When she had gone, he finished his drink and poured another. He drew
and checked his needler. Then, after checking the window-shielding and
activating the outside viewscreens, he lit a cheroot and sat down at
the desk, his goblet and his needler in front of him, to wait until
the servants were gone.

There was only one way out alive. He knew that, and yet he needed
brandy, and a great deal of mental effort, to steel himself for it.
Psycho-rehabilitation was a dreadful thing to face. There would be
almost a year of unremitting agony, physical and mental, worse than a
Khiftan torture rack. There would be the shame of having his innermost
secrets poured out of him by the psychotherapists, and, at the end,
there would emerge someone who would not be Salgath Trod, or anybody
like Salgath Trod, and he would have to learn to know this stranger,
and build a new life for him.

In one of the viewscreens, he saw the door to the service hallway
open. Zinganna, in a black evening gown and a black velvet cloak, and
Calilla, the housemaid, in what she believed to be a reasonable
facsimile of fashionable First Level dress, and Nindrandigro, in one
of his master's evening suits, emerged. Salgath Trod waited until they
had gone down the hall to the antigrav shaft, and then he turned on
the visiphone, checked the security, set it for sealed beam
communication, and punched out a combination.

A girl in a green tunic looked out of the screen.

"Paratime Police," she said. "Office of Chief Tortha."