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"I hope they don't," Vall said to Tortha Karf. "Really, though, I doubt if they do. This is their chance to pick up a lot of slaves cheaply; the Croutha are too busy to bother haggling. I'm going through to PolTerm, now; when Dalla and Zinganna get through, tell them to join me there." On Police Terminal, he found Kostran Galth, the agent who had been selected to impersonate Salgath Trod.

After calling Zulthran Torv, the mathematician in charge of the Computer Office and giving him the Esaron time-line designations and Nentrov Dard's ideas about them, he spent about an hour briefing Kostran Galth on the role he was to play. Finally, he undressed and went to bed on a couch in the rest room behind the office. It was noon when he woke.

"I hope you have somebody who can give a convincing impersonation," Lovranth Rolk said. "Yes. A field agent named Kostran Galth," Tortha Karf said. "We ran the personal description cards for the whole Force through the machine; Kostran checked to within one-twentieth of one per cent; he's on Police Terminal, now, coming by rocket from Ravvanan Equivalent.

"It'll have to be mighty tentative," Vall said. "Kostran Galth can't marry a Prole." "She won't be a Prole very long. I'm going to adopt her as my sister." Tortha Karf looked at her sharply. "You sure you know what you're doing, Dalla?" he asked. "Of course I'm sure. I know that girl better than she knows herself. I narco-hypped her, remember.

"I own the whole island, on that time line, and you can always be reached in a hurry if anything comes up." "We could have as much fun there as on the Dwarma Sector," Dalla said. "Chief, could we take a couple of friends along?" "Well, who?" "Zinganna and Kostran Galth," she replied. "They've gotten interested in one another; they're talking about a tentative marriage."

He stepped aside, revealing a viewscreen behind him; when he pressed a button, the screen lighted; on it was a stationary picture of Kostran Galth as Salgath Trod, his right hand raised in front of him. "Now watch this. I'm going to step up the magnification, slowly, so that you can be sure there's no substitution. Camera a little closer, Trath!"

Zinna's the kind of a sister I've always wished I'd had." "Well, that's all right then. But about this marriage. She was in love with Salgath Trod," Tortha Karf said. "Now, she's identifying Agent Kostran with him " "She was in love with the kind of man Salgath could have been if he hadn't gotten into this Organization filth," Dalla replied. "Galth is that kind of a man.

An important bulletin has just come in from Nagorabar, Home Time Line, on the Indian subcontinent " "You can stop swearing, now, Karf," Dalgroth Sorn grinned. "I think this is it." Kostran Galth sat on the edge of the couch, with one arm around Zinganna's waist; on the other side of him, Hadron Dalla lay at full length, her elbows propped and her chin in her hands.

And including that girl Zinganna; that was a real masterpiece!" "I've met her, a few times," Elbraz Vark, the Political Liaison Assistant, said. "Isn't she lovely!" "Good actress, too," Tortha Karf said. "It's not easy to impersonate yourself." "Well, Kostran Galth did a fine job of acting, too," Lovranth Rolk said.

"We have phoneticists who can split syllables and splice them together. Kostran will deliver his speech in dumb-show, and we'll dub the sound in and telecast them as one. I've messaged PolTerm to get to work on that; they can start as soon as we have the speech written."