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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Last Enemy, by Henry Beam Piper, Illustrated
+by Miller
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Last Enemy
+
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper
+
+Illustrator: Miller
+
+Release Date: July 10, 2006  [eBook #18800]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST ENEMY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 18800-h.htm or 18800-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/0/18800/18800-h/18800-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/0/18800/18800-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+      This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction,
+      August, 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
+      that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+
+LAST ENEMY
+
+by
+
+H. BEAM PIPER
+
+Illustrated by Miller
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    _The last enemy was the toughest of all--and conquering him
+    was in itself almost as dangerous as not conquering. For a
+    strange pattern of beliefs can make assassination an
+    honorable profession!_
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+
+
+Along the U-shaped table, the subdued clatter of dinnerware and the
+buzz of conversation was dying out; the soft music that drifted down
+from the overhead sound outlets seemed louder as the competing noises
+diminished. The feast was drawing to a close, and Dallona of Hadron
+fidgeted nervously with the stem of her wineglass as last-moment
+doubts assailed her.
+
+The old man at whose right she sat noticed, and reached out to lay his
+hand on hers.
+
+"My dear, you're worried," he said softly. "You, of all people,
+shouldn't be, you know."
+
+"The theory isn't complete," she replied. "And I could wish for more
+positive verification. I'd hate to think I'd got you into this--"
+
+Garnon of Roxor laughed. "No, no!" he assured her. "I'd decided upon
+this long before you announced the results of your experiments. Ask
+Girzon; he'll bear me out."
+
+"That's true," the young man who sat at Garnon's left said, leaning
+forward. "Father has meant to take this step for a long time. He was
+waiting until after the election, and then he decided to do it now, to
+give you an opportunity to make experimental use of it."
+
+The man on Dallona's right added his voice. Like the others at the
+table, he was of medium stature, brown-skinned and dark-eyed, with a
+wide mouth, prominent cheekbones and a short, square jaw. Unlike the
+others, he was armed, with a knife and pistol on his belt, and on the
+breast of his black tunic he wore a scarlet oval patch on which a pair
+of black wings, with a tapering silver object between them had been
+superimposed.
+
+"Yes, Lady Dallona; the Lord Garnon and I discussed this, oh, two
+years ago at the least. Really, I'm surprised that you seem to shrink
+from it, now. Of course, you're Venus-born, and customs there may be
+different, but with your scientific knowledge--"
+
+"That may be the trouble, Dirzed," Dallona told him. "A scientist gets
+in the way of doubting, and one doubts one's own theories most of
+all."
+
+"That's the scientific attitude, I'm told," Dirzed replied, smiling.
+"But somehow, I cannot think of you as a scientist." His eyes traveled
+over her in a way that would have made most women, scientists or
+otherwise, blush. It gave Dallona of Hadron a feeling of pleasure. Men
+often looked at her that way, especially here at Darsh. Novelty had
+something to do with it--her skin was considerably lighter than usual,
+and there was a pleasing oddness about the structure of her face. Her
+alleged Venusian origin was probably accepted as the explanation of
+that, as of so many other things.
+
+As she was about to reply, a man in dark gray, one of the
+upper-servants who were accepted as social equals by the Akor-Neb
+nobles, approached the table. He nodded respectfully to Garnon of
+Roxor.
+
+"I hate to seem to hurry things, sir, but the boy's ready. He's in a
+trance-state now," he reported, pointing to the pair of visiplates at
+the end of the room.
+
+Both of the ten-foot-square plates were activated. One was a solid
+luminous white; on the other was the image of a boy of twelve or
+fourteen, seated at a big writing machine. Even allowing for the fact
+that the boy was in a hypnotic trance, there was an expression of
+idiocy on his loose-lipped, slack-jawed face, a pervading dullness.
+
+"One of our best sensitives," a man with a beard, several places down
+the table on Dallona's right, said. "You remember him, Dallona; he
+produced that communication from the discarnate Assassin, Sirzim.
+Normally, he's a low-grade imbecile, but in trance-state he's
+wonderful. And there can be no argument that the communications he
+produces originates in his own mind; he doesn't have mind enough, of
+his own, to operate that machine."
+
+Garnon of Roxor rose to his feet, the others rising with him. He
+unfastened a jewel from the front of his tunic and handed it to
+Dallona.
+
+"Here, my dear Lady Dallona; I want you to have this," he said. "It's
+been in the family of Roxor for six generations, but I know that you
+will appreciate and cherish it." He twisted a heavy ring from his left
+hand and gave it to his son. He unstrapped his wrist watch and passed
+it across the table to the gray-clad upper-servant. He gave a pocket
+case, containing writing tools, slide rule and magnifier, to the
+bearded man on the other side of Dallona. "Something you can use, Dr.
+Harnosh," he said. Then he took a belt, with a knife and holstered
+pistol, from a servant who had brought it to him, and gave it to the
+man with the red badge. "And something for you, Dirzed. The pistol's
+by Farnor of Yand, and the knife was forged and tempered on Luna."
+
+The man with the winged-bullet badge took the weapons, exclaiming in
+appreciation. Then he removed his own belt and buckled on the gift.
+
+"The pistol's fully loaded," Garnon told him.
+
+Dirzed drew it and checked--a man of his craft took no statement about
+weapons without verification--then slipped it back into the holster.
+
+"Shall I use it?" he asked.
+
+"By all means; I'd had that in mind when I selected it for you."
+
+Another man, to the left of Girzon, received a cigarette case and
+lighter. He and Garnon hooked fingers and clapped shoulders.
+
+"Our views haven't been the same, Garnon," he said, "but I've always
+valued your friendship. I'm sorry you're doing this, now; I believe
+you'll be disappointed."
+
+Garnon chuckled. "Would you care to make a small wager on that,
+Nirzav?" he asked. "You know what I'm putting up. If I'm proven right,
+will you accept the Volitionalist theory as verified?"
+
+Nirzav chewed his mustache for a moment. "Yes, Garnon, I will." He
+pointed toward the blankly white screen. "If we get anything
+conclusive on that, I'll have no other choice."
+
+"All right, friends," Garnon said to those around him. "Will you walk
+with me to the end of the room?"
+
+Servants removed a section from the table in front of him, to allow
+him and a few others to pass through; the rest of the guests remained
+standing at the table, facing toward the inside of the room. Garnon's
+son, Girzon, and the gray-mustached Nirzav of Shonna, walked on his
+left; Dallona of Hadron and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh on his right. The
+gray-clad upper-servant, and two or three ladies, and a nobleman with
+a small chin-beard, and several others, joined them; of those who had
+sat close to Garnon, only the man in the black tunic with the scarlet
+badge hung back. He stood still, by the break in the table, watching
+Garnon of Roxor walk away from him. Then Dirzed the Assassin drew the
+pistol he had lately received as a gift, hefted it in his hand,
+thumbed off the safety, and aimed at the back of Garnon's head.
+
+They had nearly reached the end of the room when the pistol cracked.
+Dallona of Hadron started, almost as though the bullet had crashed
+into her own body, then caught herself and kept on walking. She closed
+her eyes and laid a hand on Dr. Harnosh's arm for guidance,
+concentrating her mind upon a single question. The others went on as
+though Garnon of Roxor were still walking among them.
+
+"Look!" Harnosh of Hosh cried, pointing to the image in the visiplate
+ahead. "He's under control!"
+
+They all stopped short, and Dirzed, holstering his pistol, hurried
+forward to join them. Behind, a couple of servants had approached with
+a stretcher and were gathering up the crumpled figure that had, a
+moment ago, been Garnon.
+
+A change had come over the boy at the writing machine. His eyes were
+still glazed with the stupor of the hypnotic trance, but the slack jaw
+had stiffened, and the loose mouth was compressed in a purposeful
+line. As they watched, his hands went out to the keyboard in front of
+him and began to move over it, and as they did, letters appeared on
+the white screen on the left.
+
+_Garnon of Roxor, discarnate, communicating_, they read. The machine
+stopped for a moment, then began again. _To Dallona of Hadron: The
+question you asked, after I discarnated, was: What was the last book I
+read, before the feast? While waiting for my valet to prepare my bath,
+I read the first ten verses of the fourth Canto of "Splendor of
+Space," by Larnov of Horka, in my bedroom. When the bath was ready, I
+marked the page with a strip of message tape, containing a message
+from the bailiff of my estate on the Shevva River, concerning a
+breakdown at the power plant, and laid the book on the ivory-inlaid
+table beside the big red chair._
+
+Harnosh of Hosh looked at Dallona inquiringly; she nodded.
+
+"I rejected the question I had in my mind, and substituted that one,
+after the shot," she said.
+
+He turned quickly to the upper-servant. "Check on that, right away,
+Kirzon," he directed.
+
+As the upper-servant hurried out, the writing machine started again.
+
+_And to my son, Girzon: I will not use your son, Garnon, as a
+reincarnation-vehicle; I will remain discarnate until he is grown and
+has a son of his own; if he has no male child, I will reincarnate in
+the first available male child of the family of Roxor, or of some
+family allied to us by marriage. In any case, I will communicate
+before reincarnating._
+
+_To Nirzav of Shonna: Ten days ago, when I dined at your home, I took
+a small knife and cut three notches, two close together and one a
+little apart from the others, on the under side of the table. As I
+remember, I sat two places down on the left. If you find them, you
+will know that I have won that wager that I spoke of a few minutes
+ago._
+
+"I'll have my butler check on that, right away," Nirzav said. His eyes
+were wide with amazement, and he had begun to sweat; a man does not
+casually watch the beliefs of a lifetime invalidated in a few moments.
+
+_To Dirzed the Assassin_: the machine continued. _You have served me
+faithfully, in the last ten years, never more so than with the last
+shot you fired in my service. After you fired, the thought was in your
+mind that you would like to take service with the Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, whom you believe will need the protection of a member of the
+Society of Assassins. I advise you to do so, and I advise her to
+accept your offer. Her work, since she has come to Darsh, has not made
+her popular in some quarters. No doubt Nirzav of Shonna can bear me
+out on that._
+
+"I won't betray things told me in confidence, or said at the Councils
+of the Statisticalists, but he's right," Nirzav said. "You need a good
+Assassin, and there are few better than Dirzed."
+
+_I see that this sensitive is growing weary_, the letters on the
+screen spelled out. _His body is not strong enough for prolonged
+communication. I bid you all farewell, for the time; I will
+communicate again. Good evening, my friends, and I thank you for your
+presence at the feast._
+
+The boy, on the other screen, slumped back in his chair, his face
+relaxing into its customary expression of vacancy.
+
+"Will you accept my offer of service, Lady Dallona?" Dirzed asked.
+"It's as Garnon said; you've made enemies."
+
+Dallona smiled at him. "I've not been too deep in my work to know
+that. I'm glad to accept your offer, Dirzed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nirzav of Shonna had already turned away from the group and was
+hurrying from the room, to call his home for confirmation on the
+notches made on the underside of his dining table. As he went out the
+door, he almost collided with the upper-servant, who was rushing in
+with a book in his hand.
+
+"Here it is," the latter exclaimed, holding up the book. "Larnov's
+'Splendor of Space,' just where he said it would be. I had a couple of
+servants with me as witnesses; I can call them in now, if you wish."
+He handed the book to Harnosh of Hosh. "See, a strip of message tape
+in it, at the tenth verse of the Fourth Canto."
+
+Nirzav of Shonna re-entered the room; he was chewing his mustache and
+muttering to himself. As he rejoined the group in front of the now
+dark visiplates, he raised his voice, addressing them all generally.
+
+"My butler found the notches, just as the communication described," he
+said. "This settles it! Garnon, if you're where you can hear me,
+you've won. I can't believe in the Statisticalist doctrines after
+this, or in the political program based upon them. I'll announce my
+change of attitude at the next meeting of the Executive Council, and
+resign my seat. I was elected by Statisticalist votes, and I cannot
+hold office as a Volitionalist."
+
+"You'll need a couple of Assassins, too," the nobleman with the
+chin-beard told him. "Your former colleagues and fellow-party-members
+are regrettably given to the forcible discarnation of those who differ
+with them."
+
+"I've never employed personal Assassins before," Nirzav replied, "but
+I think you're right. As soon as I get home, I'll call Assassins' Hall
+and make the necessary arrangements."
+
+"Better do it now," Girzon of Roxor told him, lowering his voice.
+"There are over a hundred guests here, and I can't vouch for all of
+them. The Statisticalists would be sure to have a spy planted among
+them. My father was one of their most dangerous opponents, when he was
+on the Council; they've always been afraid he'd come out of retirement
+and stand for re-election. They'd want to make sure he was really
+discarnate. And if that's the case, you can be sure your change of
+attitude is known to old Mirzark of Bashad by this time. He won't dare
+allow you to make a public renunciation of Statisticalism." He turned
+to the other nobleman. "Prince Jirzyn, why don't you call the
+Volitionist headquarters and have a couple of our Assassins sent here
+to escort Lord Nirzav home?"
+
+"I'll do that immediately," Jirzyn of Starpha said. "It's as Lord
+Girzon says; we can be pretty sure there was a spy among the guests,
+and now that you've come over to our way of thinking, we're
+responsible for your safety."
+
+He left the room to make the necessary visiphone call. Dallona,
+accompanied by Dirzed, returned to her place at the table, where she
+was joined by Harnosh of Hosh and some of the others.
+
+"There's no question about the results," Harnosh was exulting. "I'll
+grant that the boy might have picked up some of that stuff
+telepathically from the carnate minds present here; even from the mind
+of Garnon, before he was discarnated. But he could not have picked up
+enough data, in that way, to make a connected and coherent
+communication. It takes a sensitive with a powerful mind of his own to
+practice telesthesia, and that boy's almost an idiot." He turned to
+Dallona. "You asked a question, mentally, after Garnon was
+discarnate, and got an answer that could have been contained only in
+Garnon's mind. I think it's conclusive proof that the discarnate
+Garnon was fully conscious and communicating."
+
+"Dirzed also asked a question, mentally, after the discarnation, and
+got an answer. Dr. Harnosh, we can state positively that the surviving
+individuality is fully conscious in the discarnate state, is
+telepathically sensitive, and is capable of telepathic communication
+with other minds," Dallona agreed. "And in view of our earlier work
+with memory-recalls, we're justified in stating positively that the
+individual is capable of exercising choice in reincarnation vehicles."
+
+"My father had been considering voluntary discarnation for a long
+time," Girzon of Roxor said. "Ever since the discarnation of my
+mother. He deferred that step because he was unwilling to deprive the
+Volitionalist Party of his support. Now it would seem that he has done
+more to combat Statisticalism by discarnating than he ever did in his
+carnate existence."
+
+"I don't know, Girzon," Jirzyn of Starpha said, as he joined the
+group. "The Statisticalists will denounce the whole thing as a
+prearranged fraud. And if they can discarnate the Lady Dallona before
+she can record her testimony under truth hypnosis or on a lie
+detector, we're no better off than we were before. Dirzed, you have a
+great responsibility in guarding the Lady Dallona; some extraordinary
+security precautions will be needed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In his office, in the First Level city of Dhergabar, Tortha Karf,
+Chief of Paratime Police, leaned forward in his chair to hold his
+lighter for his special assistant, Verkan Vall, then lit his own
+cigarette. 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?"
+
+Verkan Vall's handsome features became even more immobile than usual
+as he mentally pronounced the verbal trigger symbols which should
+bring hypnotically-acquired knowledge into his conscious mind. Then he
+shook his head.
+
+"Must be a singularly well-behaved sector, sir," he said. "Or else
+we've been lucky, so far. I never was on an Akor-Neb operation; don't
+even have a hypno-mech for that sector. All I know is from general
+reading.
+
+"Like all the Second Level, its time-lines descend from the
+probability of one or more shiploads of colonists having come to Terra
+from Mars about seventy-five to a hundred thousand years ago, and then
+having been cut off from the home planet and forced to develop a
+civilization of their own here. The Akor-Neb civilization is of a
+fairly high culture-order, even for Second Level. An atomic-power,
+interplanetary culture; gravity-counteraction, direct conversion of
+nuclear energy to electrical power, that sort of thing. We buy fine
+synthetic plastics and fabrics from them." He fingered the material of
+his smartly-cut green police uniform. "I think this cloth is Akor-Neb.
+We sell a lot of Venusian _zerfa_-leaf; they smoke it, straight and
+mixed with tobacco. They have a single System-wide government, a
+single race, and a universal language. They're a dark-brown race,
+which evolved in its present form about fifty thousand years ago; the
+present civilization is about ten thousand years old, developed out of
+the wreckage of several earlier civilizations which decayed or fell
+through wars, exhaustion of resources, et cetera. They have legends,
+maybe historical records, of their extraterrestrial origin."
+
+Tortha Karf nodded. "Pretty good, for consciously acquired knowledge,"
+he commented. "Well, our luck's run out, on that sector; we have
+troubles there, now. I want you to go iron them out. I know, you've
+been going pretty hard, lately--that nighthound business, on the
+Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, wasn't any picnic. But the fact
+is that a lot of my ordinary and deputy assistants have a little too
+much regard for the alleged sanctity of human life, and this is
+something that may need some pretty drastic action."
+
+"Some of our people getting out of line?" Verkan Vall asked.
+
+"Well, the data isn't too complete, but one of our people has run into
+trouble on that sector, and needs rescuing--a psychic-science
+researcher, a young lady named Hadron Dalla. I believe you know her,
+don't you?" Tortha Karf asked innocently.
+
+"Slightly," Verkan Vall deadpanned. "I enjoyed a brief but rather
+hectic companionate-marriage with her, about twenty years ago. What
+sort of a jam's little Dalla got herself into, now?"
+
+"Well, frankly, we don't know. I hope she's still alive, but I'm not
+unduly optimistic. It seems that about a year ago, Dr. Hadron
+transposed to the Second Level, to study alleged proof of
+reincarnation which the Akor-Neb people were reported to possess. She
+went to Gindrabar, on Venus, and transposed to the Second Paratime
+Level, to a station maintained by Outtime Import & Export Trading
+Corporation--a _zerfa_ plantation just east of the High Ridge country.
+There she assumed an identity as the daughter of a planter, and took
+the name of Dallona of Hadron. Parenthetically, all Akor-Neb
+family-names are prepositional; family-names were originally place
+names. I believe that ancient Akor-Neb marital relations were too
+complicated to permit exact establishment of paternity. And all
+Akor-Neb men's personal names have -_irz_- or -_arn_- inserted in the
+middle, and women's names end in -_itra_- or -_ona_. You could call
+yourself Virzal of Verkan, for instance.
+
+"Anyhow, she made the Second Level Venus-Terra trip on a regular
+passenger liner, and landed at the Akor-Neb city of Ghamma, on the
+upper Nile. There she established contact with the Outtime Trading
+Corporation representative, Zortan Brend, locally known as Brarnend of
+Zorda. He couldn't call himself Brarnend of Zortan--in the Akor-Neb
+language, _zortan_ is a particularly nasty dirty-word. Hadron Dalla
+spent a few weeks at his residence, briefing herself on local
+conditions. Then she went to the capital city, Darsh, in eastern
+Europe, and enrolled as a student at something called the Independent
+Institute for Reincarnation Research, having secured a letter of
+introduction to its director, a Dr. Harnosh of Hosh.
+
+"Almost at once, she began sending in reports to her home
+organization, the Rhogom Memorial Foundation of Psychic Science, here
+at Dhergabar, through Zortan Brend. The people there were wildly
+enthusiastic. I don't have more than the average intelligent--I
+hope--layman's knowledge of psychics, but Dr. Volzar Darv, the
+director of Rhogom Foundation, tells me that even in the present
+incomplete form, her reports have opened whole new horizons in the
+science. It seems that these Akor-Neb people have actually
+demonstrated, as a scientific fact, that the human individuality
+reincarnates after physical death--that your personality, and mine,
+have existed, as such, for ages, and will exist for ages to come.
+More, they have means of recovering, from almost anybody, memories of
+past reincarnations.
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+"Well, after about a month, the people at this Reincarnation Institute
+realized that this Dallona of Hadron wasn't any ordinary student. She
+probably had trouble keeping down to the local level of psychic
+knowledge. So, as soon as she'd learned their techniques, she was
+allowed to undertake experimental work of her own. I imagine she let
+herself out on that; as soon as she'd mastered the standard Akor-Neb
+methods of recovering memories of past reincarnations, she began
+refining and developing them more than the local yokels had been able
+to do in the past thousand years. I can't tell you just what she did,
+because I don't know the subject, but she must have lit things up
+properly. She got quite a lot of local publicity; not only scientific
+journals, but general newscasts.
+
+"Then, four days ago, she disappeared, and her disappearance seems to
+have been coincident with an unsuccessful attempt on her life. We
+don't know as much about this as we should; all we have is Zortan
+Brend's account.
+
+"It seems that on the evening of her disappearance, she had been
+attending the voluntary discarnation feast--suicide party--of a
+prominent nobleman named Garnon of Roxor. Evidently when the Akor-Neb
+people get tired of their current reincarnation they invite in their
+friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere
+of general conviviality. Frequently they take poison or inhale lethal
+gas; this fellow had his personal trigger man shoot him through the
+head. Dalla was one of the guests of honor, along with this Harnosh of
+Hosh. They'd made rather elaborate preparations, and after the shooting
+they got a detailed and apparently authentic spirit-communication from
+the late Garnon. The voluntary discarnation was just a routine social
+event, it seems, but the communication caused quite an uproar, and rated
+top place on the System-wide newscasts, and started a storm of
+controversy.
