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That jab, Vall thought, following the servant out of the room, had been a mistake on Jard's part. A music-drama, for which he had designed the settings, was due to open here in Dhergabar in another ten days. Thalvan Dras would cherish spite, and a word from the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar would set a dozen critics to disparaging Jandar's work.
If he was hoping that some of the girls would want to know, what wild-man, it was a vain hope. With a blue-seal mavrad around, what chance did a couple of ordinary coppers have? The girls were already converging on Verkan Vall. "When are you going to get that monstrosity out of our restroom," the little redhead in green coveralls was demanding.
He wouldn't be making any mistake in turning his post over to the Mavrad of Nerros on his retirement. "Yes, Vall; I know," he said. "But when you've been at this desk as long as I have, you'll have a sour moment or two, now and then, too." A blue light flashed over one of the booths across the room.
"That's something the Mavrad of Mnirna and Thalvabar never forgets," Jandar Jard drawled, with what, in a woman, would have been cattishness. Thalvan Dras gave him a hastily repressed look of venomous anger, then said something, more to Verkan Vall than to Jandar Jard, about titles of nobility being the marks of social position and responsibility which their bearers should never forget.
In fact, it seems slightly indecent to them for anybody to want privacy." One of Thalvan Dras' human servants came into the room, coughed apologetically, and said: "A visiphone-call for His Valor, the Mavrad of Nerros." Vall went on nibbling ham and wine sauce; the servant repeated the announcement a trifle more loudly. "Vall, you're being paged!" Thalvan Dras told him, with a touch of impatience.
Taking the disk of blue plastic from his packet, he handed it to the clerk at the desk, who dropped it into a slot in the voder in front of him. Instantly, a mechanical voice responded: "Verkan Vall, blue-seal noble, hereditary Mavrad of Nerros. Special Chief's Assistant, Paratime Police, special assignment. Subject to no orders below those of Tortha Karf, Chief of Paratime Police.
The young Mavrad of Nerros was thinking as a paratimer should. "What's the designation of your line, again?" Verkan Vall told him. It was a short numerical term of six places, but it expressed a number of the order of ten to the fortieth power, exact to the last digit. Tortha Karf repeated it into his stenomemograph, with explanatory comment.
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