SecReg HQ to talk to Ranthar Jard. We may be able to get something
that'll help us on that end--"

"You may be able to have your vacation before too long, Dr. Hadron,"
Skordran Kirv told her. "Once we capture one of their conveyers, the
instrument panel'll tell us what time line they're working from, and
then we'll have them."

"There's an Indo-Turanian Sector parable about a snake charmer who
thought he was picking up his snake and found that he had hold of an
elephant's tail," Vall said. "That might be a good thing to bear in
mind, till we find out just what we have picked up."

[Illustration:]

* * * * *

Coming down a hallway on the hundred and seventh floor of the
Management wing of the Paratime Building, Yandar Yadd paused to
admire, in the green mirror of the glassoid wall, the jaunty angle of
his silver-feathered cap, the fit of his short jacket, and the way his
weapon hung at his side. This last was not instantly recognizable as a
weapon; it looked more like a portable radio, which indeed it was. It
was, none the less, a potent weapon. One flick of his finger could
connect that radio with one at Tri-Planet News Service, and within the
hour anything he said into it would be heard by all Terra, Mars and
Venus. In consequence, there existed around the Paratime Building a
marked and understandable reluctance to antagonize Yandar Yadd.

He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes short of 1000, when he