+
+"After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating
+gun artist, one Dirzed, into her own service. This Dirzed was spoken
+of as a generally respected member of something called the Society of
+Assassins, and that'll give you an idea of what things are like on
+that sector, and why I don't want to send anybody who might develop
+trigger-finger cramp at the wrong moment. She and Dirzed left the home
+of the gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for
+Dalla's apartment, about a hundred miles away. That's the last that's
+been heard of either of them.
+
+"This attempt on Dalla's life occurred while the pre-mortem revels
+were still going on. She lived in a six-room apartment, with three
+servants, on one of the upper floors of a three-thousand-foot
+tower--Akor-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable
+interval between units--and while she was at this feast, a package was
+delivered at the apartment, ostensibly from the Reincarnation
+Institute and made up to look as though it contained record tapes. One
+of the servants accepted it from a service employee of the apartments.
+The next morning, a little before noon, Dr. Harnosh of Hosh called her
+on the visiphone and got no answer; he then called the apartment
+manager, who entered the apartment. He found all three of the servants
+dead, from a lethal-gas bomb which had exploded when one of them had
+opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the
+apartment, the night before."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless as he ran
+Tortha Karf's narrative through the intricate semantic and
+psychological processes of the First Level mentality. The fact that
+Hadron Dalla had been a former wife of his had been relegated to one
+corner of his consciousness and contained there; it was not a fact
+that would, at the moment, contribute to the problem or to his
+treatment of it.
+
+"The package was delivered while she was at this suicide party," he
+considered. "It must, therefore, have been sent by somebody who either
+did not know she would be out of the apartment, or who did not expect
+it to function until after her return. On the other hand, if her
+disappearance was due to hostile action, it was the work of somebody
+who knew she was at the feast and did not want her to reach her
+apartment again. This would seem to exclude the sender of the package
+bomb."
+
+Tortha Karf nodded. He had reached that conclusion, himself.
+
+"Thus," Verkan Vall continued, "if her disappearance was the work of
+an enemy, she must have two enemies, each working in ignorance of the
+other's plans."
+
+"What do you think she did to provoke such enmity?"
+
+"Well, of course, it just might be that Dalla's normally complicated
+love-life had got a little more complicated than usual and
+short-circuited on her," Verkan Vall said, out of the fullness of
+personal knowledge, "but I doubt that, at the moment. I would think
+that this affair has political implications."
+
+"So?" Tortha Karf had not thought of politics as an explanation. He
+waited for Verkan Vall to elaborate.
+
+"Don't you see, chief?" the special assistant asked. "We find a belief
+in reincarnation on many time-lines, as a religious doctrine, but
+these people accept it as a scientific fact. Such acceptance would
+carry much more conviction; it would influence a people's entire
+thinking. We see it reflected in their disregard for death--suicide as
+a social function, this Society of Assassins, and the like. It would
+naturally color their political thinking, because politics is nothing
+but common action to secure more favorable living conditions, and to
+these people, the term 'living conditions' includes not only the
+present life, but also an indefinite number of future lives as well. I
+find this title, 'Independent' Institute, suggestive. Independent of
+what? Possibly of partisan affiliation."
+
+"But wouldn't these people be grateful to her for her new discoveries,
+which would enable them to plan their future reincarnations more
+intelligently?" Tortha Karf asked.
+
+"Oh, chief!" Verkan Vall reproached. "You know better than that! How
+many times have our people got in trouble on other time-lines because
+they divulged some useful scientific fact that conflicted with the
+locally revered nonsense? You show me ten men who cherish some
+religious doctrine or political ideology, and I'll show you nine men
+whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which
+contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such
+evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. For instance, on
+the Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, where I was just working,
+there is a political sect, the Communists, who, in the territory under
+their control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established facts
+of genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit the
+world-picture demanded by their political doctrines. And on the same
+sector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sections
+successfully, to outlaw the teaching of evolution by natural
+selection."
+
+Tortha Karf nodded. "I remember some stories my grandfather told me,
+about his narrow escapes from an organization called the Holy
+Inquisition, when he was a paratime trader on the Fourth Level, about
+four hundred years ago. I believe that thing's still operating, on the
+Europo-American Sector, under the name of the NKVD. So you think Dalla
+may have proven something that conflicted with local reincarnation
+theories, and somebody who had a vested interest in maintaining those
+theories is trying to stop her?"
+
+"You spoke of a controversy over the communication alleged to have
+originated with this voluntarily discarnated nobleman. That would
+suggest a difference of opinion on the manner of nature of
+reincarnation or the discarnate state. This difference may mark the
+dividing line between the different political parties. Now, to get to
+this Darsh place, do I have to go to Venus, as Dalla did?"
+
+"No. The Outtime Trading Corporation has transposition facilities at
+Ravvanan, on the Nile, which is spatially co-existent with the city of
+Ghamma on the Akor-Neb Sector, where Zortan Brend is. You transpose
+through there, and Zortan Brend will furnish you transportation to
+Darsh. It'll take you about two days, here, getting your hypno-mech
+indoctrinations and having your skin pigmented, and your hair turned
+black. I'll notify Zortan Brend at once that you're coming through.
+Is there anything special you'll want?"
+
+"Why, I'll want an abstract of the reports Dalla sent back to Rhogom
+Foundation. It's likely that there is some clue among them as to whom
+her discoveries may have antagonized. I'm going to be a Venusian
+_zerfa_-planter, a friend of her father's; I'll want full hypno-mech
+indoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I'll want to
+familiarize myself with Akor-Neb weapons and combat techniques. I
+think that will be all, chief."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last of the tall city-units of Ghamma were sliding out of sight as
+the ship passed over them--shaft-like buildings that rose two or three
+thousand feet above the ground in clumps of three or four or six, one
+at each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Each
+of these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five miles
+square; no unit was much more or less than twenty miles from its
+nearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden-brown of
+ripening grain, crisscrossed with the threads of irrigation canals and
+dotted here and there with sturdy farm-village buildings and tall,
+stacklike granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at the
+fifty-thousand-foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats darted
+back and forth on different levels, depending upon speed and
+direction. Far ahead, to the northeast, was the shimmer of the Red Sea
+and the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond.
+
+Verkan Vall--the Lord Virzal of Verkan, temporarily--stood at the
+glass front of the observation deck, looking down. He was a different
+Verkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in the
+latter's office, two days before. The First Level cosmeticists had
+worked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a soft
+chocolate-brown, now; his hair was jet-black, and so were his eyes.
+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. A civilization
+which built its cities vertically, since it had learned to counteract
+gravitation. A civilization which still depended upon natural cereals
+for food, but one which had learned to make the most efficient use of
+its soil. The network of dams and irrigation canals which he saw was
+as good as anything on his own paratime level. The wide dispersal of
+buildings, he knew, was a heritage of a series of disastrous atomic
+wars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come to
+love the wide inter-vistas of open country and forest, and had
+continued to scatter their buildings, even after the necessity had
+passed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been reared
+by a people who had banished nationalism and, with it, the threat of
+total war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities of
+the Khiftan civilization, only a few thousand parayears distant.
+
+Three men came out of the lounge behind him and joined him. 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. Unlike Verkan
+Vall and Zortan Brend, who wore shoulder holsters under their short
+tunics, the Assassins openly displayed pistols and knives on their
+belts.
+
+"We heard that you were coming two days ago, Lord Virzal," Zortan
+Brend said. "We delayed the take-off of this ship, so that you could
+travel to Darsh as inconspicuously as possible. I also booked a suite
+for you at the Solar Hotel, at Darsh. And these are your
+Assassins--Olirzon, and Marnik."
+
+Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them.
+
+"Virzal of Verkan," he identified himself. "I am satisfied to intrust
+myself to you."
+
+"We'll do our best for you, Lord Virzal," the older of the pair,
+Olirzon, said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued: "Understand,
+Lord Virzal, I only ask for information useful in serving and
+protecting you. But is this of the Lady Dallona a political matter?"
+
+"Not from our side," Verkan Vall told him. "The Lady Dallona is a
+scientist, entirely nonpolitical. The Honorable Brarnend is a business
+man; he doesn't meddle with politics as long as the politicians leave
+him alone. And I'm a planter on Venus; I have enough troubles, with
+the natives, and the weather, and blue-rot in the _zerfa_ plants, and
+poison roaches, and javelin bugs, without getting into politics. But
+psychic science is inextricably mixed with politics, and the Lady
+Dallona's work had evidently tended to discredit the theory of
+Statistical Reincarnation."
+
+"Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Virzal?" Olirzon
+grinned. "In the last six months, she's knocked Statistical
+Reincarnation to splinters."
+
+"Well, I'm not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don't know much
+about Terran politics," Verkan Vall replied. "I know that the
+Statisticalists favor complete socialization and political control of
+the whole economy, because they want everybody to have the same
+opportunities in every reincarnation. And the Volitionalists believe
+that everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favor
+continuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth and
+private profit under a system of free competition. And that's about
+all I do know. Naturally, as a land-owner and the holder of a title of
+nobility, I'm a Volitionalist in politics, but the socialization
+issue isn't important on Venus. There is still too much unseated land
+there, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialism
+attractive to anybody."
+
+"Well, that's about it," Zortan Brend told him. "I'm not enough of a
+psychicist to know what the Lady Dallona's been doing, but she's
+knocked the theoretical basis from under Statistical Reincarnation,
+and that's the basis, in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we'll
+find that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whatever
+happened to her."
+
+Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, then
+addressed Verkan Vall:
+
+"Lord Virzal, I know none of the personalities involved in this
+matter, and I speak without wishing to give offense, but is it not
+possible that the Lady Dallona and the Assassin Dirzed may have gone
+somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and he has many
+qualities which women find attractive, and he is by no means
+indifferent to the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Virzal--"
+
+"I understand all too perfectly, Marnik," Verkan Vall replied, out of
+the fullness of experience. "The Lady Dallona has had affairs with a
+number of men, myself among them. But under the circumstances, I find
+that explanation unthinkable."
+
+Marnik looked at him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where
+an attractive man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that
+explanation was never unthinkable.
+
+"The Lady Dallona is a scientist," Verkan Vall elaborated. "She is not
+above diverting herself with love affairs, but that's all they are--a
+not too important form of diversion. And, if you recall, she had just
+participated in a most significant experiment: you can be sure that
+she had other things on her mind at the time than pleasure jaunts with
+good-looking Assassins."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ship was passing around the Caucasus Mountains, with the Caspian
+Sea in sight ahead, when several of the crew appeared on the
+observation deck and began preparing the shielding to protect the deck
+from gunfire. Zortan Brend inquired of the petty officer in charge of
+the work as to the necessity.
+
+"We've been getting reports of trouble at Darsh, sir," the man said.
+"Newscast bulletins every couple of minutes: rioting in different
+parts of the city. Started yesterday afternoon, when a couple of
+Statisticalist members of the Executive Council resigned and went over
+to the Volitionalists. Lord Nirzav of Shonna, the only nobleman of any
+importance in the Statisticalist Party, was one of them; he was shot
+immediately afterward, while leaving the Council Chambers, along with
+a couple of Assassins who were with him. Some people in an airboat
+sprayed them with a machine rifle as they came out onto the landing
+stage."
+
+The two Assassins exclaimed in horrified anger over this.
+
+"That wasn't the work of members of the Society of Assassins!" Olirzon
+declared. "Even after he'd resigned, the Lord Nirzav was still immune
+till he left the Government Building. There's too blasted much illegal
+assassination going on!"
+
+"What happened next?" Verkan Vall wanted to know.
+
+"About what you'd expect, sir. The Volitionalists weren't going to
+take that quietly. In the past eighteen hours, four prominent
+Statisticalists were forcibly discarnated, and there was even a fight
+in Mirzark of Bashad's house, when Volitionalist Assassins broke in;
+three of them and four of Mirzark's Assassins were discarnated."
+
+"You know, something is going to have to be done about that, too,"
+Olirzon said to Marnik. "It's getting to a point where these political
+faction fights are being carried on entirely between members of the
+Society. In Ghamma alone, last year, thirty or forty of our members
+were discarnated that way."
+
+"Plug in a newscast visiplate, Karnil," Zortan Brend told the petty
+officer. "Let's see what's going on in Darsh now."
+
+In Darsh, it seemed, an uneasy peace was being established. Verkan
+Vall watched heavily-armed airboats and light combat ships patrolling
+among the high towers of the city. He saw a couple of minor riots
+being broken up by the blue-uniformed Constabulary, with considerable
+shooting and a ruthless disregard for who might get shot. It wasn't
+exactly the sort of policing that would have been tolerated in the
+First Level Civil Order Section, but it seemed to suit Akor-Neb
+conditions. And he listened to a series of angry recriminations and
+contradictory statements by different politicians, all of whom blamed
+the disorders on their opponents. The Volitionalists spoke of the
+Statisticalists as "insane criminals" and "underminers of social
+stability," and the Statisticalists called the Volitionalists
+"reactionary criminals" and "enemies of social progress." Politicians,
+he had observed, differed little in their vocabularies from one
+time-line to another.
+
+This kept up all the while the ship was passing over the Caspian Sea;
+as they were turning up the Volga valley, one of the ship's officers
+came down from the control deck, above.
+
+"We're coming into Darsh, now," he said, and as Verkan Vall turned
+from the visiplate to the forward windows, he could see the white and
+pastel-tinted towers of the city rising above the hardwood forests
+that covered the whole Volga basin on this sector. "Your luggage has
+been put into the airboat, Lord Virzal and Honorable Assassins, and
+it's ready for launching whenever you are." The officer glanced at his
+watch. "We dock at Commercial Center in twenty minutes; we'll be
+passing the Solar Hotel in ten."
+
+They all rose, and Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders
+with Zortan Brend.
+
+"Good luck, Lord Virzal," the latter said. "I hope you find the Lady
+Dallona safe and carnate. If you need help, I'll be at Mercantile
+House for the next day or so; if you get back to Ghamma before I do,
+you know who to ask for there."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A number of assassins loitered in the hallways and offices of the
+Independent Institute of Reincarnation Research when Verkan Vall,
+accompanied by Marnik, called there that afternoon. Some of them
+carried submachine-guns or sleep-gas projectors, and they were
+stopping people and questioning them. Marnik needed only to give them
+a quick gesture and the words, "Assassins' Truce," and he and his
+client were allowed to pass. They entered a lifter tube and floated up
+to the office of Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, with whom Verkan Vall had made
+an appointment.
+
+"I'm sorry, Lord Virzal," the director of the Institute told him, "but
+I have no idea what has befallen the Lady Dallona, or even if she is
+still carnate. I am quite worried; I admired her extremely, both as an
+individual and as a scientist. I do hope she hasn't been discarnated;
+that would be a serious blow to science. It is fortunate that she
+accomplished as much as she did, while she was with us."
+
+"You think she is no longer carnate, then?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. The political effects of her discoveries--" Harnosh of
+Hosh shrugged sadly. "She was devoted, to a rare degree, to her work.
+I am sure that nothing but her discarnation could have taken her away
+from us, at this time, with so many important experiments still
+uncompleted."
+
+Marnik nodded to Verkan Vall, as much as to say: "You were right."
+
+"Well, I intend acting upon the assumption that she is still carnate
+and in need of help, until I am positive to the contrary," Verkan Vall
+said. "And in the latter case, I intend finding out who discarnated
+her, and send him to apologize for it in person. People don't forcibly
+discarnate my friends with impunity."
+
+"Sound attitude," Dr. Harnosh commented. "There's certainly no
+positive evidence that she isn't still carnate. I'll gladly give you
+all the assistance I can, if you'll only tell me what you want."
+
+"Well, in the first place," Verkan Vall began, "just what sort of work
+was she doing?" He already knew the answer to that, from the reports
+she had sent back to the First Level, but he wanted to hear Dr.
+Harnosh's version. "And what, exactly, are the political effects you
+mentioned? Understand, Dr. Harnosh, I am really quite ignorant of any
+scientific subject unrelated to _zerfa_ culture, and equally so of
+Terran politics. Politics, on Venus, is mainly a question of who gets
+how much graft out of what."
+
+Dr. Harnosh smiled; evidently he had heard about Venusian politics.
+"Ah, yes, of course. But you are familiar with the main differences
+between Statistical and Volitional reincarnation theories?"
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+"In a general way. The Volitionalists hold that the discarnate
+individuality is fully conscious, and is capable of something
+analogous to sense-perception, and is also capable of exercising
+choice in the matter of reincarnation vehicles, and can reincarnate or
+remain in the discarnate state as it chooses. They also believe that
+discarnate individualities can communicate with one another, and with
+at least some carnate individualities, by telepathy," he said. "The
+Statisticalists deny all this; their opinion is that the discarnate
+individuality is in a more or less somnambulistic state, that it is
+drawn by a process akin to tropism to the nearest available
+reincarnation vehicle, and that it must reincarnate in and only in
+that vehicle. They are labeled Statisticalists because they believe
+that the process of reincarnation is purely at random, or governed by
+unknown and uncontrollable causes, and is unpredictable except as to
+aggregates."
+
+"That's a fairly good generalized summary," Dr. Harnosh of Hosh
+grudged, unwilling to give a mere layman too much credit. He dipped a
+spoon into a tobacco humidor, dusted the tobacco lightly with dried
+_zerfa_, and rammed it into his pipe. "You must understand that our
+modern Statisticalists are the intellectual heirs of those ancient
+materialistic thinkers who denied the possibility of any discarnate
+existence, or of any extraphysical mind, or even of extrasensory
+perception. Since all these things have been demonstrated to be facts,
+the materialistic dogma has been broadened to include them, but always
+strictly within the frame of materialism.
+
+"We have proven, for instance, that the human individuality can exist
+in a discarnate state, and that it reincarnates into the body of an
+infant, shortly after birth. But the Statisticalists cannot accept the
+idea of discarnate consciousness, since they conceive of consciousness
+purely as a function of the physical brain. So they postulate an
+unconscious discarnate personality, or, as you put it, one in a
+somnambulistic state. They have to concede memory to this discarnate
+personality, since it was by recovery of memories of previous
+reincarnations that discarnate existence and reincarnation were proven
+to be facts. So they picture the discarnate individuality as a
+material object, or physical event, of negligible but actual mass, in
+which an indefinite number of memories can be stored as electronic
+charges. And they picture it as being drawn irresistibly to the body
+of the nearest non-incarnated infant. Curiously enough, the
+reincarnation vehicle chosen is almost always of the same sex as the
+vehicle of the previous reincarnation, the exceptions being cases of
+persons who had a previous history of psychological sex-inversion."
+
+Dr. Harnosh remembered the unlighted pipe in his hand, thrust it into
+his mouth, and lit it. For a moment, he sat with it jutting out of his
+black beard, until it was drawing to his satisfaction. "This belief in
+immediate reincarnation leads the Statisticalists, when they fight
+duels or perform voluntary discarnation, to do so in the neighborhood
+of maternity hospitals," he added. "I know, personally, of one
+reincarnation memory-recall, in which the subject, a Statisticalist,
+voluntarily discarnated by lethal-gas inhaler in a private room at one
+of our local maternity hospitals, and reincarnated twenty years later
+in the city of Jeddul, three thousand miles away." The square black
+beard jiggled as the scientist laughed.
+
+"Now, as to the political implications of these contradictory
+theories: Since the Statisticalists believe that they will reincarnate
+entirely at random, their aim is to create an utterly classless social
+and economic order, in which, theoretically, each individuality will
+reincarnate into a condition of equality with everybody else. Their
+political program, therefore, is one of complete socialization of all
+means of production and distribution, abolition of hereditary titles
+and inherited wealth--eventually, all private wealth--and total
+government control of all economic, social and cultural activities. Of
+course," Dr. Harnosh apologized, "politics isn't my subject; I
+wouldn't presume to judge how that would function in practice."
+
+"I would," Verkan Vall said shortly, thinking of all the different
+time-lines on which he had seen systems like that in operation. "You
+wouldn't like it, doctor. And the Volitionalists?"
+
+"Well, since they believe that they are able to choose the
+circumstances of their next reincarnations for themselves, they are
+the party of the _status quo_. Naturally, almost all the nobles,
+almost all the wealthy trading and manufacturing families, and almost
+all professional people, are Volitionalists; most of the workers and
+peasants are Statisticalists. Or, at least, they were, for the most
+part, before we began announcing the results of the Lady Dallona's
+experimental work."
+
+"Ah; now we come to it," Verkan Vall said as the story clarified.
+
+"Yes. In somewhat oversimplified form, the situation is rather like
+this," Dr. Harnosh of Hosh said. "The Lady Dallona introduced a number
+of refinements and some outright innovations into our technique of
+recovering memories of past reincarnations. Previously, it was
+necessary to keep the subject in an hypnotic trance, during which he
+or she would narrate what was remembered of past reincarnations, and
+this would be recorded. On emerging from the trance, the subject would
+remember nothing; the tape-recording would be all that would be left.
+But the Lady Dallona devised a technique by which these memories would
+remain in what might be called the fore part of the subject's
+subconscious mind, so that they could be brought to the level of
+consciousness at will. More, she was able to recover memories of past
+discarnate existences, something we had never been able to do
+heretofore." Dr. Harnosh shook his head. "And to think, when I first
+met her, I thought that she was just another sensation-seeking young
+lady of wealth, and was almost about to refuse her enrollment!"
+
+He wasn't the only one whom little Dalla had surprised, Verkan Vall
+thought. At least, he had been pleasantly surprised.
