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Title: Time Crime
Author: H. Beam Piper
Illustrator: Kelly Freas
Release date: April 11, 2006 [eBook #18151]
Most recently updated: December 13, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18151
Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME CRIME ***
Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's note.
This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction Magazine
February and March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
TIME CRIME
BY H. BEAM PIPER
_First of Two Parts. The Paratime Police had a real headache this
time! Tracing one man in a population of millions is easy--compared
to finding one gang hiding out on one of billions of probability lines!_
Illustrated by Freas
[Illustration:]
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION
Kiro Soran, the guard captain, stood in the shadow of the veranda
roof, his white cloak thrown back to display the scarlet lining. He
rubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver and
watched the four men at the table.
"And ten tens are a hundred," one of the clerks in blue jackets said,
adding another stack to the pile of gold coins.
"Nineteen hundreds," one of the pair in dirty striped robes agreed,
taking a stone from the box in front of him and throwing it away. Only
one stone remained. "One more hundred to pay."
One of the blue-jacketed plantation clerks made a tally mark; his
companion counted out coins, ten and ten and ten.
Dosu Golan, the plantation manager, tapped impatiently on his polished
boot leg with a thin riding whip.
[Illustration:]
"I don't like this," he said, in another and entirely different
language. "I know, chattel slavery's an established custom on this
sector, and we have to conform to local usages, but it sickens me to
have to haggle with these swine over the price of human beings. On
the Zarkantha Sector, we used nothing but free wage-labor."
"Migratory workers," the guard captain said. "Humanitarian
considerations aside, I can think of a lot better ways of meeting the
labor problem on a fruit plantation than by buying slaves you need for
three months a year and have to feed and quarter and clothe and doctor
the whole twelve."
"Twenty hundreds of _obus_," the clerk who had been counting the money
said. "That is the payment, is it not, Coru-hin-Irigod?"
"That is the payment," the slave dealer replied.
The clerk swept up the remaining coins, and his companion took them
over and put them in an iron-bound chest, snapping the padlock. The
two guards who had been loitering at one side slung their rifles and
picked up the chest, carrying it into the plantation house. The slave
dealer and his companion arose, putting their money into a leather
bag; Coru-hin-Irigod turned and bowed to the two men in white cloaks.
"The slaves are yours, noble lords," he said.
Across the plantation yard, six more men in striped robes, with
carbines slung across their backs, approached; with them came another
man in a hooded white cloak, and two guards in blue jackets and red
caps, with bayoneted rifles. The man in white and his armed attendants
came toward the house; the six Calera slavers continued across the
yard to where their horses were picketed.
"If I do not offend the noble lords, then," Coru-hin-Irigod said, "I
beg their sufferance to depart. I and my men have far to ride if we
would reach Careba by nightfall. The Lord, the Great Lord, the Lord
God Safar watch between us until we meet again."
Urado Alatana, the labor foreman, came up onto the porch as the two
slavers went down.
"Have a good look at them, Radd?" the guard captain asked.
"You think I'm crazy enough to let those bandits out of here with two
thousand _obus_--forty thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units--of the
Company's money without knowing what we're getting?" the other
parried. "They're all right--nice, clean, healthy-looking lot. I did
everything but take them apart and inspect the pieces while they were
being unshackled at the stockade. I'd like to know where this
Coru-hin-Whatshisname got them, though. They're not local stuff. Lot
darker, and they're jabbering among themselves in some lingo I never
heard before. A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they have
odd-looking sandals. I noticed that most of them showed marks of
recent whipping. That may mean they're troublesome, or it may just
mean that these Caleras are a lot of sadistic brutes."
"Poor devils!" The man called Dosu Golan was evidently hoping that
he'd never catch himself talking about fellow humans like that. The
guard captain turned to him.
"Coming to have a look at them, Doth?" he asked.
"You go, Kirv; I'll see them later."
"Still not able to look the Company's property in the face?" the
captain asked gently. "You'll not get used to it any sooner than now."
"I suppose you're right." For a moment Dosu Golan watched
Coru-hin-Irigod and his followers canter out of the yard and break
into a gallop on the road beyond. Then he tucked his whip under his
arm. "All right, then. Let's go see them."
The labor foreman went into the house; the manager and the guard
captain went down the steps and set out across the yard. A big
slat-sided wagon, drawn by four horses, driven by an old slave in a
blue smock and a thing like a sunbonnet, rumbled past, loaded with
newly-picked oranges. Blue woodsmoke was beginning to rise from the
stoves at the open kitchen and a couple of slaves were noisily
chopping wood. Then they came to the stockade of close-set pointed
poles. A guard sergeant in a red-trimmed blue jacket, armed with a
revolver, met them with a salute which Kiro Soran returned: he
unfastened the gate and motioned four or five riflemen into positions
from which they could fire in between the poles in case the slaves
turned on their new owners.
There seemed little danger of that, though Kiro Soran kept his hand
close to the butt of his revolver. The slaves, an even hundred of
them, squatted under awnings out of the sun, or stood in line to drink
at the water-butt. They furtively watched the two men who had entered
among them, as though expecting blows or kicks; when none were
forthcoming, they relaxed slightly. As the labor foreman had said,
they were clean and looked healthy. T Next |