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"Tell you what; if you people at Rhogom Foundation get the problem of discarnate paratime transposition licked by then, let's you and I go back to the Akor-Neb Sector in about a hundred years and see what sort of a mess those people have made of things." "A hundred years: that would be Year Twenty-Two of the next millennium. It's a date, Vall; we'll do it."
The two Assassins greeted him, and a man in upper-servants' garb and wearing a hunting knife and a long hunting pistol approached. "Lord Virzal of Verkan? Welcome to Starpha Dome. The Lady Dallona awaits you below." Verkan Vall had never been in an Akor-Neb dwelling dome, but a description of such structures had been included in his hypno-mech indoctrination.
He was a man of middle age his three hundredth birthday was only a decade or so off and he had begun to acquire a double chin and a bulge at his waistline. His hair, once black, had turned a uniform iron-gray and was beginning to thin in front. "What do you know about the Second Level Akor-Neb Sector, Vall?" he inquired. "Ever work in that paratime-area?"
Originally, they had been the standard structure for all purposes; about two thousand elapsed years ago, when nationalism had still existed on the Akor-Neb Sector, the cities had been almost entirely under ground, as protection from air attack.
One was a beefy man in a gold-laced cream-colored dress tunic; he had thick lips and a too-ready laugh. Another was a rather monkish-looking young man who spoke earnestly and rolled his eyes upward, as though at some celestial vision. The third had the faint powdering of gray in his black hair which was, among the Akor-Neb people, almost the only indication of advanced age.
And in his subconscious mind, instantly available to consciousness, was a vast body of knowledge about conditions on the Akor-Neb sector, as well as a complete command of the local language, all hypnotically acquired. He knew that he was looking down upon one of the minor provincial cities of a very respectably advanced civilization.
And their racial, nationalistic and ideological conflicts are rapidly reaching the explosion point. A series of all-out atomic wars is just what that sector needs, to bring their population down to their world's carrying capacity; in a century or so, the inventors of the atomic bomb will be hailed as the saviors of their species." "But how about my work on the Akor-Neb Sector?" Dalla asked.
One was, like himself, a disguised paratimer from the First Level the Outtime Export and Import man, Zortan Brend, here known as Brarnend of Zorda. The other two were Akor-Neb people, and both wore the black tunics and the winged-bullet badges of the Society of Assassins.
For an instant, as he bent over her, he thought Dalla had been killed, an assumption justified by his knowledge of the deadliness of Akor-Neb bullets. Then he saw her eye-lids flicker. A moment later, he had the explanation of her escape.
"I grant him the advantage; let's get on with it," Verkan Vall said. Yirzol of Narva advanced to the firing point. He was not afraid of death none of the Akor-Neb people were; their language contained no word to express the concept of total and final extinction and discarnation by gunshot was almost entirely painless.
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