+
+"You see, this entirely disproves the Statistical Theory of
+Reincarnation. For example, we got a fine set of memory-recalls from one
+subject, for four previous reincarnations and four intercarnations. In
+the first of these, the subject had been a peasant on the estate of a
+wealthy noble. Unlike most of his fellows, who reincarnated into other
+peasant families almost immediately after discarnation, this man waited
+for fifty years in the discarnate state for an opportunity to
+reincarnate as the son of an over-servant. In his next reincarnation, he
+was the son of a technician, and received a technical education; he
+became a physics researcher. For his next reincarnation, he chose the
+son of a nobleman by a concubine as his vehicle; in his present
+reincarnation, he is a member of a wealthy manufacturing family, and
+married into a family of the nobility. In five reincarnations, he has
+climbed from the lowest to the next-to-highest rung of the social
+ladder. Few individuals of the class from whence he began this ascent
+possess so much persistence or determination. Then, of course, there was
+the case of Lord Garnon of Roxor."
+
+He went on to describe the last experiment in which Hadron Dalla had
+participated.
+
+"Well, that all sounds pretty conclusive," Verkan Vall commented. "I
+take it the leaders of the Volitionalist Party here are pleased with
+the result of the Lady Dallona's work?"
+
+"Pleased? My dear Lord Virzal, they're fairly bursting with glee over
+it!" Harnosh of Hosh declared. "As I pointed out, the Statisticalist
+program of socialization is based entirely on the proposition that no
+one can choose the circumstances of his next reincarnation, and that's
+been demonstrated to be utter nonsense. Until the Lady Dallona's
+discoveries were announced, they were the dominant party, controlling
+a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the Executive Council.
+Only the Constitution kept them from enacting their entire
+socialization program long ago, and they were about to legislate
+constitutional changes which would remove that barrier. They had
+expected to be able to do so after the forthcoming general elections.
+But now, social inequality has become desirable: it gives people
+something to look forward to in the next reincarnation. Instead of
+wanting to abolish wealth and privilege and nobility, the proletariat
+want to reincarnate into them." Harnosh of Hosh laughed happily. "So
+you can see how furious the Statisticalist Party organization is!"
+
+"There's a catch to this, somewhere," Marnik the Assassin, speaking
+for the first time, declared. "They can't all reincarnate as princes,
+there aren't enough vacancies to go 'round. And no noble is going to
+reincarnate as a tractor driver to make room for a tractor driver who
+wants to reincarnate as a noble."
+
+"That's correct," Dr. Harnosh replied. "There is a catch to it; a
+catch most people would never admit, even to themselves. Very few
+individuals possess the will power, the intelligence or the capacity
+for mental effort displayed by the subject of the case I just quoted.
+The average man's interests are almost entirely on the physical side;
+he actually finds mental effort painful, and makes as little of it as
+possible. And that is the only sort of effort a discarnate
+individuality can exert. So, unable to endure the fifty or so years
+needed to make a really good reincarnation, he reincarnates in a year
+or so, out of pure boredom, into the first vehicle he can find,
+usually one nobody else wants." Dr. Harnosh dug out the heel of his
+pipe and blew through the stem. "But nobody will admit his own mental
+inferiority, even to himself. Now, every machine operator and field
+hand on the planet thinks he can reincarnate as a prince or a
+millionaire. Politics isn't my subject, but I'm willing to bet that
+since Statistical Reincarnation is an exploded psychic theory,
+Statisticalist Socialism has been caught in the blast area and
+destroyed along with it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Olirzon was in the drawing room of the hotel suite when they returned,
+sitting on the middle of his spinal column in a reclining chair,
+smoking a pipe, dressing the edge of his knife with a pocket-hone, and
+gazing lecherously at a young woman in the visiplate. She was an
+extremely well-designed young woman, in a rather fragmentary costume,
+and she was heaving her bosom at the invisible audience in anger,
+sorrow, scorn, entreaty, and numerous other emotions.
+
+"... this revolting crime," she was declaiming, in a husky contralto,
+as Verkan Vall and Marnik entered, "foul even for the criminal beasts
+who conceived and perpetrated it!" She pointed an accusing finger.
+"This murder of the beautiful Lady Dallona of Hadron!"
+
+Verkan Vall stopped short, considering the possibility of something
+having been discovered lately of which he was ignorant. Olirzon must
+have guessed his thought; he grinned reassuringly.
+
+"Think nothing of it, Lord Virzal," he said, waving his knife at the
+visiplate. "Just political propaganda; strictly for the sparrows. Nice
+propagandist, though."
+
+"And now," the woman with the magnificent natural resources lowered
+her voice reverently, "we bring you the last image of the Lady
+Dallona, and of Dirzed, her faithful Assassin, taken just before they
+vanished, never to be seen again."
+
+The plate darkened, and there were strains of slow, dirgelike music;
+then it lighted again, presenting a view of a broad hallway, thronged
+with men and women in bright varicolored costumes. In the foreground,
+wearing a tight skirt of deep blue and a short red jacket, was Hadron
+Dalla, just as she had looked in the solidographs taken in Dhergabar
+after her alteration by the First Level cosmeticians to conform to the
+appearance of the Malayoid Akor-Neb people. She was holding the arm of
+a man who wore the black tunic and red badge of an Assassin, a
+handsome specimen of the Akor-Neb race. Trust little Dalla for that,
+Verkan Vall thought. The figures were moving with exaggerated
+slowness, as though a very fleeting picture were being stretched out
+as far as possible. Having already memorized his former wife's changed
+appearance, Verkan Vall concentrated on the man beside her until the
+picture faded.
+
+"All right, Olirzon; what did you get?" he asked.
+
+"Well, first of all, at Assassins' Hall," Olirzon said, rolling up his
+left sleeve, holding his bare forearm to the light, and shaving a few
+fine hairs from it to test the edge of his knife. "Of course, they
+never tell one Assassin anything about the client of another Assassin;
+that's standard practice. But I was in the Lodge Secretary's office,
+where nobody but Assassins are ever admitted. They have a big panel in
+there, with the names of all the Lodge members on it in light-letters;
+that's standard in all Lodges. If an Assassin is unattached and free
+to accept a client, his name's in white light. If he has a client, the
+light's changed to blue, and the name of the client goes up under his.
+If his whereabouts are unknown, the light's changed to amber. If he is
+discarnated, his name's removed entirely, unless the circumstances of
+his discarnation are such as to constitute an injury to the Society.
+In that case, the name's in red light until he's been properly
+avenged, or, as we say, till his blood's been mopped up. Well, the
+name of Dirzed is up in blue light, with the name of Dallona of Hadron
+under it. I found out that the light had been amber for two days after
+the disappearance, and then had been changed back to blue. Get it,
+Lord Virzal?"
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. "I think so. I'd been considering that as a
+possibility from the first. Then what?"
+
+"Then I was about and around for a couple of hours, buying drinks for
+people--unattached Assassins, Constabulary detectives, political
+workers, newscast people. You owe me fifteen System Monetary Units for
+that, Lord Virzal. What I got, when it's all sorted out--I taped it in
+detail, as soon as I got back--reduces to this: The Volitionalists are
+moving mountains to find out who was the spy at Garnon of Roxor's
+discarnation feast, but are doing nothing but nothing at all to find
+the Lady Dallona or Dirzed. The Statisticalists are making all sorts
+of secret efforts to find out what happened to her. The Constabulary
+blame the Statistos for the package-bomb: they're interested in that
+because of the discarnation of the three servants by an illegal weapon
+of indiscriminate effect. They claim that the disappearance of Dirzed
+and the Lady Dallona was a publicity hoax. The Volitionalists are
+preparing a line of publicity to deny this."
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. "That ties in with what you learned at Assassins'
+Hall," he said. "They're hiding out somewhere. Is there any chance of
+reaching Dirzed through the Society of Assassins?"
+
+Olirzon shook his head. "If you're right--and that's the way it looks
+to me, too--he's probably just called in and notified the Society that
+he's still carnate and so is the Lady Dallona, and called off any
+search the Society might be making for him."
+
+"And I've got to find the Lady Dallona as soon as I can. Well, if I
+can't reach her, maybe I can get her to send word to me," Verkan Vall
+said. "That's going to take some doing, too."
+
+"What did you find out, Lord Virzal?" Olirzon asked. He had a piece of
+soft leather, now, and was polishing his blade lovingly.
+
+"The Reincarnation Research people don't know anything," Verkan Vall
+replied. "Dr. Harnosh of Hosh thinks she's discarnate. I did find out
+that the experimental work she's done, so far, has absolutely
+disproved the theory of Statistical Reincarnation. The Volitionalists'
+theory is solidly established."
+
+"Yes, what do you think, Olirzon?" Marnik added. "They have a case on
+record of a man who worked up from field hand to millionaire in five
+reincarnations. Deliberately, that is." He went on to repeat what
+Harnosh of Hosh had said; he must have possessed an almost eidetic
+memory, for he gave the bearded psychicist's words verbatim, and threw
+in the gestures and voice-inflections.
+
+Olirzon grinned. "You know, there's a chance for the easy-money boys,"
+he considered. "'You, too, can Reincarnate as a millionaire! Let Dr.
+Nirzutz of Futzbutz Help You! Only 49.98 System Monetary Units for the
+Secret, Infallible, Autosuggestive Formula.' And would it sell!" He
+put away the hone and the bit of leather and slipped his knife back
+into its sheath. "If I weren't a respectable Assassin, I'd give it a
+try, myself."
+
+Verkan Vall looked at his watch. "We'd better get something to eat,"
+he said. "We'll go down to the main dining room; the Martian Room, I
+think they call it. I've got to think of some way to let the Lady
+Dallona know I'm looking for her."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Martian Room, fifteen stories down, was a big place, occupying
+almost half of the floor space of one corner tower. It had been fitted
+to resemble one of the ruined buildings of the ancient and vanished
+race of Mars who were the ancestors of Terran humanity. One whole side
+of the room was a gigantic cine-solidograph screen, on which the
+gullied desolation of a Martian landscape was projected; in the course
+of about two hours, the scene changed from sunrise through daylight
+and night to sunrise again.
+
+It was high noon when they entered and found a table; by the time they
+had finished their dinner, the night was ending and the first glow of
+dawn was tinting the distant hills. They sat for a while, watching the
+light grow stronger, then got up and left the table.
+
+There were five men at a table near them; they had come in before the
+stars had grown dim, and the waiters were just bringing their first
+dishes. Two were Assassins, and the other three were of a breed Verkan
+Vall had learned to recognize on any time-line--the arrogant,
+cocksure, ambitious, leftist politician, who knows what is best for
+everybody better than anybody else does, and who is convinced that he
+is inescapably right and that whoever differs with him is not only an
+ignoramus but a venal scoundrel as well. 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.
+
+"Of course it is; the whole thing is a fraud," the monkish young man
+was saying angrily. "But we can't prove it."
+
+"Oh, Sirzob, here, can prove anything, if you give him time," the
+beefy one laughed. "The trouble is, there isn't too much time. We know
+that that communication was a fake, prearranged by the Volitionalists,
+with Dr. Harnosh and this Dallona of Hadron as their tools. They fed
+the whole thing to that idiot boy hypnotically, in advance, and then,
+on a signal, he began typing out this spurious communication. And
+then, of course, Dallona and this Assassin of hers ran off somewhere
+together, so that we'd be blamed with discarnating or abducting them,
+and so that they wouldn't be made to testify about the communication
+on a lie detector."
+
+A sudden happy smile touched Verkan Vall's eyes. He caught each of his
+Assassins by an arm.
+
+"Marnik, cover my back," he ordered. "Olirzon, cover everybody at the
+table. Come on!"
+
+Then he stepped forward, halting between the chairs of the young man
+and the man with the gray hair and facing the beefy man in the light
+tunic.
+
+"You!" he barked. "I mean YOU."
+
+The beefy man stopped laughing and stared at him; then sprang to his
+feet. His hand, streaking toward his left armpit, stopped and dropped
+to his side as Olirzon aimed a pistol at him. The others sat
+motionless.
+
+"You," Verkan Vall continued, "are a complete, deliberate, malicious,
+and unmitigated liar. The Lady Dallona of Hadron is a scientist of
+integrity, incapable of falsifying her experimental work. What's more,
+her father is one of my best friends; in his name, and in hers, I
+demand a full retraction of the slanderous statements you have just
+made."
+
+"Do you know who I am?" the beefy one shouted.
+
+"I know _what_ you are," Verkan Vall shouted back. Like most ancient
+languages, the Akor-Neb speech included an elaborate, delicately-shaded,
+and utterly vile vocabulary of abuse; Verkan Vall culled from it
+judiciously and at length. "And if I don't make myself understood verbally,
+we'll go down to the object level," he added, snatching a bowl of soup from
+in front of the monkish-looking young man and throwing it across the table.
+
+The soup was a dark brown, almost black. It contained bits of meat,
+and mushrooms, and slices of hard-boiled egg, and yellow Martian rock
+lichen. It produced, on the light tunic, a most spectacular effect.
+
+For a moment, Verkan Vall was afraid the fellow would have an
+apoplectic stroke, or an epileptic fit. Mastering himself, however, he
+bowed jerkily.
+
+"Marnark of Bashad," he identified himself. "When and where can my
+friends consult yours?"
+
+"Lord Virzal of Verkan," the paratimer bowed back. "Your friends can
+negotiate with mine here and now. I am represented by these
+Gentlemen-Assassins."
+
+"I won't submit my friends to the indignity of negotiating with them,"
+Marnark retorted. "I insist that you be represented by persons of your
+own quality and mine."
+
+"Oh, you do?" Olirzon broke in. "Well, is your objection personal to
+me, or to Assassins as a class? In the first case, I'll remember to
+make a private project of you, as soon as I'm through with my present
+employment; if it's the latter, I'll report your attitude to the
+Society. I'll see what Klarnood, our President-General, thinks of your
+views."
+
+A crowd had begun to accumulate around the table. Some of them were
+persons in evening dress, some were Assassins on the hotel payroll,
+and some were unattached Assassins.
+
+"Well, you won't have far to look for him," one of the latter said,
+pushing through the crowd to the table.
+
+He was a man of middle age, inclined to stoutness; he made Verkan Vall
+think of a chocolate figure of Tortha Karf. The red badge on his
+breast was surrounded with gold lace, and, instead of black wings and
+a silver bullet, it bore silver wings and a golden dagger. He bowed
+contemptuously at Marnark of Bashad.
+
+"Klarnood, President-General of the Society of Assassins," he
+announced. "Marnark of Bashad, did I hear you say that you considered
+members of the Society as unworthy to negotiate an affair of honor
+with your friends, on behalf of this nobleman who has been courteous
+enough to accept your challenge?" he demanded.
+
+Marnark of Bashad's arrogance suffered considerable evaporation-loss.
+His tone became almost servile.
+
+"Not at all, Honorable Assassin-President," he protested. "But as I
+was going to ask these gentlemen to represent me, I thought it would
+be more fitting for the other gentleman to be represented by personal
+friends, also. In that way--"
+
+"Sorry, Marnark," the gray-haired man at the table said. "I can't
+second you; I have a quarrel with the Lord Virzal, too." He rose and
+bowed. "Sirzob of Abo. Inasmuch as the Honorable Marnark is a guest at
+my table, an affront to him is an affront to me. In my quality as his
+host, I must demand satisfaction from you, Lord Virzal."
+
+"Why, gladly, Honorable Sirzob," Verkan Vall replied. This was getting
+better and better every moment. "Of course, your friend, the Honorable
+Marnark, enjoys priority of challenge; I'll take care of you as soon
+as I have, shall we say, satisfied, him."
+
+The earnest and rather consecrated-looking young man rose also, bowing
+to Verkan Vall.
+
+"Yirzol of Narva. I, too, have a quarrel with you, Lord Virzal; I
+cannot submit to the indignity of having my food snatched from in
+front of me, as you just did. I also demand satisfaction."
+
+"And quite rightly, Honorable Yirzol," Verkan Vall approved. "It looks
+like such good soup, too," he sorrowed, inspecting the front of
+Marnark's tunic. "My seconds will negotiate with yours immediately;
+your satisfaction, of course, must come after that of Honorable
+Sirzob."
+
+"If I may intrude," Klarnood put in smoothly, "may I suggest that as
+the Lord Virzal is represented by his Assassins, yours can represent
+all three of you at the same time. I will gladly offer my own good
+offices as impartial supervisor."
+
+Verkan Vall turned and bowed as to royalty. "An honor,
+Assassin-President: I am sure no one could act in that capacity more
+satisfactorily."
+
+"Well, when would it be most convenient to arrange the details?"
+Klarnood inquired. "I am completely at your disposal, gentlemen."
+
+"Why, here and now, while we're all together," Verkan Vall replied.
+
+"I object to that!" Marnark of Bashad vociferated. "We can't make
+arrangements here; why, all these hotel people, from the manager down,
+are nothing but tipsters for the newscast services!"
+
+"Well, what's wrong with that?" Verkan Vall demanded. "You knew that
+when you slandered the Lady Dallona in their hearing."
+
+"The Lord Virzal of Verkan is correct," Klarnood ruled. "And the
+offenses for which you have challenged him were also committed in
+public. By all means, let's discuss the arrangements now." He turned
+to Verkan Vall. "As the challenged party, you have the choice of
+weapons; your opponents, then, have the right to name the conditions
+under which they are to be used."
+
+Marnark of Bashad raised another outcry over that. The assault upon
+him by the Lord Virzal of Verkan was deliberately provocative, and
+therefore tantamount to a challenge; he, himself, had the right to
+name the weapons. Klarnood upheld him.
+
+"Do the other gentlemen make the same claim?" Verkan Vall wanted to
+know.
+
+"If they do, I won't allow it," Klarnood replied. "You deliberately
+provoked Honorable Marnark, but the offenses of provoking him at
+Honorable Sirzob's table, and of throwing Honorable Yirzol's soup at
+him, were not given with intent to provoke. These gentlemen have a
+right to challenge, but not to consider themselves provoked."
+
+"Well, I choose knives, then," Marnark hastened to say.
+
+Verkan Vall smiled thinly. He had learned knife-play among the
+greatest masters of that art in all paratime, the Third Level Khanga
+pirates of the Caribbean Islands.
+
+"And we fight barefoot, stripped to the waist, and without any
+parrying weapon in the left hand," Verkan Vall stipulated.
+
+The beefy Marnark fairly licked his chops in anticipation. He
+outweighed Verkan Vall by forty pounds; he saw an easy victory ahead.
+Verkan Vall's own confidence increased at these signs of his
+opponent's assurance.
+
+"And as for Honorable Sirzob and Honorable Yirzol, I chose pistols,"
+he added.
+
+Sirzob and Yirzol held a hasty whispered conference.
+
+"Speaking both for Honorable Yirzol and for myself," Sirzob announced,
+"we stipulate that the distance shall be twenty meters, that the
+pistols shall be fully loaded, and that fire shall be at will after
+the command."
+
+"Twenty rounds, fire at will, at twenty meters!" Olirzon hooted. "You
+must think our principal's as bad a shot as you are!"
+
+The four Assassins stepped aside and held a long discussion about
+something, with considerable argument and gesticulation. Klarnood,
+observing Verkan Vall's impatience, leaned close to him and whispered:
+
+"This is highly irregular; we must pretend ignorance and be patient.
+They're laying bets on the outcome. You must do your best, Lord
+Virzal; you don't want your supporters to lose money."
+
+He said it quite seriously, as though the outcome were otherwise a
+matter of indifference to Verkan Vall.
+
+Marnark wanted to discuss time and place, and proposed that all three
+duels be fought at dawn, on the fourth landing stage of Darsh Central
+Hospital; that was closest to the maternity wards, and statistics
+showed that most births occurred just before that hour.
+
+"Certainly not," Verkan Vall vetoed. "We'll fight here and now; I
+don't propose going a couple of hundred miles to meet you at any such
+unholy hour. We'll fight in the nearest hallway that provides twenty
+meters' shooting distance."
+
+Marnark, Sirzob and Yirzol all clamored in protest. Verkan Vall
+shouted them down, drawing on his hypnotically acquired knowledge of
+Akor-Neb duelling customs. "The code explicitly states that
+satisfaction shall be rendered as promptly as possible, and I insist
+on a literal interpretation. I'm not going to inconvenience myself and
+Assassin-President Klarnood and these four Gentlemen-Assassins just to
+humor Statisticalist superstitions."
+
+The manager of the hotel, drawn to the Martian Room by the uproar,
+offered a hallway connecting the kitchens with the refrigerator rooms;
+it was fifty meters long by five in width, was well-lighted and
+soundproof, and had a bay in which the seconds and other could stand
+during the firing.
+
+They repaired thither in a body, Klarnood gathering up several hotel
+servants on the way through the kitchen. Verkan Vall stripped to the
+waist, pulled off his ankle boots, and examined Olirzon's knife. Its
+tapering eight-inch blade was double-edged at the point, and its
+handle was covered with black velvet to afford a good grip, and wound
+with gold wire. He nodded approvingly, gripped it with his index
+finger crooked around the cross-guard, and advanced to meet Marnark of
+Bashad.
+
+As he had expected, the burly politician was depending upon his
+greater brawn to overpower his antagonist. He advanced with a sidling,
+spread-legged gait, his knife hand against his right hip and his left
+hand extended in front. Verkan Vall nodded with pleased satisfaction;
+a wrist-grabber. Then he blinked. Why, the fellow was actually holding
+his knife reversed, his little finger to the guard and his thumb on
+the pommel!
+
+Verkan Vall went briskly to meet him, made a feint at his knife hand
+with his own left, and then side-stepped quickly to the right. As
+Marnark's left hand grabbed at his right wrist, his left hand brushed
+against it and closed into a fist, with Marnark's left thumb inside of
+it, He gave a quick downward twist with his wrist, pulling Marnark off
+balance.
+
+Caught by surprise, Marnark stumbled, his knife flailing wildly away
+from Verkan Vall. As he stumbled forward, Verkan Vall pivoted on his
+left heel and drove the point of his knife into the back of Marnark's
+neck, twisting it as he jerked it free. At the same time, he released
+Marnark's thumb. The politician continued his stumble and fell forward
+on his face, blood spurting from his neck. He gave a twitch or so, and
+was still.
