and the Management with us, now," Vall said. "This
was the first secret session of Executive Council in over two thousand
years. And I thought I'd drop dead when they passed that motion to
submit themselves to narco-hypnosis."

"A few Councilmen are going to drop dead before they can be
narco-hypped," Dalla prophesied over the rim of her glass.

"A few have already. I have a list of about a dozen of them who have
had fatal accidents or committed suicide, or just died or vanished