+
+Verkan Vall stooped and wiped the knife on the dead man's
+clothes--another Khanga pirate gesture--and then returned it to
+Olirzon.
+
+"Nice weapon, Olirzon," he said. "It fitted my hand as though I'd been
+born holding it."
+
+"You used it as though you had, Lord Virzal," the Assassin replied.
+"Only eight seconds from the time you closed with him."
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+The function of the hotel servants whom Klarnood had gathered up now
+became apparent; they advanced, took the body of Marnark by the
+heels, and dragged it out of the way. The others watched this removal
+with mixed emotions. The two remaining principals were impassive and
+frozen-faced. Their two Assassins, who had probably bet heavily on
+Marnark, were chagrined. And Klarnood was looking at Verkan Vall with
+a considerable accretion of respect. Verkan Vall pulled on his boots
+and resumed his clothing.
+
+There followed some argument about the pistols; it was finally decided
+that each combatant should use his own shoulder-holster weapon. All
+three were nearly enough alike--small weapons, rather heavier than
+they looked, firing a tiny ten-grain bullet at ten thousand
+foot-seconds. On impact, such a bullet would almost disintegrate; a
+man hit anywhere in the body with one would be killed instantly, his
+nervous system paralyzed and his heart stopped by internal pressure.
+Each of the pistols carried twenty rounds in the magazine.
+
+Verkan Vall and Sirzob of Abo took their places, their pistols lowered
+at their sides, facing each other across a measured twenty meters.
+
+"Are you ready, gentlemen?" Klarnood asked. "You will not raise your
+pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at will after it.
+Ready. _Fire!_"
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+Both pistols swung up to level. Verkan Vall found Sirzob's head in his
+sights and squeezed; the pistol kicked back in his hand, and he saw a
+lance of blue flame jump from the muzzle of Sirzob's. Both weapons
+barked together, and with the double report came the whip-cracking
+sound of Sirzob's bullet passing Verkan Vall's head. Then Sirzob's
+face altered its appearance unpleasantly, and he pitched forward.
+Verkan Vall thumbed on his safety and stood motionless, while the
+servants advanced, took Sirzob's body by the heels, and dragged it
+over beside Marnark's.
+
+"All right; Honorable Yirzol, you're next," Verkan Vall called out.
+
+"The Lord Virzal has fired one shot," one of the opposing seconds
+objected, "and Honorable Yirzol has a full magazine. The Lord Virzal
+should put in another magazine."
+
+"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. But he was
+beginning to suspect that he had made a fool of himself by getting
+into this affair, he had work in his present reincarnation which he
+wanted to finish, and his political party would suffer loss, both of
+his services and of prestige.
+
+"Are you ready, gentlemen?" Klarnood intoned ritualistically. "You
+will not raise your pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at
+will after it. Ready, _Fire!_"
+
+Verkan Vall shot Yirzol of Narva through the head before the latter
+had his pistol half raised. Yirzol fell forward on the splash of blood
+Sirzob had made, and the servants came forward and dragged his body
+over with the others. It reminded Verkan Vail of some sort of
+industrial assembly-line operation. He replaced the two expended
+rounds in his magazine with fresh ones and slid the pistol back into
+its holster. The two Assassins whose principals had been so
+expeditiously massacred were beginning to count up their losses and
+pay off the winners.
+
+Klarnood, the President-General of the Society of Assassins, came
+over, hooking fingers and clapping shoulders with Verkan Vall.
+
+"Lord Virzal, I've seen quite a few duels, but nothing quite like
+that," he said. "You should have been an Assassin!"
+
+That was a considerable compliment. Verkan Vall thanked him modestly.
+
+"I'd like to talk to you privately," the Assassin-President continued.
+"I think it'll be worth your while if we have a few words together."
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. "My suite is on the fifteenth floor above; will
+that be all right?" He waited until the losers had finished settling
+their bets, then motioned to his own pair of Assassins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they emerged into the Martian Room again, the manager was waiting;
+he looked as though he were about to demand that Verkan Vall vacate
+his suite. However, when he saw the arm of the President-General of
+the Society of Assassins draped amicably over his guest's shoulder, he
+came forward bowing and smiling.
+
+"Larnorm, I want you to put five of your best Assassins to guarding
+the approaches to the Lord Virzal's suite," Klarnood told him. "I'll
+send five more from Assassins' Hall to replace them at their ordinary
+duties. And I'll hold you responsible with your carnate existence for
+the Lord Virzal's safety in this hotel. Understand?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Honorable Assassin-President; you may trust me. The Lord
+Virzal will be perfectly safe."
+
+In Verkan Vall's suite, above, Klarnood sat down and got out his pipe,
+filling it with tobacco lightly mixed with _zerfa_. To his surprise,
+he saw his host light a plain tobacco cigarette.
+
+"Don't you use _zerfa_?" he asked.
+
+"Very little," Verkan Vall replied. "I grow it. If you'd see the bums
+who hang around our drying sheds, on Venus, cadging rejected leaves
+and smoking themselves into a stupor, you'd be frugal in using it,
+too."
+
+Klarnood nodded. "You know, most men would want a pipe of fifty
+percent, or a straight _zerfa_ cigarette, after what you've been
+through," he said.
+
+"I'd need something like that, to deaden my conscience, if I had one
+to deaden," Verkan Vall said. "As it is, I feel like a murderer of
+babes. That overgrown fool, Marnark, handled his knife like a
+cow-butcher. The young fellow couldn't handle a pistol at all. I
+suppose the old fellow, Sirzob, was a fair shot, but dropping him
+wasn't any great feat of arms, either."
+
+Klarnood looked at him curiously for a moment. "You know," he said, at
+length, "I believe you actually mean that. Well, until he met you,
+Marnark of Bashad was rated as the best knife-fighter in Darsh. Sirzob
+had ten dueling victories to his credit, and young Yirzol four." He
+puffed slowly on his pipe. "I like you, Lord Virzal; a great Assassin
+was lost when you decided to reincarnate as a Venusian land-owner. I'd
+hate to see you discarnated without proper warning. I take it you're
+ignorant of the intricacies of Terran politics?"
+
+"To a large extent, yes."
+
+"Well, do you know who those three men were?" When Verkan Vall shook
+his head, Klarnood continued: "Marnark was the son and right-hand
+associate of old Mirzark of Bashad, the Statisticalist Party leader.
+Sirzob of Abo was their propaganda director. And Yirzol of Narva was
+their leading socio-economic theorist, and their candidate for
+Executive Chairman. In six minutes, with one knife thrust and two
+shots, you did the Statisticalist Party an injury second only to that
+done them by the young lady in whose name you were fighting. In two
+weeks, there will be a planet-wide general election. As it stands, the
+Statisticalists have a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the
+Executive Council. As a result of your work and the Lady Dallona's,
+they'll lose that majority, and more, when the votes are tallied."
+
+"Is that another reason why you like me?" Verkan Vall asked.
+
+"Unofficially, yes. As President-General of the Society of Assassins,
+I must be nonpolitical. The Society is rigidly so; if we let ourselves
+become involved, as an organization, in politics, we could control the
+System Government inside of five years, and we'd be wiped out of
+existence in fifty years by the very forces we sought to control,"
+Klarnood said. "But personally, I would like to see the Statisticalist
+Party destroyed. If they succeed in their program of socialization,
+the Society would be finished. A socialist state is, in its final
+development, an absolute, total, state; no total state can tolerate
+extra-legal and para-governmental organizations. So we have adopted
+the policy of giving a little inconspicuous aid, here and there, to
+people who are dangerous to the Statisticalists. The Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, are such persons. You appear to be
+another. That's why I ordered that fellow, Larnorm, to make sure you
+were safe in his hotel."
+
+"Where is the Lady Dallona?" Verkan Vall asked. "From your use of the
+present tense, I assume you believe her to be still carnate."
+
+Klarnood looked at Verkan Vall keenly. "That's a pretty blunt
+question, Lord Virzal," he said. "I wish I knew a little more about
+you. When you and your Assassins started inquiring about the Lady
+Dallona, I tried to check up on you. I found out that you had come to
+Darsh from Ghamma on a ship of the family of Zorda, accompanied by
+Brarnend of Zorda himself. And that's all I could find out. You claim
+to be a Venusian planter, and you might be. Any Terran who can handle
+weapons as you can would have come to my notice long ago. But you have
+no more ascertainable history than if you'd stepped out of another
+dimension."
+
+That was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. In fact, it _was_
+the truth. Verkan Vall laughed.
+
+"Well, confidentially," he said, "I'm from the Arcturus System. I
+followed the Lady Dallona here from our home planet, and when I have
+rescued her from among you Solarians, I shall, according to our
+customs, receive her hand in marriage. As she is the daughter of the
+Emperor of Arcturus, that'll be quite a good thing for me."
+
+Klarnood chuckled. "You know, you'd only have to tell me that about
+three or four times and I'd start believing it," he said. "And Dr.
+Harnosh of Hosh would believe it the first time; he's been talking to
+himself ever since the Lady Dallona started her experimental work
+here. Lord Virzal, I'm going to take a chance on you. The Lady Dallona
+is still carnate, or was four days ago, and the same for Dirzed. They
+both went into hiding after the discarnation feast of Garnon of Roxor,
+to escape the enmity of the Statisticalists. Two days after they
+disappeared, Dirzed called Assassins' Hall and reported this, but told
+us nothing more. I suppose, in about three or four days, I could
+re-establish contact with him. We want the public to think that the
+Statisticalists made away with the Lady Dallona, at least until the
+election's over."
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. "I was pretty sure that was the situation," he
+said. "It may be that they will get in touch with me; if they don't,
+I'll need your help in reaching them."
+
+"Why do you think the Lady Dallona will try to reach you?"
+
+"She needs all the help she can get. She knows she can get plenty from
+me. Why do you think I interrupted my search for her, and risked my
+carnate existence, to fight those people over a matter of verbalisms
+and political propaganda?" Verkan Vall went to the newscast visiplate
+and snapped it on. "We'll see if I'm getting results, yet."
+
+The plate lighted, and a handsome young man in a gold-laced green suit
+was speaking out of it:
+
+"... where he is heavily guarded by Assassins. However, in an
+exclusive interview with representatives of this service, the Assassin
+Hirzif, one of the two who seconded the men the Lord Virzal fought,
+said that in his opinion all of the three were so outclassed as to
+have had no chance whatever, and that he had already refused an offer
+of ten thousand System Monetary Units to discarnate the Lord Virzal
+for the Statisticalist Party. 'When I want to discarnate,' Hirzif the
+Assassin said, 'I'll invite in my friends and do it properly; until I
+do, I wouldn't go up against the Lord Virzal of Verkan for ten million
+S.M.U.'"
+
+Verkan Vall snapped off the visiplate. "See what I mean?" he asked. "I
+fought those politicians just for the advertising. If Dallona and
+Dirzed are anywhere near a visiplate, they'll know how to reach me."
+
+"Hirzif shouldn't have talked about refusing that retainer," Klarnood
+frowned. "That isn't good Assassin ethics. Why, yes, Lord Virzal; that
+was cleverly planned. It ought to get results. But I wish you'd get
+the Lady Dallona out of Darsh, and preferably off Terra, as soon as
+you can. We've benefited by this, so far, but I shouldn't like to see
+things go much further. A real civil war could develop out of this
+situation, and I don't want that. Call on me for help; I'll give you a
+code word to use at Assassins' Hall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A real civil war was developing even as Klarnood spoke; by mid-morning
+of the next day, the fighting that had been partially suppressed by
+the Constabulary had broken out anew. The Assassins employed by the
+Solar Hotel--heavily re-enforced during the night--had fought a
+pitched battle with Statisticalist partisans on the landing-stage
+above Verkan Vall's suite, and now several Constabulary airboats were
+patrolling around the building. The rule on Constabulary interference
+seemed to be that while individuals had an unquestionable right to
+shoot out their differences among themselves, any fighting likely to
+endanger nonparticipants was taboo.
+
+Just how successful in enforcing this rule the Constabulary were was
+open to some doubt. Ever since arising, Verkan Vall had heard the
+crash of small arms and the hammering of automatic weapons in other
+parts of the towering city-unit. There hadn't been a civil war on the
+Akor-Neb Sector for over five centuries, he knew, but then, Hadron
+Dalla, Doctor of Psychic Science, and intertemporal trouble-carrier
+extraordinary, had only been on this sector for a little under a year.
+If anything, he was surprised that the explosion had taken so long to
+occur.
+
+One of the servants furnished to him by the hotel management
+approached him in the drawing room, holding a four-inch-square wafer
+of white plastic.
+
+"Lord Virzal, there is a masked Assassin in the hallway who brought
+this under Assassins' Truce," he said.
+
+Verkan Vall took the wafer and pared off three of the four edges,
+which showed black where they had been fused. Unfolding it, he found,
+as he had expected, that the pyrographed message within was in the
+alphabet and language of the First Paratime Level:
+
+    Vall, darling:
+
+    Am I glad you got here; this time I really _am_ in the
+    middle, but good! The Assassin, Dirzed, who brings this, is
+    in my service. You can trust him implicitly; he's about the
+    only person in Darsh you can trust. He'll bring you to where I
+    am.
+
+                                                        Dalla
+
+    P.S. I hope you're not still angry about that musician. I
+    told you, at the time, that he was just helping me with an
+    experiment in telepathy.
+
+                                                        D.
+
+Verkan Vall grinned at the postscript. That had been twenty years ago,
+when he'd been eighty and she'd been seventy. He supposed she'd expect
+him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably
+wouldn't last any longer than it had, the other time; he recalled a
+Fourth Level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly
+wouldn't be boring, though.
+
+"Tell the Assassin to come in," he directed. Then he tossed the
+message down on a table. Outside of himself, nobody in Darsh could
+read it but the woman who had sent it; if, as he thought highly
+probable, the Statisticalists had spies among the hotel staff, it
+might serve to reduce some cryptanalyst to gibbering insanity.
+
+The Assassin entered, drawing off a cowllike mask. He was the man
+whose arm Dalla had been holding in the visiplate picture; Verkan Vall
+even recognized the extremely ornate pistol and knife on his belt.
+
+"Dirzed the Assassin," he named himself. "If you wish, we can
+visiphone Assassins' Hall for verification of my identity."
+
+"Lord Virzal of Verkan. And my Assassins, Marnik and Olirzon." They
+all hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with the newcomer. "That
+won't be needed," Verkan Vall told Dirzed. "I know you from seeing you
+with the Lady Dallona, on the visiplate; you're 'Dirzed, her faithful
+Assassin.'"
+
+Dirzed's face, normally the color of a good walnut gunstock, turned
+almost black. He used shockingly bad language.
+
+"And that's why I have to wear this abomination," he finished,
+displaying the mask. "The Lady Dallona and I can't show our faces
+anywhere; if we did, every Statisticalist and his six-year-old brat
+would know us, and we'd be fighting off an army of them in five
+minutes."
+
+"Where's the Lady Dallona, now?"
+
+"In hiding, Lord Virzal, at a private dwelling dome in the forest;
+she's most anxious to see you. I'm to take you to her, and I would
+strongly advise that you bring your Assassins along. There are other
+people at this dome, and they are not personally loyal to the Lady
+Dallona. I've no reason to suspect them of secret enmity, but their
+friendship is based entirely on political expediency."
+
+"And political expediency is subject to change without notice," Verkan
+Vall finished for him. "Have you an airboat?"
+
+"On the landing stage below. Shall we go now, Lord Virzal?"
+
+"Yes." Verkan Vall made a two-handed gesture to his Assassins, as
+though gripping a submachine-gun; they nodded, went into another room,
+and returned carrying light automatic weapons in their hands and
+pouches of spare drums slung over their shoulders. "And may I suggest,
+Dirzed, that one of my Assassins drives the airboat? I want you on the
+back seat with me, to explain the situation as we go."
+
+Dirzed's teeth flashed white against his brown skin as he gave Verkan
+Vall a quick smile.
+
+"By all means, Lord Virzal; I would much rather be distrusted than to
+find that my client's friends were not discreet."
+
+There were a couple of hotel Assassins guarding Dirzed's airboat, on
+the landing stage. Marnik climbed in under the controls, with Olirzon
+beside him; Verkan Vall and Dirzed entered the rear seat. Dirzed gave
+Marnik the co-ordinate reference for their destination.
+
+"Now, what sort of a place is this, where we're going?" Verkan Vall
+asked. "And who's there whom we may or may not trust?"
+
+"Well, it's a dome house belonging to the family of Starpha; they own
+a five-mile radius around it, oak and beech forest and underbrush,
+stocked with deer and boar. A hunting lodge. Prince Jirzyn of Starpha,
+Lord Girzon of Roxor, and a few other top-level Volitionalists, know
+that the Lady Dallona's hiding there. They're keeping her out of sight
+till after the election, for propaganda purposes. We've been hiding
+there since immediately after the discarnation feast of the Lord
+Garnon of Roxor."
+
+"What happened, after the feast?" Verkan Vall wanted to know.
+
+"Well, you know how the Lady Dallona and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh had this
+telepathic-sensitive there, in a trance and drugged with a
+_zerfa_-derivative alkaloid the Lady Dallona had developed. I was Lord
+Garnon's Assassin; I discarnated him, myself. Why, I hadn't even put
+my pistol away before he was in control of this sensitive, in a room
+five stories above the banquet hall; he began communicating at once.
+We had visiplates to show us what was going on.
+
+"Right away, Nirzav of Shonna, one of the Statisticalist leaders who
+was a personal friend of Lord Garnon's in spite of his politics,
+renounced Statisticalism and went over to the Volitionalists, on the
+strength of this communication. Prince Jirzyn, and Lord Girzon, the
+new family-head of Roxor, decided that there would be trouble in the
+next few days, so they advised the Lady Dallona to come to this
+hunting lodge for safety. She and I came here in her airboat, directly
+from the feast. A good thing we did, too; if we'd gone to her
+apartment, we'd have walked in before that lethal gas had time to
+clear.
+
+"There are four Assassins of the family of Starpha, and six
+menservants, and an upper-servant named Tarnod, the gamekeeper. The
+Starpha Assassins and I have been keeping the rest under observation.
+I left one of the Starpha Assassins guarding the Lady Dallona when I
+came for you, under brotherly oath to protect her in my name till I
+returned."
+
+The airboat was skimming rapidly above the treetops, toward the
+northern part of the city.
+
+"What's known about that package bomb?" Verkan Vall asked. "Who sent
+it?"
+
+Dirzed shrugged. "The Statisticalists, of course. The wrapper was
+stolen from the Reincarnation Research Institute; so was the case. The
+Constabulary are working on it." Dirzed shrugged again.
+
+The dome, about a hundred and fifty feet in width and some fifty in
+height, stood among the trees ahead. It was almost invisible from any
+distance; the concrete dome was of mottled green and gray concrete,
+trees grew so close as to brush it with their branches, and the little
+pavilion on the flattened top was roofed with translucent green
+plastic. As the airboat came in, a couple of men in Assassins' garb
+emerged from the pavilion to meet them.
+
+"Marnik, stay at the controls," Verkan Vall directed. "I'll send
+Olirzon up for you if I want you. If there's any trouble, take off for
+Assassins' Hall and give the code word, then come back with twice as
+many men as you think you'll need."
+
+Dirzed raised his eyebrows over this. "I hadn't known the
+Assassin-President had given you a code word, Lord Virzal," he
+commented. "That doesn't happen very often."
+
+"The Assassin-President has honored me with his friendship," Verkan
+Vall replied noncommittally, as he, Dirzed and Olirzon climbed out of
+the airboat. Marnik was holding it an unobtrusive inch or so above the
+flat top of the dome, away from the edge of the pavilion roof.
+
+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. 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. Even now, the
+design had been retained by those who wished to live apart from the
+towering city units, to preserve the natural appearance of the
+landscape. The Starpha hunting lodge was typical of such domes. Under
+it was a circular well, eighty feet in depth and fifty in width, with
+a fountain and a shallow circular pool at the bottom. The storerooms,
+kitchens and servants' quarters were at the top, the living quarters
+at the bottom, in segments of a wide circle around the well, back of
+balconies.
+
+"Tarnod, the gamekeeper," Dirzed performed the introductions. "And
+Erarno and Kirzol, Assassins."
+
+Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Tarnod
+accompanied them to the lifter tubes--two percent positive gravitation
+for descent and two percent negative for ascent--and they all floated
+down the former, like air-filled balloons, to the bottom level.
+
+"The Lady Dallona is in the gun room," Tarnod informed Verkan Vall,
+making as though to guide him.
+
+"Thanks, Tarnod; we know the way," Dirzed told him shortly, turning
+his back on the upper-servant and walking toward a closed door on the
+other side of the fountain. Verkan Vall and Olirzon followed; for a
+moment, Tarnod stood looking after them, then he followed the other
+two Assassins into the ascent tube.
+
+"I don't relish that fellow," Dirzed explained. "The family of Starpha
+use him for work they couldn't hire an Assassin to do at any price.
+I've been here often, when I was with the Lord Garnon; I've always
+thought he had something on Prince Jirzyn."
+
+He knocked sharply on the closed door with the butt of his pistol. In
+a moment, it slid open, and a young Assassin with a narrow mustache
+and a tuft of chin beard looked out.
+
+"Ah, Dirzed." He stepped outside. "The Lady Dallona is within; I
+return her to your care."
+
+Verkan Vall entered, followed by Dirzed and Olirzon. The big room was
+fitted with reclining chairs and couches and low tables; its walls
+were hung with the heads of deer and boar and wolves, and with racks
+holding rifles and hunting pistols and fowling pieces. It was filled
+with the soft glow of indirect cold light. At the far side of the
+room, a young woman was seated at a desk, speaking softly into a sound
+transcriber. As they entered, she snapped it off and rose.
+
+Hadron Dalla wore the same costume Verkan Vall had seen on the
+visiplate: he recognized her instantly. It took her a second or two to
+perceive Verkan Vall under the brown skin and black hair of the Lord
+Virzal of Verkan. Then her face lighted with a happy smile.
+
+"Why, Va-a-a-ll!" she whooped, running across the room and tossing
+herself into his not particularly reluctant arms. After all, it had
+been twenty years--"I didn't know you, at first!"
+
+"You mean, in these clothes?" he asked, seeing that she had forgotten,
+for the moment, the presence of the two Assassins. She had even
+called him by his First Level name, but that was unimportant--the
+Akor-Neb affectionate diminutive was formed by omitting the -_irz_- or
+-_arn_-. "Well, they're not exactly what I generally wear on the
+plantation." He kissed her again, then turned to his companions. "Your
+pardon, Gentlemen-Assassins; it's been something over a year since
+we've seen each other."
+
+Olirzon was smiling at the affectionate reunion; Dirzed wore a look of
+amused resignation, as though he might have expected something like
+this to happen. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat down on a couch near the
+desk.
+
+"That was really sweet of you, Vall, fighting those men for talking
+about me," she began. "You took an awful chance, though. But if you
+hadn't, I'd never have known you were in Darsh--Oh-oh! That was why
+you did it, wasn't it?"
+
+"Well, I had to do something. Everybody either didn't know or weren't
+saying where you were. I assumed, from the circumstances, that you
+were hiding somewhere. Tell me, Dalla; do you really have scientific
+proof of reincarnation? I mean, as an established fact?"
+
+"Oh, yes; these people on this sector have had that for over ten
+centuries. They have hypnotic techniques for getting back into a part
+of the subconscious mind that we've never been able to reach. And
+after I found out how they did it, I was able to adapt some of our
+hypno-epistemological techniques to it, and--"
+
+"All right; that's what I wanted to know," he cut her off. "We're
+getting out of here, right away."
+
+"But where?"
+
+"Ghamma, in an airboat I have outside, and then back to the First
+Level. Unless there's a paratime-transposition conveyor somewhere
+nearer."
+
+"But why, Vall? I'm not ready to go back; I have a lot of work to do here,
+yet. They're getting ready to set up a series of control-experiments at the
+Institute, and then, I'm in the middle of an experiment, a
+two-hundred-subject memory-recall experiment. See, I distributed two
+hundred sets of equipment for my new technique--injection-ampoules of this
+_zerfa_-derivative drug, and sound records of the hypnotic suggestion
+formula, which can be played on an ordinary reproducer. It's just a crude
+variant of our hypno-mech process, except that instead of implanting
+information in the subconscious mind, to be brought at will to the level of
+consciousness, it works the other way, and draws into conscious knowledge
+information already in the subconscious mind. The way these people have
+always done has been to put the subject in an hypnotic trance and then
+record verbal statements made in the trance state; when the subject comes
+out of the trance, the record is all there is, because the memories of past
+reincarnations have never been in the conscious mind. But with my process,
+the subject can consciously remember everything about his last
+reincarnation, and as many reincarnations before that as he wishes to. I
+haven't heard from any of the people who received these auto-recall kits,
+and I really must--"
+
+"Dalla, I don't want to have to pull Paratime Police authority on you,
+but, so help me, if you don't come back voluntarily with me, I will.
+Security of the secret of paratime transposition."
+
+"Oh, my eye!" Dalla exclaimed. "Don't give me that, Vall!"
+
+"Look, Dalla. Suppose you get discarnated here," Verkan Vall said.
+"You say reincarnation is a scientific fact. Well, you'd reincarnate
+on this sector, and then you'd take a memory-recall, under hypnosis.
+And when you did, the paratime secret wouldn't be a secret any more."
+
+"Oh!" Dalla's hand went to her mouth in consternation. Like every
+paratimer, she was conditioned to shrink with all her being from the
+mere thought of revealing to any out-time dweller the secret ability
+of her race to pass to other time-lines, or even the existence of
+alternate lines of probability. "And if I took one of the
+old-fashioned trance-recalls, I'd blat out everything; I wouldn't be
+able to keep a thing back. And I even know the principles of
+transposition!" She looked at him, aghast.
+
+"When I get back, I'm going to put a recommendation through department
+channels that this whole sector be declared out of bounds for all
+paratime-transposition, until you people at Rhogom Foundation work
+out the problem of discarnate return to the First Level," he told her.
+"Now, have you any notes or anything you want to take back with you?"
+
+She rose. "Yes; just what's on the desk. Find me something to put the
+tape spools and notebooks in, while I'm getting them in order."
+
+He secured a large game bag from under a rack of fowling pieces, and
+held it while she sorted the material rapidly, stuffing spools of
+record tape and notebooks into it. They had barely begun when the door
+slid open and Olirzon, who had gone outside, sprang into the room, his
+pistol drawn, swearing vilely.
+
+"They've double-crossed us!" he cried. "The servants of Starpha have
+turned on us." He holstered his pistol and snatched up his
+submachine-gun, taking cover behind the edge of the door and letting
+go with a burst in the direction of the lifter tubes. "Got that one!"
+he grunted.
+
+"What happened, Olirzon?" Verkan Vall asked, dropping the game bag on
+the table and hurrying across the room.
+
+"I went up to see how Marnik was making out. As I came out of the
+lifter tube, one of the obscenities took a shot at me with a hunting
+pistol. He missed me; I didn't miss him. Then a couple more of them
+were coming up, with fowling pieces; I shot one of them before they
+could fire, and jumped into the descent tube and came down heels over
+ears. I don't know what's happened to Marnik." He fired another burst,
+and swore. "Missed him!"
+
+"Assassins' Truce! Assassins' Truce!" a voice howled out of the
+descent tube. "Hold your fire, we want to parley."
+
+"Who is it?" Dirzed shouted, over Olirzon's shoulder. "You, Sarnax?
+Come on out; we won't shoot."
+
+The young Assassin with the mustache and chin beard emerged from the
+descent tube, his weapons sheathed and his clasped hands extended in
+front of him in a peculiarly ecclesiastical-looking manner. Dirzed and
+Olirzon stepped out of the gun room, followed by Verkan Vall and
+Hadron Dalla. Olirzon had left his submachine-gun behind. They met the
+other Assassin by the rim of the fountain pool.
+
+"Lady Dallona of Hadron," the Starpha Assassin began. "I and my
+colleagues, in the employ of the family of Starpha, have received
+orders from our clients to withdraw our protection from you, and to
+discarnate you, and all with you who undertake to protect or support
+you." That much sounded like a recitation of some established formula;
+then his voice became more conversational. "I and my colleagues,
+Erarno and Kirzol and Harnif, offer our apologies for the barbarity of
+the servants of the family of Starpha, in attacking without
+declaration of cessation of friendship. Was anybody hurt or
+discarnated?"
+
+"None of us," Olirzon said. "How about Marnik?"
+
+"He was warned before hostilities were begun against him," Sarnax
+replied. "We will allow five minutes until--"
+
+Olirzon, who had been looking up the well, suddenly sprang at Dalla,
+knocking her flat, and at the same time jerking out his pistol. Before
+he could raise it, a shot banged from above and he fell on his face.
+Dirzed, Verkan Vall, and Sarnax, all drew their pistols, but whoever
+had fired the shot had vanished. There was an outburst of shouting
+above.
+
+"Get to cover," Sarnax told the others. "We'll let you know when we're
+ready to attack; we'll have to deal with whoever fired that shot,
+first." He looked at the dead body on the floor, exclaimed angrily,
+and hurried to the ascent tube, springing upward.
+
+Verkan Vall replaced the small pistol in his shoulder holster and took
+Olirzon's belt, with his knife and heavier pistol.
+
+"Well, there you see," Dirzed said, as they went back to the gun room.
+"So much for political expediency."
+
+"I think I understand why your picture and the Lady Dallona's were
+exhibited so widely," Verkan Vall said. "Now, anybody would recognize
+your bodies, and blame the Statisticalists for discarnating you."
+
+"That thought had occurred to me, Lord Virzal," Dirzed said. "I
+suppose our bodies will be atrociously but not unidentifiably
+mutilated, to further enrage the public," he added placidly. "If I get
+out of this carnate, I'm going to pay somebody off for it."
+
+After a few minutes, there was more shouting of: "Assassins' Truce!"
+from the descent tube. The two Assassins, Erarno and Kirzol, emerged,
+dragging the gamekeeper, Tarnod, between them. The upper-servant's
+face was bloody, and his jaw seemed to be broken. Sarnax followed,
+carrying a long hunting pistol in his hand.
+
+"Here he is!" he announced. "He fired during Assassins' Truce; he's
+subject to Assassins' Justice!"
+
+He nodded to the others. They threw the gamekeeper forward on the
+floor, and Sarnax shot him through the head, then tossed the pistol
+down beside him. "Any more of these people who violate the decencies
+will be treated similarly," he promised.
+
+"Thank you, Sarnax," Dirzed spoke up. "But we lost an Assassin:
+discarnating this lackey won't equalize that. We think you should
+retire one of your number."
+
+"That at least, Dirzed; wait a moment."
+
+The three Assassins conferred at some length. Then Sarnax hooked
+fingers and clapped shoulders with his companions.
+
+"See you in the next reincarnation, brothers," he told them, walking
+toward the gun-room door, where Verkan Vall, Dalla and Dirzed stood.
+"I'm joining you people. You had two Assassins when the parley began,
+you'll have two when the shooting starts."
+
+Verkan Vall looked at Dirzed in some surprise. Hadron Dalla's Assassin
+nodded.
+
+"He's entitled to do that, Lord Virzal; the Assassins' code provides
+for such changes of allegiance."
+
+"Welcome, Sarnax," Verkan Vall said, hooking fingers with him. "I hope
+we'll all be together when this is over."
+
+"We will be," Sarnax assured him cheerfully. "Discarnate. We won't get
+out of this in the body, Lord Virzal."
+
+A submachine-gun hammered from above, the bullets lashing the fountain
+pool; the water actually steamed, so great was their velocity.
+
+"All right!" a voice called down. "Assassins' Truce is over!"
+
+Another burst of automatic fire smashed out the lights at the bottom
+of the ascent tube. Dirzed and Dalla struggled across the room,
+pushing a heavy steel cabinet between them; Verkan Vall, who was
+holding Olirzon's submachine-gun, moved aside to allow them to drop it
+on edge in the open doorway, then wedged the door half-shut against
+it. Sarnax came over, bringing rifles, hunting pistols, and
+ammunition.
+
+"What's the situation, up there?" Verkan Vall asked him. "What force
+have they, and why did they turn against us?"
+
+"Lord Virzal!" Dirzed objected, scandalized. "You have no right to ask
+Sarnax to betray confidences!"
+
+Sarnax spat against the door. "In the face of Jirzyn of Starpha!" he
+said. "And in the face of his _zortan_ mother, and of his father,
+whoever he was! Dirzed, do not talk foolishly; one does not speak of
+betraying betrayers." He turned to Verkan Vall. "They have three
+menservants of the family of Starpha; your Assassin, Olirzon,
+discarnated the other three. There is one of Prince Jirzyn's poor
+relations, named Girzad. There are three other men, Volitionalist
+precinct workers, who came with Girzad, and four Assassins, the three
+who were here, and one who came with Girzad. Eleven, against the three
+of us."
+
+"The four of us, Sarnax," Dalla corrected. She had buckled on a
+hunting pistol, and had a light deer rifle under her arm.
+
+Something moved at the bottom of the descent tube. Verkan Vall gave it
+a short burst, though it was probably only a dummy, dropped to draw
+fire.
+
+"The four of us, Lady Dallona," Sarnax agreed. "As to your other
+Assassin, the one who stayed in the airboat, I don't know how he
+fared. You see, about twenty minutes ago, this Girzad arrived in an
+airboat, with an Assassin and these three Volitionalist workers.
+Erarno and I were at the top of the dome when he came in. He told us
+that he had orders from Prince Jirzyn to discarnate the Lady Dallona
+and Dirzed at once. Tarnod, the gamekeeper"--Sarnax spat ceremoniously
+against the door again--"told him you were here, and that Marnik was
+one of your men. He was going to shoot Marnik at once, but Erarno and
+I and his Assassin stopped him. We warned Marnik about the change in
+the situation, according to the code, expecting Marnik to go down here
+and join you. Instead, he lifted the airboat, zoomed over Girzad's
+boat, and let go a rocket blast, setting Girzad's boat on fire. Well,
+that was a hostile act, so we all fired after him. We must have hit
+something, because the boat went down, trailing smoke, about ten miles
+away. Girzad got another airboat out of the hangar and he and his
+Assassin started after your man. About that time, your Assassin,
+Olirzon--happy reincarnation to him--came up, and the Starpha servants
+fired at him, and he fired back and discarnated two of them, and then
+jumped down the descent tube. One of the servants jumped after him; I
+found his body at the bottom when I came down to warn you formally.
+You know what happened after that."
+
+"But why did Prince Jirzyn order our discarnation?" Dalla wanted to
+know. "Was it to blame the Statisticalists with it?"
+
+Sarnax, about to answer, broke off suddenly and began firing at the
+opening of the ascent tube with a hunting pistol.
+
+"I got him," he said, in a pleased tone. "That was Erarno; he was
+always playing tricks with the tubes, climbing down against negative
+gravity and up against positive gravity. His body will float up to the
+top--Why, Lady Dallona, that was only part of it. You didn't hear
+about the big scandal, on the newscast, then?"
+
+"We didn't have it on. What scandal?"
+
+Sarnax laughed. "Oh, the very father and family-head of all scandals!
+You ought to know about it, because you started it; that's why Prince
+Jirzyn wants you out of the body--You devised a process by which
+people could give themselves memory-recalls of previous
+reincarnations, didn't you? And distributed apparatus to do it with?
+And gave one set to young Tarnov, the son of Lord Tirzov of Fastor?"
+
+Dalla nodded. Sarnax continued:
+
+"Well, last evening, Tarnox of Fastor used his recall outfit, and what
+do you think? It seems that thirty years ago, in his last
+reincarnation, he was Jirzid of Starpha, Jirzyn's older brother.
+Jirzid was betrothed to the Lady Annitra of Zabna. Well, his younger
+brother was carrying on a clandestine affair with the Lady Annitra,
+and he also wanted the title of Prince and family-head of Starpha. So
+he bribed this fellow Tarnod, whom I had the pleasure of discarnating,
+and who was an underservant here at the hunting lodge. Between them,
+they shot Jirzid during a boar hunt. An accident, of course. So Jirzyn
+married the Lady Annitra, and when old Prince Jarnid, his father,
+discarnated a year later, he succeeded to the title. And immediately,
+Tarnod was made head gamekeeper here."
+
+"What did I tell you, Lord Virzal? I knew that son of a _zortan_ had
+something on Jirzyn of Starpha!" Dirzed exclaimed. "A nice family,
+this of Starpha!"
+
+"Well, that's not the end of it," Sarnax continued. "This morning,
+Tarnov of Fastor, late Jirzid of Starpha, went before the High Court
+of Estates and entered suit to change his name to Jirzid of Starpha
+and laid claim to the title of Starpha family-head. The case has just
+been entered, so there's been no hearing, but there's the blazes of an
+argument among all the nobles about it--some are claiming that the
+individuality doesn't change from one reincarnation to the next, and
+others claiming that property and titles should pass along the line of
+physical descent, no matter what individuality has reincarnated into
+what body. They're the ones who want the Lady Dallona discarnated and
+her discoveries suppressed. And there's talk about revising the entire
+system of estate-ownership and estate-inheritance. Oh, it's an utter
+obscenity of a business!"
+
+"This," Verkan Vall told Dalla, "is something we will not emphasize
+when we get home." That was as close as he dared come to it, but she
+caught his meaning. The working of major changes in out-time social
+structures was not viewed with approval by the Paratime Commission on
+the First Level. "_If_ we get home," he added. Then an idea occurred
+to him.
+
+"Dirzed, Sarnax; this place must have been used by the leaders of the
+Volitionalists for top-level conferences. Is there a secret passage
+anywhere?"
+
+Sarnax shook his head. "Not from here. There is one, on the floor
+above, but they control it. And even if there were one down here, they
+would be guarding the outlet."
+
+"That's what I was counting on. I'd hoped to simulate an escape that
+way, and then make a rush up the regular tubes." Verkan Vall shrugged.
+"I suppose Marnik's our only chance. I hope he got away safely."
+
+"He was going for help? I was surprised that an Assassin would desert
+his client; I should have thought of that," Sarnax said. "Well, even
+if he got down carnate, and if Girzad didn't catch him, he'd still be
+afoot ten miles from the nearest city unit. That gives us a little
+chance--about one in a thousand."
+
+"Is there any way they can get at us, except by those tubes?" Dalla
+asked.
+
+"They could cut a hole in the floor, or burn one through," Sarnax
+replied. "They have plenty of thermite. They could detonate a charge
+of explosives over our heads, or clear out of the dome and drop one
+down the well. They could use lethal gas or radiodust, but their
+Assassins wouldn't permit such illegal methods. Or they could shoot
+sleep-gas down at us, and then come down and cut our throats at their
+leisure."
+
+"We'll have to get out of this room, then," Verkan Vall decided. "They
+know we've barricaded ourselves in here; this is where they'll
+attack. So we'll patrol the perimeter of the well; we'll be out of
+danger from above if we keep close to the wall. And we'll inspect all
+the rooms on this floor for evidence of cutting through from above."
+
+Sarnax nodded. "That's sense, Lord Virzal. How about the lifter
+tubes?"
+
+"We'll have to barricade them. Sarnax, you and Dirzed know the layout
+of this place better than the Lady Dallona or I; suppose you two check
+the rooms, while we cover the tubes and the well," Verkan Vall
+directed. "Come on, now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They pushed the door wide-open and went out past the cabinet. Hugging
+the wall, they began a slow circuit of the well, Verkan Vall in the
+lead with the submachine-gun, then Sarnax and Dirzed, the former with
+a heavy boar-rifle and the latter with a hunting pistol in each hand,
+and Hadron Dalla brought up in the rear with her rifle. It was she who
+noticed a movement along the rim of the balcony above and snapped a
+shot at it; there was a crash above, and a shower of glass and plastic
+and metal fragments rattled on the pavement of the court. Somebody had
+been trying to lower a scanner or a visiplate-pickup, or something of
+the sort; the exact nature of the instrument was not evident from the
+wreckage Dalla's bullet had made of it.
+
+The rooms Dirzed and Sarnax entered were all quiet; nobody seemed to
+be attempting to cut through the ceiling, fifteen feet above. They
+dragged furniture from a couple of rooms, blocking the openings of the
+lifter tubes, and continued around the well until they had reached the
+gun room again.
+
+Dirzed suggested that they move some of the weapons and ammunition
+stored there to Prince Jirzyn's private apartment, halfway around to
+the lifter tubes, so that another place of refuge would be stocked
+with munitions in event of their being driven from the gun room.
+
+Leaving him on guard outside, Verkan Vall, Dalla and Sarnax entered
+the gun room and began gathering weapons and boxes of ammunition.
+Dalla finished packing her game bag with the recorded data and notes
+of her experiments. Verkan Vall selected four more of the heavy
+hunting pistols, more accurate than his shoulder-holster weapon or the
+dead Olirzon's belt arm, and capable of either full or semi-automatic
+fire. Sarnax chose a couple more boar rifles. Dalla slung her bag of
+recorded notes, and another bag of ammunition, and secured another
+deer rifle. They carried this accumulation of munitions to the private
+apartments of Prince Jirzyn, dumping everything in the middle of the
+drawing room, except the bag of notes, from which Dalla refused to
+separate herself.
+
+"Maybe we'd better put some stuff over in one of the rooms on the
+other side of the well," Dirzed suggested. "They haven't really begun
+to come after us; when they do, we'll probably be attacked from two
+or three directions at once."
+
+They returned to the gun room, casting anxious glances at the edge of
+the balcony above and at the barricade they had erected across the
+openings to the lifter tubes. Verkan Vall was not satisfied with this
+last; it looked to him as though they had provided a breastwork for
+somebody to fire on them from, more than anything else.
+
+He was about to step around the cabinet which partially blocked the
+gun-room door when he glanced up, and saw a six-foot circle on the
+ceiling turning slowly brown. There was a smell of scorched plastic.
+He grabbed Sarnax by the arm and pointed.
+
+"Thermite," the Assassin whispered. "The ceiling's got six inches of
+spaceship-insulation between it and the floor above; it'll take them a
+few minutes to burn through it." He stooped and pushed on the
+barricade, shoving it into the room. "Keep back; they'll probably drop
+a grenade or so through, first, before they jump down. If we're quick,
+we can get a couple of them."
+
+Dirzed and Sarnax crouched, one at either side of the door, with
+weapons ready. Verkan Vall and Dalla had been ordered, rather
+peremptorily, to stay behind them; in a place of danger, an Assassin
+was obliged to shield his client. Verkan Vall, unable to see what was
+going on inside the room, kept his eyes and his gun muzzle on the
+barricade across the openings to the lifter tubes, the erection of
+which he was now regretting as a major tactical error.
+
+Inside the gun room, there was a sudden crash, as the circle of
+thermite burned through and a section of ceiling dropped out and hit
+the floor. Instantly, Dirzed flung himself back against Verkan Vall,
+and there was a tremendous explosion inside, followed by another and
+another. A second or so passed, then Dirzed, leaning around the corner
+of the door, began firing rapidly into the room. From the other side
+of the door, Sarnax began blazing away with his rifle. Verkan Vall
+kept his position, covering the lifter tubes.
+
+Suddenly, from behind the barricade, a blue-white gun flash leaped
+into being, and a pistol banged. He sprayed the opening between a
+couch and a section of bookcase from whence it had come, releasing his
+trigger as the gun rose with the recoil, squeezing and releasing and
+squeezing again. Then he jumped to his feet.
+
+"Come on, the other place; hurry!" he ordered.
+
+Sarnax swore in exasperation. "Help me with her, Dirzed!" he implored.
+
+Verkan Vall turned his head, to see the two Assassins drag Dalla to
+her feet and hustle her away from the gun room; she was quite
+senseless, and they had to drag her between them. Verkan Vall gave a
+quick glance into the gun room; two of the Starpha servants and a man
+in rather flashy civil dress were lying on the floor, where they had
+been shot as they had jumped down from above. He saw a movement at the
+edge of the irregular, smoking, hole in the ceiling, and gave it a
+short burst, then fired another at the exit from the descent tube.
+Then he took to his heels and followed the Assassins and Hadron Dalla
+into Prince Jirzyn's apartment.
+
+As he ran through the open door, the Assassins were letting Dalla down
+into a chair; they instantly threw themselves into the work of
+barricading the doorway so as to provide cover and at the same time
+allow them to fire out into the central well.
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+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. The bullet had hit the game bag at her
+side; it was full of spools of metal tape, in metal cases, and notes
+in written form, pyrographed upon sheets of plastic ring fastened into
+metal binders. Because of their extreme velocity, Akor-Neb bullets
+were sure killers when they struck animal tissue, but for the same
+reason, they had very poor penetration on hard objects. The
+alloy-steel tape, and the steel spools and spool cases, and the
+notebook binders, had been enough to shatter the little bullet into
+splinters of magnesium-nickel alloy, and the stout leather back of the
+game bag had stopped all of these. But the impact, even distributed as
+it had been through the contents of the bag, had been enough to knock
+the girl unconscious.
+
+He found a bottle of some sort of brandy and a glass on a serving
+table nearby and poured her a drink, holding it to her lips. She
+spluttered over the first mouthful, then took the glass from him and
+sipped the rest.
+
+"What happened?" she asked. "I thought those bullets were sure death."
+
+"Your notes. The bullet hit the bag. Are you all right, now?"
+
+She finished the brandy. "I think so." She put a hand into the game
+bag and brought out a snarled and tangled mess of steel tape. "Oh,
+_blast_! That stuff was important; all the records on the preliminary
+auto-recall experiments." She shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't have been
+worth much more if I'd stopped that bullet, myself." She slipped the
+strap over her shoulder and started to rise.
+
+As she did, a bedlam of firing broke out, both from the two Assassins
+at the door and from outside. They both hit the floor and crawled out
+of line of the partly-open door; Verkan Vall recovered his
+submachine-gun, which he had set down beside Dalla's chair. Sarnax was
+firing with his rifle at some target in the direction of the lifter
+tubes; Dirzed lay slumped over the barricade, and one glance at his
+crumpled figure was enough to tell Verkan Vall that he was dead.
+
+"You fill magazines for us," he told Dalla, then crawled to Dirzed's
+place at the door. "What happened, Sarnax?"
+
+"They shoved over the barricade at the lifter tubes and came out into
+the well. I got a couple, they got Dirzed, and now they're holed up in
+rooms all around the circle. They--Aah!" He fired three shots,
+quickly, around the edge of the door. "That stopped that." The
+Assassin crouched to insert a fresh magazine into his rifle.
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+Verkan Vall risked one eye around the corner of the doorway, and as he
+did, there was a red flash and a dull roar, unlike the blue flashes
+and sharp cracking reports of the pistols and rifles, from the doorway
+of the gun room. He wondered, for a split second, if it might be one
+of the fowling pieces he had seen there, and then something whizzed
+past his head and exploded with a soft _plop_ behind him. Turning, he
+saw a pool of gray vapor beginning to spread in the middle of the
+room. Dalla must have got a breath of it, for she was slumped over the
+chair from which she had just risen.
+
+Dropping the submachine-gun and gulping a lungful of fresh air from
+outside, Verkan Vall rushed to her, caught her by the heels, and
+dragged her into Prince Jirzyn's bedroom, beyond. Leaving her in the
+middle of the floor, he took another deep breath and returned to the
+drawing room, where Sarnax was already overcome by the sleep-gas.
+
+He saw the serving table from which he had got the brandy, and dragged
+it over to the bedroom door, overturning it and laying it across the
+doorway, its legs in the air. Like most Akor-Neb serving tables, it
+had a gravity-counteraction unit under it; he set this for double
+minus-gravitation and snapped it on. As it was now above the inverted
+table, the table did not rise, but a tendril, of sleep-gas, curling
+toward it, bent upward and drifted away from the doorway. Satisfied
+that he had made a temporary barrier against the sleep-gas, Verkan
+Vall secured Dalla's hunting pistol and spare magazines and lay down
+at the bedroom door.
+
+For some time, there was silence outside. Then the besiegers evidently
+decided that the sleep-gas attack had been a success. An Assassin,
+wearing a gas mask and carrying a submachine-gun, appeared in the
+doorway, and behind him came a tall man in a tan tunic, similarly
+masked. They stepped into the room and looked around.
+
+Knowing that he would be shooting over a two hundred percent negative
+gravitation-field, Verkan Vall aimed for the Assassin's belt-buckle
+and squeezed. The bullet caught him in the throat. Evidently the
+bullet had not only been lifted in the negative gravitation, but
+lifted point-first and deflected upward. He held his front sight just
+above the other man's knee, and hit him in the chest.
+
+As he fired, he saw a wisp of gas come sliding around the edge of the
+inverted table. There was silence outside, and for an instant, he was
+tempted to abandon his post and go to the bathroom, back of the
+bedroom, for wet towels to improvise a mask. Then, when he tried to
+crawl backward, he could not. There was an impression of distant
+shouting which turned to a roaring sound in his head. He tried to lift
+his pistol, but it slipped from his fingers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When consciousness returned, he was lying on his back, and something
+cold and rubbery was pressing into his face. He raised his arms to
+fight off whatever it was, and opened his eyes, to find that he was
+staring directly at the red oval and winged bullet of the Society of
+Assassins. A hand caught his wrist as he reached for the small pistol
+under his arm. The pressure on his face eased.
+
+"It's all right, Lord Virzal," a voice came to him. "Assassins'
+Truce!"
+
+He nodded stupidly and repeated the words. "Assassins' Truce; I won't
+shoot. What happened?"
+
+Then he sat up and looked around. Prince Jirzyn's bedchamber was full
+of Assassins. Dalla, recovering from her touch of sleep-gas, was
+sitting groggily in a chair, while five or six of them fussed around
+her, getting in each others' way, handing her drinks, chaffing her
+wrists, holding damp cloths on her brow. That was standard procedure,
+when any group of males thought Dalla needed any help. Another
+Assassin, beside the bed, was putting away an oxygen-mask outfit, and
+the Assassin who had prevented Verkan Vall from drawing his pistol was
+his own follower, Marnik. And Klarnood, the Assassin-President, was
+sitting on the foot of the bed, smoking one of Prince Jirzyn's
+monogrammed and crested cigarettes critically.
+
+Verkan Vall looked at Marnik, and then at Klarnood, and back to
+Marnik.
+
+"You got through," he said. "Good work, Marnik; I thought they'd
+downed you."
+
+"They did; I had to crash-land in the woods. I went about a mile on
+foot, and then I found a man and woman and two children, hiding in one
+of these little log rain shelters. They had an airboat, a good one. It
+seemed that rioting had broken out in the city unit where they lived,
+and they'd taken to the woods till things quieted down again. I
+offered them Assassins' protection if they'd take me to Assassins'
+Hall, and they did."
+
+"By luck, I was in when Marnik arrived," Klarnood took over. "We
+brought three boatloads of men, and came here at once. Just as we got
+here, two boatloads of Starpha dependents arrived; they tried to give
+us an argument, and we discarnated the lot of them. Then we came down
+here, crying Assassins' Truce. One of the Starpha Assassins, Kirzol,
+was still carnate; he told us what had been going on." The
+President-General's face-became grim. "You know, I take a rather poor
+view of Prince Jirzyn's procedure in this matter, not to mention that
+of his underlings. I'll have to speak to him about this. Now, how
+about you and the Lady Dallona? What do you intend doing?"
+
+"We're getting out of here," Verkan Vall said. "I'd like air transport
+and protection as far as Ghamma, to the establishment of the family of
+Zorda. Brarnend of Zorda has a private space yacht; he'll get us to
+Venus."
+
+Klarnood gave a sigh of obvious relief. "I'll have you and the Lady
+Dallona airborne and off for Ghamma as soon as you wish," he promised.
+"I will, frankly, be delighted to see the last of both of you. The
+Lady Dallona has started a fire here at Darsh that won't burn out in a
+half-century, and who knows what it may consume." He was interrupted
+by a heaving shock that made the underground dome dwelling shake like
+a light airboat in turbulence. Even eighty feet under the ground, they
+could hear a continued crashing roar. It was an appreciable interval
+before the sound and the shock ceased.
+
+For an instant, there was silence, and then an excited bedlam of
+shouting broke from the Assassins in the room: Klarnood's face was
+frozen in horror.
+
+"That was a fission bomb!" he exclaimed. "The first one that has been
+exploded on this planet in hostility in a thousand years!" He turned
+to Verkan Vall. "If you feel well enough to walk, Lord Virzal, come
+with us. I must see what's happened."
+
+They hurried from the room and went streaming up the ascent tube to
+the top of the dome. About forty miles away, to the south, Verkan Vall
+saw the sinister thing that he had seen on so many other time-lines,
+in so many other paratime sectors--a great pillar of varicolored
+fire-shot smoke, rising to a mushroom head fifty thousand feet above.
+
+"Well, that's it," Klarnood said sadly. "That is civil war."
+
+"May I make a suggestion, Assassin-President?" Verkan Vall asked. "I
+understand that Assassins' Truce is binding even upon non-Assassins;
+is that correct?"
+
+"Well, not exactly; it's generally kept by such non-Assassins as want
+to remain in their present reincarnations, though."
+
+"That's what I meant. Well, suppose you declare a general, planet-wide
+Assassins' Truce in this political war, and make the leaders of both
+parties responsible for keeping it. Publish lists of the top two or
+three thousand Statisticalists and Volitionalists, starting with
+Mirzark of Bashad and Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, and inform them that
+they will be assassinated, in order, if the fighting doesn't cease."
+
+"Well!" A smile grew on Klarnood's face. "Lord Virzal, my thanks; a
+good suggestion. I'll try it. And furthermore, I'll withdraw all
+Assassin protection permanently from anybody involved in political
+activity, and forbid any Assassin to accept any retainer connected
+with political factionalism. It's about time our members stopped
+discarnating each other in these political squabbles." He pointed to
+the three airboats drawn up on the top of the dome; speedy black
+craft, bearing the red oval and winged bullet. "Take your choice, Lord
+Virzal. I'll lend you a couple of my men, and you'll be in Ghamma in
+three hours." He hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with Verkan
+Vall, bent over Dalla's hand. "I still like you, Lord Virzal, and I
+have seldom met a more charming lady than you, Lady Dallona. But I
+sincerely hope I never see either of you again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ship for Dhergabar was driving north and west; at seventy thousand
+feet, it was still daylight, but the world below was wrapping itself
+in darkness. In the big visiscreens, which served in lieu of the
+windows which could never have withstood the pressure and friction
+heat of the ship's speed, the sun was sliding out of sight over the
+horizon to port. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat together, watching the
+blazing western sky--the sky of their own First Level time-line.
+
+"I blame myself terribly, Vall," Dalla was saying. "And I didn't mean
+any of them the least harm. All I was interested in was learning the
+facts. I know, that sounds like 'I didn't know it was loaded,' but--"
+
+"It sounds to me like those Fourth Level Europo-American Sector
+physicists who are giving themselves guilt-complexes because they
+designed an atomic bomb," Verkan Vall replied. "All you were
+interested in was learning the facts. Well, as a scientist, that's all
+you're supposed to be interested in. You don't have to worry about any
+social or political implications. People have to learn to live with
+newly-discovered facts; if they don't, they die of them."
+
+"But, Vall; that sounds dreadfully irresponsible--"
+
+"Does it? You're worrying about the results of your reincarnation
+memory-recall discoveries, the shootings and riotings and the bombing
+we saw." He touched the pommel of Olirzon's knife, which he still
+wore. "You're no more guilty of that than the man who forged this
+blade is guilty of the death of Marnark of Bashad; if he'd never
+lived, I'd have killed Marnark with some other knife somebody else
+made. And what's more, you can't know the results of your discoveries.
+All you can see is a thin film of events on the surface of an
+immediate situation, so you can't say whether the long-term results
+will be beneficial or calamitous.
+
+"Take this Fourth Level Europo-American atomic bomb, for example. I
+choose that because we both know that sector, but I could think of a
+hundred other examples in other paratime areas. Those people, because
+of deforestation, bad agricultural methods and general mismanagement,
+are eroding away their arable soil at an alarming rate. At the same
+time, they are breeding like rabbits. In other words, each successive
+generation has less and less food to divide among more and more
+people, and, for inherited traditional and superstitious reasons, they
+refuse to adopt any rational program of birth-control and
+population-limitation.
+
+"But, fortunately, they now have the atomic bomb, and they are
+developing radioactive poisons, weapons of mass-effect. 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. "It seems
+that my memory-recall technique is more explosive than any fission
+bomb. I've laid the train for a century-long reign of anarchy!"
+
+"I doubt that; I think Klarnood will take hold, now that he has
+committed himself to it. You know, in spite of his sanguinary
+profession, he's the nearest thing to a real man of good will I've
+found on that sector. And here's something else you haven't
+considered. Our own First Level life expectancy is from four to five
+hundred years. That's the main reason why we've accomplished as much
+as we have. We have, individually, time to accomplish things. On the
+Akor-Neb Sector, a scientist or artist or scholar or statesman will
+grow senile and die before he's as old as either of us. But now, a
+young student of twenty or so can take one of your auto-recall
+treatments and immediately have available all the knowledge and
+experience gained in four or five previous lives. He can start where
+he left off in his last reincarnation. In other words, you've made
+those people time-binders, individually as well as racially. Isn't
+that worth the temporary discarnation of a lot of ward-heelers and
+plug-uglies, or even a few decent types like Dirzed and Olirzon? If it
+isn't, I don't know what scales of values you're using."
+
+"Vall!" Dalla's eyes glowed with enthusiasm. "I never thought of that!
+And you said, 'temporary discarnation.' That's just what it is. Dirzed
+and Olirzon and the others aren't dead; they're just waiting,
+discarnate, between physical lives. You know, in the sacred writings
+of one of the Fourth Level peoples it is stated: 'Death is the last
+enemy.' By proving that death is just a cyclic condition of continued
+individual existence, these people have conquered their last enemy."
+
+"Last enemy but one," Verkan Vall corrected. "They still have one
+enemy to go, an enemy within themselves. Call it semantic confusion,
+or illogic, or incomprehension, or just plain stupidity. Like
+Klarnood, stymied by verbal objections to something labeled 'political
+intervention.' He'd never have consented to use the power of his
+Society if he hadn't been shocked out of his inhibitions by that
+nuclear bomb. Or the Statisticalists, trying to create a classless
+order of society through a political program which would only result
+in universal servitude to an omnipotent government. Or the
+Volitionalist nobles, trying to preserve their hereditary feudal
+privileges, and now they can't even agree on a definition of the term
+'hereditary.' Might they not recover all the silly prejudices of their
+past lives, along with the knowledge and wisdom?"
+
+"But ... I thought you said--" Dalla was puzzled, a little hurt.
+
+Verkan Vall's arm squeezed around her waist, and he laughed
+comfortingly.
+
+"You see? Any sort of result is possible, good or bad. So don't blame
+yourself in advance for something you can't possibly estimate." An
+idea occurred to him, and he straightened in the seat. "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."
+
+They bent to light their cigarettes together at his lighter. When
+they raised their heads again and got the flame glare out of their
+eyes, the sky was purple-black, dusted with stars, and dead ahead,
+spilling up over the horizon, was a golden glow--the lights of
+Dhergabar and home.
+
+
+
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+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Last Enemy</p>
+<p>Author: Henry Beam Piper</p>
+<p>Illustrator: Miller</p>
+<p>Release Date: July 10, 2006  [eBook #18800]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST ENEMY***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+ <p class="tr">Transcriber's Note:<br /><br />
+This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, August, 1950.
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this
+publication was renewed.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Frontispiece" width="600" height="417" /></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<h1>LAST ENEMY</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>BY H. BEAM PIPER</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>The last enemy was the toughest of all&mdash;and conquering him was
+in itself almost as dangerous as not conquering. For a strange pattern
+of beliefs can make assassination an honorable profession!</i></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>Illustrated by Miller</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width:65%" />
+<p>Along the U-shaped table, the subdued clatter of dinnerware and the
+buzz of conversation was dying out; the soft music that drifted down
+from the overhead sound outlets seemed louder as the competing noises
+diminished. The feast was drawing to a close, and Dallona of Hadron
+fidgeted nervously with the stem of her wineglass as last-moment
+doubts assailed her.</p>
+
+<p>The old man at whose right she sat noticed, and reached out to lay his
+hand on hers.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you're worried," he said softly. "You, of all people,
+shouldn't be, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"The theory isn't complete," she replied. "And I could wish for more
+positive verification. I'd hate to think I'd got you into this&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Garnon of Roxor laughed. "No, no!" he assured her. "I'd decided upon
+this long before you announced the results of your experiments. Ask
+Girzon; he'll bear me out."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," the young man who sat at Garnon's left said, leaning
+forward. "Father has meant to take this step for a long time. He was
+waiting until after the election, and then he decided to do it now, to
+give you an opportunity to make experimental use of it."</p>
+
+<p>The man on Dallona's right added his voice. Like the others at the
+table, he was of medium stature, brown-skinned and dark-eyed, with a
+wide mouth, prominent cheekbones and a short, square jaw. Unlike the
+others, he was armed, with a knife and pistol on his belt, and on the
+breast of his black tunic he wore a scarlet oval patch on which a pair
+of black wings, with a tapering silver object between them had been
+superimposed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lady Dallona; the Lord Garnon and I discussed this, oh, two
+years ago at the least. Really, I'm surprised that you seem to shrink
+from it, now. Of course, you're Venus-born, and customs there may be
+different, but with your scientific knowledge&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be the trouble, Dirzed," Dallona told him. "A scientist gets
+in the way of doubting, and one doubts one's own theories most of
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the scientific attitude, I'm told," Dirzed replied, smiling.
+"But somehow, I cannot think of you as a scientist." His eyes traveled
+over her in a way that would have made most women, scientists or
+otherwise, blush. It gave Dallona of Hadron a feeling of pleasure. Men
+often looked at her that way, especially here at Darsh. Novelty had
+something to do with it&mdash;her skin was considerably lighter than usual,
+and there was a pleasing oddness about the structure of her face. Her
+alleged Venusian origin was probably accepted as the explanation of
+that, as of so many other things.</p>
+
+<p>As she was about to reply, a man in dark gray, one of the
+upper-servants who were accepted as social equals by the Akor-Neb
+nobles, approached the table. He nodded respectfully to Garnon of
+Roxor.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to seem to hurry things, sir, but the boy's ready. He's in a
+trance-state now," he reported, pointing to the pair of visiplates at
+the end of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Both of the ten-foot-square plates were activated. One was a solid
+luminous white; on the other was the image of a boy of twelve or
+fourteen, seated at a big writing machine. Even allowing for the fact
+that the boy was in a hypnotic trance, there was an expression of
+idiocy on his loose-lipped, slack-jawed face, a pervading dullness.</p>
+
+<p>"One of our best sensitives," a man with a beard, several places down
+the table on Dallona's right, said. "You remember him, Dallona; he
+produced that communication from the discarnate Assassin, Sirzim.
+Normally, he's a low-grade imbecile, but in trance-state he's
+wonderful. And there can be no argument that the communications he
+produces originates in his own mind; he doesn't have mind enough, of
+his own, to operate that machine."</p>
+
+<p>Garnon of Roxor rose to his feet, the others rising with him. He
+unfastened a jewel from the front of his tunic and handed it to
+Dallona.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, my dear Lady Dallona; I want you to have this," he said. "It's
+been in the family of Roxor for six generations, but I know that you
+will appreciate and cherish it." He twisted a heavy ring from his left
+hand and gave it to his son. He unstrapped his wrist watch and passed
+it across the table to the gray-clad upper-servant. He gave a pocket
+case, containing writing tools, slide rule and magnifier, to the
+bearded man on the other side of Dallona. "Something you can use, Dr.
+Harnosh," he said. Then he took a belt, with a knife and holstered
+pistol, from a servant who had brought it to him, and gave it to the
+man with the red badge. "And something for you, Dirzed. The pistol's
+by Farnor of Yand, and the knife was forged and tempered on Luna."</p>
+
+<p>The man with the winged-bullet badge took the weapons, exclaiming in
+appreciation. Then he removed his own belt and buckled on the gift.</p>
+
+<p>"The pistol's fully loaded," Garnon told him.</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed drew it and checked&mdash;a man of his craft took no statement about
+weapons without verification&mdash;then slipped it back into the holster.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I use it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means; I'd had that in mind when I selected it for you."</p>
+
+<p>Another man, to the left of Girzon, received a cigarette case and
+lighter. He and Garnon hooked fingers and clapped shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Our views haven't been the same, Garnon," he said, "but I've always
+valued your friendship. I'm sorry you're doing this, now; I believe
+you'll be disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>Garnon chuckled. "Would you care to make a small wager on that,
+Nirzav?" he asked. "You know what I'm putting up. If I'm proven right,
+will you accept the Volitionalist theory as verified?"</p>
+
+<p>Nirzav chewed his mustache for a moment. "Yes, Garnon, I will." He
+pointed toward the blankly white screen. "If we get anything
+conclusive on that, I'll have no other choice."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, friends," Garnon said to those around him. "Will you walk
+with me to the end of the room?"</p>
+
+<p>Servants removed a section from the table in front of him, to allow
+him and a few others to pass through; the rest of the guests remained
+standing at the table, facing toward the inside of the room. Garnon's
+son, Girzon, and the gray-mustached Nirzav of Shonna, walked on his
+left; Dallona of Hadron and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh on his right. The
+gray-clad upper-servant, and two or three ladies, and a nobleman with
+a small chin-beard, and several others, joined them; of those who had
+sat close to Garnon, only the man in the black tunic with the scarlet
+badge hung back. He stood still, by the break in the table, watching
+Garnon of Roxor walk away from him. Then Dirzed the Assassin drew the
+pistol he had lately received as a gift, hefted it in his hand,
+thumbed off the safety, and aimed at the back of Garnon's head.</p>
+
+<p>They had nearly reached the end of the room when the pistol cracked.
+Dallona of Hadron started, almost as though the bullet had crashed
+into her own body, then caught herself and kept on walking. She closed
+her eyes and laid a hand on Dr. Harnosh's arm for guidance,
+concentrating her mind upon a single question. The others went on as
+though Garnon of Roxor were still walking among them.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" Harnosh of Hosh cried, pointing to the image in the visiplate
+ahead. "He's under control!"</p>
+
+<p>They all stopped short, and Dirzed, holstering his pistol, hurried
+forward to join them. Behind, a couple of servants had approached with
+a stretcher and were gathering up the crumpled figure that had, a
+moment ago, been Garnon.</p>
+
+<p>A change had come over the boy at the writing machine. His eyes were
+still glazed with the stupor of the hypnotic trance, but the slack jaw
+had stiffened, and the loose mouth was compressed in a purposeful
+line. As they watched, his hands went out to the keyboard in front of
+him and began to move over it, and as they did, letters appeared on
+the white screen on the left.</p>
+
+<p><i>Garnon of Roxor, discarnate, communicating</i>, they read. The machine
+stopped for a moment, then began again. <i>To Dallona of Hadron: The
+question you asked, after I discarnated, was: What was the last book I
+read, before the feast? While waiting for my valet to prepare my bath,
+I read the first ten verses of the fourth Canto of "Splendor of
+Space," by Larnov of Horka, in my bedroom. When the bath was ready, I
+marked the page with a strip of message tape, containing a message
+from the bailiff of my estate on the Shevva River, concerning a
+breakdown at the power plant, and laid the book on the ivory-inlaid
+table beside the big red chair.</i></p>
+
+<p>Harnosh of Hosh looked at Dallona inquiringly; she nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I rejected the question I had in my mind, and substituted that one,
+after the shot," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly to the upper-servant. "Check on that, right away,
+Kirzon," he directed.</p>
+
+<p>As the upper-servant hurried out, the writing machine started again.</p>
+
+<p><i>And to my son, Girzon: I will not use your son, Garnon, as a
+reincarnation-vehicle; I will remain discarnate until he is grown and
+has a son of his own; if he has no male child, I will reincarnate in
+the first available male child of the family of Roxor, or of some
+family allied to us by marriage. In any case, I will communicate
+before reincarnating.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>To Nirzav of Shonna: Ten days ago, when I dined at your home, I took
+a small knife and cut three notches, two close together and one a
+little apart from the others, on the under side of the table. As I
+remember, I sat two places down on the left. If you find them, you
+will know that I have won that wager that I spoke of a few minutes
+ago.</i></p>
+
+<p>"I'll have my butler check on that, right away," Nirzav said. His eyes
+were wide with amazement, and he had begun to sweat; a man does not
+casually watch the beliefs of a lifetime invalidated in a few moments.</p>
+
+<p><i>To Dirzed the Assassin</i>: the machine continued. <i>You have served me
+faithfully, in the last ten years, never more so than with the last
+shot you fired in my service. After you fired, the thought was in your
+mind that you would like to take service with the Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, whom you believe will need the protection of a member of the
+Society of Assassins. I advise you to do so, and I advise her to
+accept your offer. Her work, since she has come to Darsh, has not made
+her popular in some quarters. No doubt Nirzav of Shonna can bear me
+out on that.</i></p>
+
+<p>"I won't betray things told me in confidence, or said at the Councils
+of the Statisticalists, but he's right," Nirzav said. "You need a good
+Assassin, and there are few better than Dirzed."</p>
+
+<p><i>I see that this sensitive is growing weary</i>, the letters on the
+screen spelled out. <i>His body is not strong enough for prolonged
+communication. I bid you all farewell, for the time; I will
+communicate again. Good evening, my friends, and I thank you for your
+presence at the feast.</i></p>
+
+<p>The boy, on the other screen, slumped back in his chair, his face
+relaxing into its customary expression of vacancy.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you accept my offer of service, Lady Dallona?" Dirzed asked.
+"It's as Garnon said; you've made enemies."</p>
+
+<p>Dallona smiled at him. "I've not been too deep in my work to know
+that. I'm glad to accept your offer, Dirzed."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Nirzav of Shonna had already turned away from the group and was
+hurrying from the room, to call his home for confirmation on the
+notches made on the underside of his dining table. As he went out the
+door, he almost collided with the upper-servant, who was rushing in
+with a book in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is," the latter exclaimed, holding up the book. "Larnov's
+'Splendor of Space,' just where he said it would be. I had a couple of
+servants with me as witnesses; I can call them in now, if you wish."
+He handed the book to Harnosh of Hosh. "See, a strip of message tape
+in it, at the tenth verse of the Fourth Canto."</p>
+
+<p>Nirzav of Shonna re-entered the room; he was chewing his mustache and
+muttering to himself. As he rejoined the group in front of the now
+dark visiplates, he raised his voice, addressing them all generally.</p>
+
+<p>"My butler found the notches, just as the communication described," he
+said. "This settles it! Garnon, if you're where you can hear me,
+you've won. I can't believe in the Statisticalist doctrines after
+this, or in the political program based upon them. I'll announce my
+change of attitude at the next meeting of the Executive Council, and
+resign my seat. I was elected by Statisticalist votes, and I cannot
+hold office as a Volitionalist."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll need a couple of Assassins, too," the nobleman with the
+chin-beard told him. "Your former colleagues and fellow-party-members
+are regrettably given to the forcible discarnation of those who differ
+with them."</p>
+
+<p>"I've never employed personal Assassins before," Nirzav replied, "but
+I think you're right. As soon as I get home, I'll call Assassins' Hall
+and make the necessary arrangements."</p>
+
+<p>"Better do it now," Girzon of Roxor told him, lowering his voice.
+"There are over a hundred guests here, and I can't vouch for all of
+them. The Statisticalists would be sure to have a spy planted among
+them. My father was one of their most dangerous opponents, when he was
+on the Council; they've always been afraid he'd come out of retirement
+and stand for re-election. They'd want to make sure he was really
+discarnate. And if that's the case, you can be sure your change of
+attitude is known to old Mirzark of Bashad by this time. He won't dare
+allow you to make a public renunciation of Statisticalism." He turned
+to the other nobleman. "Prince Jirzyn, why don't you call the
+Volitionist headquarters and have a couple of our Assassins sent here
+to escort Lord Nirzav home?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do that immediately," Jirzyn of Starpha said. "It's as Lord
+Girzon says; we can be pretty sure there was a spy among the guests,
+and now that you've come over to our way of thinking, we're
+responsible for your safety."</p>
+
+<p>He left the room to make the necessary visiphone call. Dallona,
+accompanied by Dirzed, returned to her place at the table, where she
+was joined by Harnosh of Hosh and some of the others.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no question about the results," Harnosh was exulting. "I'll
+grant that the boy might have picked up some of that stuff
+telepathically from the carnate minds present here; even from the mind
+of Garnon, before he was discarnated. But he could not have picked up
+enough data, in that way, to make a connected and coherent
+communication. It takes a sensitive with a powerful mind of his own to
+practice telesthesia, and that boy's almost an idiot." He turned to
+Dallona. "You asked a question, mentally, after Garnon was
+discarnate, and got an answer that could have been contained only in
+Garnon's mind. I think it's conclusive proof that the discarnate
+Garnon was fully conscious and communicating."</p>
+
+<p>"Dirzed also asked a question, mentally, after the discarnation, and
+got an answer. Dr. Harnosh, we can state positively that the surviving
+individuality is fully conscious in the discarnate state, is
+telepathically sensitive, and is capable of telepathic communication
+with other minds," Dallona agreed. "And in view of our earlier work
+with memory-recalls, we're justified in stating positively that the
+individual is capable of exercising choice in reincarnation vehicles."</p>
+
+<p>"My father had been considering voluntary discarnation for a long
+time," Girzon of Roxor said. "Ever since the discarnation of my
+mother. He deferred that step because he was unwilling to deprive the
+Volitionalist Party of his support. Now it would seem that he has done
+more to combat Statisticalism by discarnating than he ever did in his
+carnate existence."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Girzon," Jirzyn of Starpha said, as he joined the
+group. "The Statisticalists will denounce the whole thing as a
+prearranged fraud. And if they can discarnate the Lady Dallona before
+she can record her testimony under truth hypnosis or on a lie
+detector, we're no better off than we were before. Dirzed, you have a
+great responsibility in guarding the Lady Dallona; some extraordinary
+security precautions will be needed."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In his office, in the First Level city of Dhergabar, Tortha Karf,
+Chief of Paratime Police, leaned forward in his chair to hold his
+lighter for his special assistant, Verkan Vall, then lit his own
+cigarette. He was a man of middle age&mdash;his three hundredth birthday
+was only a decade or so off&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about the Second Level Akor-Neb Sector, Vall?" he
+inquired. "Ever work in that paratime-area?"</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall's handsome features became even more immobile than usual
+as he mentally pronounced the verbal trigger symbols which should
+bring hypnotically-acquired knowledge into his conscious mind. Then he
+shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Must be a singularly well-behaved sector, sir," he said. "Or else
+we've been lucky, so far. I never was on an Akor-Neb operation; don't
+even have a hypno-mech for that sector. All I know is from general
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Like all the Second Level, its time-lines descend from the
+probability of one or more shiploads of colonists having come to Terra
+from Mars about seventy-five to a hundred thousand years ago, and then
+having been cut off from the home planet and forced to develop a
+civilization of their own here. The Akor-Neb civilization is of a
+fairly high culture-order, even for Second Level. An atomic-power,
+interplanetary culture; gravity-counteraction, direct conversion of
+nuclear energy to electrical power, that sort of thing. We buy fine
+synthetic plastics and fabrics from them." He fingered the material of
+his smartly-cut green police uniform. "I think this cloth is Akor-Neb.
+We sell a lot of Venusian <i>zerfa</i>-leaf; they smoke it, straight and
+mixed with tobacco. They have a single System-wide government, a
+single race, and a universal language. They're a dark-brown race,
+which evolved in its present form about fifty thousand years ago; the
+present civilization is about ten thousand years old, developed out of
+the wreckage of several earlier civilizations which decayed or fell
+through wars, exhaustion of resources, et cetera. They have legends,
+maybe historical records, of their extraterrestrial origin."</p>
+
+<p>Tortha Karf nodded. "Pretty good, for consciously acquired knowledge,"
+he commented. "Well, our luck's run out, on that sector; we have
+troubles there, now. I want you to go iron them out. I know, you've
+been going pretty hard, lately&mdash;that nighthound business, on the
+Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, wasn't any picnic. But the fact
+is that a lot of my ordinary and deputy assistants have a little too
+much regard for the alleged sanctity of human life, and this is
+something that may need some pretty drastic action."</p>
+
+<p>"Some of our people getting out of line?" Verkan Vall asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the data isn't too complete, but one of our people has run into
+trouble on that sector, and needs rescuing&mdash;a psychic-science
+researcher, a young lady named Hadron Dalla. I believe you know her,
+don't you?" Tortha Karf asked innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"Slightly," Verkan Vall deadpanned. "I enjoyed a brief but rather
+hectic companionate-marriage with her, about twenty years ago. What
+sort of a jam's little Dalla got herself into, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, frankly, we don't know. I hope she's still alive, but I'm not
+unduly optimistic. It seems that about a year ago, Dr. Hadron
+transposed to the Second Level, to study alleged proof of
+reincarnation which the Akor-Neb people were reported to possess. She
+went to Gindrabar, on Venus, and transposed to the Second Paratime
+Level, to a station maintained by Outtime Import &amp; Export Trading
+Corporation&mdash;a <i>zerfa</i> plantation just east of the High Ridge country.
+There she assumed an identity as the daughter of a planter, and took
+the name of Dallona of Hadron. Parenthetically, all Akor-Neb
+family-names are prepositional; family-names were originally place
+names. I believe that ancient Akor-Neb marital relations were too
+complicated to permit exact establishment of paternity. And all
+Akor-Neb men's personal names have -<i>irz</i>- or -<i>arn</i>- inserted in the
+middle, and women's names end in -<i>itra</i>- or -<i>ona</i>. You could call
+yourself Virzal of Verkan, for instance.</p>
+
+<div class="figright"><img src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="300" height="838" /></div>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, she made the Second Level Venus-Terra trip on a regular
+passenger liner, and landed at the Akor-Neb city of Ghamma, on the
+upper Nile. There she established contact with the Outtime Trading
+Corporation representative, Zortan Brend, locally known as Brarnend of
+Zorda. He couldn't call himself Brarnend of Zortan&mdash;in the Akor-Neb
+language, <i>zortan</i> is a particularly nasty dirty-word. Hadron Dalla
+spent a few weeks at his residence, briefing herself on local
+conditions. Then she went to the capital city, Darsh, in eastern
+Europe, and enrolled as a student at something called the Independent
+Institute for Reincarnation Research, having secured a letter of
+introduction to its director, a Dr. Harnosh of Hosh.</p>
+
+<p>"Almost at once, she began sending in reports to her home
+organization, the Rhogom Memorial Foundation of Psychic Science, here
+at Dhergabar, through Zortan Brend. The people there were wildly
+enthusiastic. I don't have more than the average intelligent&mdash;I
+hope&mdash;layman's knowledge of psychics, but Dr. Volzar Darv, the
+director of Rhogom Foundation, tells me that even in the present
+incomplete form, her reports have opened whole new horizons in the
+science. It seems that these Akor-Neb people have actually
+demonstrated, as a scientific fact, that the human individuality
+reincarnates after physical death&mdash;that your personality, and mine,
+have existed, as such, for ages, and will exist for ages to come.
+More, they have means of recovering, from almost anybody, memories of
+past reincarnations.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>"Well, after about a month, the people at this Reincarnation Institute
+realized that this Dallona of Hadron wasn't any ordinary student. She
+probably had trouble keeping down to the local level of psychic
+knowledge. So, as soon as she'd learned their techniques, she was
+allowed to undertake experimental work of her own. I imagine she let
+herself out on that; as soon as she'd mastered the standard Akor-Neb
+methods of recovering memories of past reincarnations, she began
+refining and developing them more than the local yokels had been able
+to do in the past thousand years. I can't tell you just what she did,
+because I don't know the subject, but she must have lit things up
+properly. She got quite a lot of local publicity; not only scientific
+journals, but general newscasts.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, four days ago, she disappeared, and her disappearance seems to
+have been coincident with an unsuccessful attempt on her life. We
+don't know as much about this as we should; all we have is Zortan
+Brend's account.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that on the evening of her disappearance, she had been
+attending the voluntary discarnation feast&mdash;suicide party&mdash;of a
+prominent nobleman named Garnon of Roxor. Evidently when the Akor-Neb
+people get tired of their current reincarnation they invite in their
+friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere
+of general conviviality. Frequently they take poison or inhale lethal
+gas; this fellow had his personal trigger man shoot him through the
+head. Dalla was one of the guests of honor, along with this Harnosh of
+Hosh. They'd made rather elaborate preparations, and after the
+shooting they got a detailed and apparently authentic
+spirit-communication from the late Garnon. The voluntary discarnation
+was just a routine social event, it seems, but the communication
+caused quite an uproar, and rated top place on the System-wide
+newscasts, and started a storm of controversy.</p>
+
+<p>"After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating
+gun artist, one Dirzed, into her own service. This Dirzed was spoken
+of as a generally respected member of something called the Society of
+Assassins, and that'll give you an idea of what things are like on
+that sector, and why I don't want to send anybody who might develop
+trigger-finger cramp at the wrong moment. She and Dirzed left the home
+of the gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for
+Dalla's apartment, about a hundred miles away. That's the last that's
+been heard of either of them.</p>
+
+<p>"This attempt on Dalla's life occurred while the pre-mortem revels
+were still going on. She lived in a six-room apartment, with three
+servants, on one of the upper floors of a three-thousand-foot
+tower&mdash;Akor-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable
+interval between units&mdash;and while she was at this feast, a package was
+delivered at the apartment, ostensibly from the Reincarnation
+Institute and made up to look as though it contained record tapes. One
+of the servants accepted it from a service employee of the apartments.
+The next morning, a little before noon, Dr. Harnosh of Hosh called her
+on the visiphone and got no answer; he then called the apartment
+manager, who entered the apartment. He found all three of the servants
+dead, from a lethal-gas bomb which had exploded when one of them had
+opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the
+apartment, the night before."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless as he ran
+Tortha Karf's narrative through the intricate semantic and
+psychological processes of the First Level mentality. The fact that
+Hadron Dalla had been a former wife of his had been relegated to one
+corner of his consciousness and contained there; it was not a fact
+that would, at the moment, contribute to the problem or to his
+treatment of it.</p>
+
+<p>"The package was delivered while she was at this suicide party," he
+considered. "It must, therefore, have been sent by somebody who either
+did not know she would be out of the apartment, or who did not expect
+it to function until after her return. On the other hand, if her
+disappearance was due to hostile action, it was the work of somebody
+who knew she was at the feast and did not want her to reach her
+apartment again. This would seem to exclude the sender of the package
+bomb."</p>
+
+<p>Tortha Karf nodded. He had reached that conclusion, himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus," Verkan Vall continued, "if her disappearance was the work of
+an enemy, she must have two enemies, each working in ignorance of the
+other's plans."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think she did to provoke such enmity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, it just might be that Dalla's normally complicated
+love-life had got a little more complicated than usual and
+short-circuited on her," Verkan Vall said, out of the fullness of
+personal knowledge, "but I doubt that, at the moment. I would think
+that this affair has political implications."</p>
+
+<p>"So?" Tortha Karf had not thought of politics as an explanation. He
+waited for Verkan Vall to elaborate.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you see, chief?" the special assistant asked. "We find a belief
+in reincarnation on many time-lines, as a religious doctrine, but
+these people accept it as a scientific fact. Such acceptance would
+carry much more conviction; it would influence a people's entire
+thinking. We see it reflected in their disregard for death&mdash;suicide as
+a social function, this Society of Assassins, and the like. It would
+naturally color their political thinking, because politics is nothing
+but common action to secure more favorable living conditions, and to
+these people, the term 'living conditions' includes not only the
+present life, but also an indefinite number of future lives as well. I
+find this title, 'Independent' Institute, suggestive. Independent of
+what? Possibly of partisan affiliation."</p>
+
+<p>"But wouldn't these people be grateful to her for her new discoveries,
+which would enable them to plan their future reincarnations more
+intelligently?" Tortha Karf asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, chief!" Verkan Vall reproached. "You know better than that! How
+many times have our people got in trouble on other time-lines because
+they divulged some useful scientific fact that conflicted with the
+locally revered nonsense? You show me ten men who cherish some
+religious doctrine or political ideology, and I'll show you nine men
+whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which
+contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such
+evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. For instance, on
+the Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, where I was just working,
+there is a political sect, the Communists, who, in the territory under
+their control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established facts
+of genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit the
+world-picture demanded by their political doctrines. And on the same
+sector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sections
+successfully, to outlaw the teaching of evolution by natural
+selection."</p>
+
+<p>Tortha Karf nodded. "I remember some stories my grandfather told me,
+about his narrow escapes from an organization called the Holy
+Inquisition, when he was a paratime trader on the Fourth Level, about
+four hundred years ago. I believe that thing's still operating, on the
+Europo-American Sector, under the name of the NKVD. So you think Dalla
+may have proven something that conflicted with local reincarnation
+theories, and somebody who had a vested interest in maintaining those
+theories is trying to stop her?"</p>
+
+<p>"You spoke of a controversy over the communication alleged to have
+originated with this voluntarily discarnated nobleman. That would
+suggest a difference of opinion on the manner of nature of
+reincarnation or the discarnate state. This difference may mark the
+dividing line between the different political parties. Now, to get to
+this Darsh place, do I have to go to Venus, as Dalla did?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. The Outtime Trading Corporation has transposition facilities at
+Ravvanan, on the Nile, which is spatially co-existent with the city of
+Ghamma on the Akor-Neb Sector, where Zortan Brend is. You transpose
+through there, and Zortan Brend will furnish you transportation to
+Darsh. It'll take you about two days, here, getting your hypno-mech
+indoctrinations and having your skin pigmented, and your hair turned
+black. I'll notify Zortan Brend at once that you're coming through.
+Is there anything special you'll want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I'll want an abstract of the reports Dalla sent back to Rhogom
+Foundation. It's likely that there is some clue among them as to whom
+her discoveries may have antagonized. I'm going to be a Venusian
+<i>zerfa</i>-planter, a friend of her father's; I'll want full hypno-mech
+indoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I'll want to
+familiarize myself with Akor-Neb weapons and combat techniques. I
+think that will be all, chief."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The last of the tall city-units of Ghamma were sliding out of sight as
+the ship passed over them&mdash;shaft-like buildings that rose two or three
+thousand feet above the ground in clumps of three or four or six, one
+at each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Each
+of these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five miles
+square; no unit was much more or less than twenty miles from its
+nearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden-brown of
+ripening grain, crisscrossed with the threads of irrigation canals and
+dotted here and there with sturdy farm-village buildings and tall,
+stacklike granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at the
+fifty-thousand-foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats darted
+back and forth on different levels, depending upon speed and
+direction. Far ahead, to the northeast, was the shimmer of the Red Sea
+and the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall&mdash;the Lord Virzal of Verkan, temporarily&mdash;stood at the
+glass front of the observation deck, looking down. He was a different
+Verkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in the
+latter's office, two days before. The First Level cosmeticists had
+worked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a soft
+chocolate-brown, now; his hair was jet-black, and so were his eyes.
+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.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that he was looking down upon one of the minor provincial
+cities of a very respectably advanced civilization. A civilization
+which built its cities vertically, since it had learned to counteract
+gravitation. A civilization which still depended upon natural cereals
+for food, but one which had learned to make the most efficient use of
+its soil. The network of dams and irrigation canals which he saw was
+as good as anything on his own paratime level. The wide dispersal of
+buildings, he knew, was a heritage of a series of disastrous atomic
+wars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come to
+love the wide inter-vistas of open country and forest, and had
+continued to scatter their buildings, even after the necessity had
+passed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been reared
+by a people who had banished nationalism and, with it, the threat of
+total war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities of
+the Khiftan civilization, only a few thousand parayears distant.</p>
+
+<p>Three men came out of the lounge behind him and joined him. One was,
+like himself, a disguised paratimer from the First Level&mdash;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. Unlike Verkan
+Vall and Zortan Brend, who wore shoulder holsters under their short
+tunics, the Assassins openly displayed pistols and knives on their
+belts.</p>
+
+<p>"We heard that you were coming two days ago, Lord Virzal," Zortan
+Brend said. "We delayed the take-off of this ship, so that you could
+travel to Darsh as inconspicuously as possible. I also booked a suite
+for you at the Solar Hotel, at Darsh. And these are your
+Assassins&mdash;Olirzon, and Marnik."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Virzal of Verkan," he identified himself. "I am satisfied to intrust
+myself to you."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll do our best for you, Lord Virzal," the older of the pair,
+Olirzon, said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued: "Understand,
+Lord Virzal, I only ask for information useful in serving and
+protecting you. But is this of the Lady Dallona a political matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not from our side," Verkan Vall told him. "The Lady Dallona is a
+scientist, entirely nonpolitical. The Honorable Brarnend is a business
+man; he doesn't meddle with politics as long as the politicians leave
+him alone. And I'm a planter on Venus; I have enough troubles, with
+the natives, and the weather, and blue-rot in the <i>zerfa</i> plants, and
+poison roaches, and javelin bugs, without getting into politics. But
+psychic science is inextricably mixed with politics, and the Lady
+Dallona's work had evidently tended to discredit the theory of
+Statistical Reincarnation."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Virzal?" Olirzon
+grinned. "In the last six months, she's knocked Statistical
+Reincarnation to splinters."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don't know much
+about Terran politics," Verkan Vall replied. "I know that the
+Statisticalists favor complete socialization and political control of
+the whole economy, because they want everybody to have the same
+opportunities in every reincarnation. And the Volitionalists believe
+that everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favor
+continuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth and
+private profit under a system of free competition. And that's about
+all I do know. Naturally, as a land-owner and the holder of a title of
+nobility, I'm a Volitionalist in politics, but the socialization
+issue isn't important on Venus. There is still too much unseated land
+there, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialism
+attractive to anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's about it," Zortan Brend told him. "I'm not enough of a
+psychicist to know what the Lady Dallona's been doing, but she's
+knocked the theoretical basis from under Statistical Reincarnation,
+and that's the basis, in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we'll
+find that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whatever
+happened to her."</p>
+
+<p>Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, then
+addressed Verkan Vall:</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Virzal, I know none of the personalities involved in this
+matter, and I speak without wishing to give offense, but is it not
+possible that the Lady Dallona and the Assassin Dirzed may have gone
+somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and he has many
+qualities which women find attractive, and he is by no means
+indifferent to the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Virzal&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand all too perfectly, Marnik," Verkan Vall replied, out of
+the fullness of experience. "The Lady Dallona has had affairs with a
+number of men, myself among them. But under the circumstances, I find
+that explanation unthinkable."</p>
+
+<p>Marnik looked at him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where
+an attractive man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that
+explanation was never unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lady Dallona is a scientist," Verkan Vall elaborated. "She is not
+above diverting herself with love affairs, but that's all they are&mdash;a
+not too important form of diversion. And, if you recall, she had just
+participated in a most significant experiment: you can be sure that
+she had other things on her mind at the time than pleasure jaunts with
+good-looking Assassins."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The ship was passing around the Caucasus Mountains, with the Caspian
+Sea in sight ahead, when several of the crew appeared on the
+observation deck and began preparing the shielding to protect the deck
+from gunfire. Zortan Brend inquired of the petty officer in charge of
+the work as to the necessity.</p>
+
+<p>"We've been getting reports of trouble at Darsh, sir," the man said.
+"Newscast bulletins every couple of minutes: rioting in different
+parts of the city. Started yesterday afternoon, when a couple of
+Statisticalist members of the Executive Council resigned and went over
+to the Volitionalists. Lord Nirzav of Shonna, the only nobleman of any
+importance in the Statisticalist Party, was one of them; he was shot
+immediately afterward, while leaving the Council Chambers, along with
+a couple of Assassins who were with him. Some people in an airboat
+sprayed them with a machine rifle as they came out onto the landing
+stage."</p>
+
+<p>The two Assassins exclaimed in horrified anger over this.</p>
+
+<p>"That wasn't the work of members of the Society of Assassins!" Olirzon
+declared. "Even after he'd resigned, the Lord Nirzav was still immune
+till he left the Government Building. There's too blasted much illegal
+assassination going on!"</p>
+
+<p>"What happened next?" Verkan Vall wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"About what you'd expect, sir. The Volitionalists weren't going to
+take that quietly. In the past eighteen hours, four prominent
+Statisticalists were forcibly discarnated, and there was even a fight
+in Mirzark of Bashad's house, when Volitionalist Assassins broke in;
+three of them and four of Mirzark's Assassins were discarnated."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, something is going to have to be done about that, too,"
+Olirzon said to Marnik. "It's getting to a point where these political
+faction fights are being carried on entirely between members of the
+Society. In Ghamma alone, last year, thirty or forty of our members
+were discarnated that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Plug in a newscast visiplate, Karnil," Zortan Brend told the petty
+officer. "Let's see what's going on in Darsh now."</p>
+
+<p>In Darsh, it seemed, an uneasy peace was being established. Verkan
+Vall watched heavily-armed airboats and light combat ships patrolling
+among the high towers of the city. He saw a couple of minor riots
+being broken up by the blue-uniformed Constabulary, with considerable
+shooting and a ruthless disregard for who might get shot. It wasn't
+exactly the sort of policing that would have been tolerated in the
+First Level Civil Order Section, but it seemed to suit Akor-Neb
+conditions. And he listened to a series of angry recriminations and
+contradictory statements by different politicians, all of whom blamed
+the disorders on their opponents. The Volitionalists spoke of the
+Statisticalists as "insane criminals" and "underminers of social
+stability," and the Statisticalists called the Volitionalists
+"reactionary criminals" and "enemies of social progress." Politicians,
+he had observed, differed little in their vocabularies from one
+time-line to another.</p>
+
+<p>This kept up all the while the ship was passing over the Caspian Sea;
+as they were turning up the Volga valley, one of the ship's officers
+came down from the control deck, above.</p>
+
+<p>"We're coming into Darsh, now," he said, and as Verkan Vall turned
+from the visiplate to the forward windows, he could see the white and
+pastel-tinted towers of the city rising above the hardwood forests
+that covered the whole Volga basin on this sector. "Your luggage has
+been put into the airboat, Lord Virzal and Honorable Assassins, and
+it's ready for launching whenever you are." The officer glanced at his
+watch. "We dock at Commercial Center in twenty minutes; we'll be
+passing the Solar Hotel in ten."</p>
+
+<p>They all rose, and Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders
+with Zortan Brend.</p>
+
+<p>"Good luck, Lord Virzal," the latter said. "I hope you find the Lady
+Dallona safe and carnate. If you need help, I'll be at Mercantile
+House for the next day or so; if you get back to Ghamma before I do,
+you know who to ask for there."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A number of assassins loitered in the hallways and offices of the
+Independent Institute of Reincarnation Research when Verkan Vall,
+accompanied by Marnik, called there that afternoon. Some of them
+carried submachine-guns or sleep-gas projectors, and they were
+stopping people and questioning them. Marnik needed only to give them
+a quick gesture and the words, "Assassins' Truce," and he and his
+client were allowed to pass. They entered a lifter tube and floated up
+to the office of Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, with whom Verkan Vall had made
+an appointment.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Lord Virzal," the director of the Institute told him, "but
+I have no idea what has befallen the Lady Dallona, or even if she is
+still carnate. I am quite worried; I admired her extremely, both as an
+individual and as a scientist. I do hope she hasn't been discarnated;
+that would be a serious blow to science. It is fortunate that she
+accomplished as much as she did, while she was with us."</p>
+
+<p>"You think she is no longer carnate, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid so. The political effects of her discoveries&mdash;" Harnosh of
+Hosh shrugged sadly. "She was devoted, to a rare degree, to her work.
+I am sure that nothing but her discarnation could have taken her away
+from us, at this time, with so many important experiments still
+uncompleted."</p>
+
+<p>Marnik nodded to Verkan Vall, as much as to say: "You were right."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I intend acting upon the assumption that she is still carnate
+and in need of help, until I am positive to the contrary," Verkan Vall
+said. "And in the latter case, I intend finding out who discarnated
+her, and send him to apologize for it in person. People don't forcibly
+discarnate my friends with impunity."</p>
+
+<p>"Sound attitude," Dr. Harnosh commented. "There's certainly no
+positive evidence that she isn't still carnate. I'll gladly give you
+all the assistance I can, if you'll only tell me what you want."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in the first place," Verkan Vall began, "just what sort of work
+was she doing?" He already knew the answer to that, from the reports
+she had sent back to the First Level, but he wanted to hear Dr.
+Harnosh's version. "And what, exactly, are the political effects you
+mentioned? Understand, Dr. Harnosh, I am really quite ignorant of any
+scientific subject unrelated to <i>zerfa</i> culture, and equally so of
+Terran politics. Politics, on Venus, is mainly a question of who gets
+how much graft out of what."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harnosh smiled; evidently he had heard about Venusian politics.
+"Ah, yes, of course. But you are familiar with the main differences
+between Statistical and Volitional reincarnation theories?"</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_03.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="500" height="513" /></p>
+
+<p>"In a general way. The Volitionalists hold that the discarnate
+individuality is fully conscious, and is capable of something
+analogous to sense-perception, and is also capable of exercising
+choice in the matter of reincarnation vehicles, and can reincarnate or
+remain in the discarnate state as it chooses. They also believe that
+discarnate individualities can communicate with one another, and with
+at least some carnate individualities, by telepathy," he said. "The
+Statisticalists deny all this; their opinion is that the discarnate
+individuality is in a more or less somnambulistic state, that it is
+drawn by a process akin to tropism to the nearest available
+reincarnation vehicle, and that it must reincarnate in and only in
+that vehicle. They are labeled Statisticalists because they believe
+that the process of reincarnation is purely at random, or governed by
+unknown and uncontrollable causes, and is unpredictable except as to
+aggregates."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a fairly good generalized summary," Dr. Harnosh of Hosh
+grudged, unwilling to give a mere layman too much credit. He dipped a
+spoon into a tobacco humidor, dusted the tobacco lightly with dried
+<i>zerfa</i>, and rammed it into his pipe. "You must understand that our
+modern Statisticalists are the intellectual heirs of those ancient
+materialistic thinkers who denied the possibility of any discarnate
+existence, or of any extraphysical mind, or even of extrasensory
+perception. Since all these things have been demonstrated to be facts,
+the materialistic dogma has been broadened to include them, but always
+strictly within the frame of materialism.</p>
+
+<p>"We have proven, for instance, that the human individuality can exist
+in a discarnate state, and that it reincarnates into the body of an
+infant, shortly after birth. But the Statisticalists cannot accept the
+idea of discarnate consciousness, since they conceive of consciousness
+purely as a function of the physical brain. So they postulate an
+unconscious discarnate personality, or, as you put it, one in a
+somnambulistic state. They have to concede memory to this discarnate
+personality, since it was by recovery of memories of previous
+reincarnations that discarnate existence and reincarnation were proven
+to be facts. So they picture the discarnate individuality as a
+material object, or physical event, of negligible but actual mass, in
+which an indefinite number of memories can be stored as electronic
+charges. And they picture it as being drawn irresistibly to the body
+of the nearest non-incarnated infant. Curiously enough, the
+reincarnation vehicle chosen is almost always of the same sex as the
+vehicle of the previous reincarnation, the exceptions being cases of
+persons who had a previous history of psychological sex-inversion."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harnosh remembered the unlighted pipe in his hand, thrust it into
+his mouth, and lit it. For a moment, he sat with it jutting out of his
+black beard, until it was drawing to his satisfaction. "This belief in
+immediate reincarnation leads the Statisticalists, when they fight
+duels or perform voluntary discarnation, to do so in the neighborhood
+of maternity hospitals," he added. "I know, personally, of one
+reincarnation memory-recall, in which the subject, a Statisticalist,
+voluntarily discarnated by lethal-gas inhaler in a private room at one
+of our local maternity hospitals, and reincarnated twenty years later
+in the city of Jeddul, three thousand miles away." The square black
+beard jiggled as the scientist laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, as to the political implications of these contradictory
+theories: Since the Statisticalists believe that they will reincarnate
+entirely at random, their aim is to create an utterly classless social
+and economic order, in which, theoretically, each individuality will
+reincarnate into a condition of equality with everybody else. Their
+political program, therefore, is one of complete socialization of all
+means of production and distribution, abolition of hereditary titles
+and inherited wealth&mdash;eventually, all private wealth&mdash;and total
+government control of all economic, social and cultural activities. Of
+course," Dr. Harnosh apologized, "politics isn't my subject; I
+wouldn't presume to judge how that would function in practice."</p>
+
+<p>"I would," Verkan Vall said shortly, thinking of all the different
+time-lines on which he had seen systems like that in operation. "You
+wouldn't like it, doctor. And the Volitionalists?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, since they believe that they are able to choose the
+circumstances of their next reincarnations for themselves, they are
+the party of the <i>status quo</i>. Naturally, almost all the nobles,
+almost all the wealthy trading and manufacturing families, and almost
+all professional people, are Volitionalists; most of the workers and
+peasants are Statisticalists. Or, at least, they were, for the most
+part, before we began announcing the results of the Lady Dallona's
+experimental work."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah; now we come to it," Verkan Vall said as the story clarified.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. In somewhat oversimplified form, the situation is rather like
+this," Dr. Harnosh of Hosh said. "The Lady Dallona introduced a number
+of refinements and some outright innovations into our technique of
+recovering memories of past reincarnations. Previously, it was
+necessary to keep the subject in an hypnotic trance, during which he
+or she would narrate what was remembered of past reincarnations, and
+this would be recorded. On emerging from the trance, the subject would
+remember nothing; the tape-recording would be all that would be left.
+But the Lady Dallona devised a technique by which these memories would
+remain in what might be called the fore part of the subject's
+subconscious mind, so that they could be brought to the level of
+consciousness at will. More, she was able to recover memories of past
+discarnate existences, something we had never been able to do
+heretofore." Dr. Harnosh shook his head. "And to think, when I first
+met her, I thought that she was just another sensation-seeking young
+lady of wealth, and was almost about to refuse her enrollment!"</p>
+
+<p>He wasn't the only one whom little Dalla had surprised, Verkan Vall
+thought. At least, he had been pleasantly surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, this entirely disproves the Statistical Theory of
+Reincarnation. For example, we got a fine set of memory-recalls from
+one subject, for four previous reincarnations and four
+intercarnations. In the first of these, the subject had been a peasant
+on the estate of a wealthy noble. Unlike most of his fellows, who
+reincarnated into other peasant families almost immediately after
+discarnation, this man waited for fifty years in the discarnate state
+for an opportunity to reincarnate as the son of an over-servant. In
+his next reincarnation, he was the son of a technician, and received a
+technical education; he became a physics researcher. For his next
+reincarnation, he chose the son of a nobleman by a concubine as his
+vehicle; in his present reincarnation, he is a member of a wealthy
+manufacturing family, and married into a family of the nobility. In
+five reincarnations, he has climbed from the lowest to the
+next-to-highest rung of the social ladder. Few individuals of the
+class from whence he began this ascent possess so much persistence or
+determination. Then, of course, there was the case of Lord Garnon of
+Roxor."</p>
+
+<p>He went on to describe the last experiment in which Hadron Dalla had
+participated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that all sounds pretty conclusive," Verkan Vall commented. "I
+take it the leaders of the Volitionalist Party here are pleased with
+the result of the Lady Dallona's work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased? My dear Lord Virzal, they're fairly bursting with glee over
+it!" Harnosh of Hosh declared. "As I pointed out, the Statisticalist
+program of socialization is based entirely on the proposition that no
+one can choose the circumstances of his next reincarnation, and that's
+been demonstrated to be utter nonsense. Until the Lady Dallona's
+discoveries were announced, they were the dominant party, controlling
+a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the Executive Council.
+Only the Constitution kept them from enacting their entire
+socialization program long ago, and they were about to legislate
+constitutional changes which would remove that barrier. They had
+expected to be able to do so after the forthcoming general elections.
+But now, social inequality has become desirable: it gives people
+something to look forward to in the next reincarnation. Instead of
+wanting to abolish wealth and privilege and nobility, the proletariat
+want to reincarnate into them." Harnosh of Hosh laughed happily. "So
+you can see how furious the Statisticalist Party organization is!"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a catch to this, somewhere," Marnik the Assassin, speaking
+for the first time, declared. "They can't all reincarnate as princes,
+there aren't enough vacancies to go 'round. And no noble is going to
+reincarnate as a tractor driver to make room for a tractor driver who
+wants to reincarnate as a noble."</p>
+
+<p>"That's correct," Dr. Harnosh replied. "There is a catch to it; a
+catch most people would never admit, even to themselves. Very few
+individuals possess the will power, the intelligence or the capacity
+for mental effort displayed by the subject of the case I just quoted.
+The average man's interests are almost entirely on the physical side;
+he actually finds mental effort painful, and makes as little of it as
+possible. And that is the only sort of effort a discarnate
+individuality can exert. So, unable to endure the fifty or so years
+needed to make a really good reincarnation, he reincarnates in a year
+or so, out of pure boredom, into the first vehicle he can find,
+usually one nobody else wants." Dr. Harnosh dug out the heel of his
+pipe and blew through the stem. "But nobody will admit his own mental
+inferiority, even to himself. Now, every machine operator and field
+hand on the planet thinks he can reincarnate as a prince or a
+millionaire. Politics isn't my subject, but I'm willing to bet that
+since Statistical Reincarnation is an exploded psychic theory,
+Statisticalist Socialism has been caught in the blast area and
+destroyed along with it."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Olirzon was in the drawing room of the hotel suite when they returned,
+sitting on the middle of his spinal column in a reclining chair,
+smoking a pipe, dressing the edge of his knife with a pocket-hone, and
+gazing lecherously at a young woman in the visiplate. She was an
+extremely well-designed young woman, in a rather fragmentary costume,
+and she was heaving her bosom at the invisible audience in anger,
+sorrow, scorn, entreaty, and numerous other emotions.</p>
+
+<p>"... this revolting crime," she was declaiming, in a husky contralto,
+as Verkan Vall and Marnik entered, "foul even for the criminal beasts
+who conceived and perpetrated it!" She pointed an accusing finger.
+"This murder of the beautiful Lady Dallona of Hadron!"</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall stopped short, considering the possibility of something
+having been discovered lately of which he was ignorant. Olirzon must
+have guessed his thought; he grinned reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Think nothing of it, Lord Virzal," he said, waving his knife at the
+visiplate. "Just political propaganda; strictly for the sparrows. Nice
+propagandist, though."</p>
+
+<p>"And now," the woman with the magnificent natural resources lowered
+her voice reverently, "we bring you the last image of the Lady
+Dallona, and of Dirzed, her faithful Assassin, taken just before they
+vanished, never to be seen again."</p>
+
+<p>The plate darkened, and there were strains of slow, dirgelike music;
+then it lighted again, presenting a view of a broad hallway, thronged
+with men and women in bright varicolored costumes. In the foreground,
+wearing a tight skirt of deep blue and a short red jacket, was Hadron
+Dalla, just as she had looked in the solidographs taken in Dhergabar
+after her alteration by the First Level cosmeticians to conform to the
+appearance of the Malayoid Akor-Neb people. She was holding the arm of
+a man who wore the black tunic and red badge of an Assassin, a
+handsome specimen of the Akor-Neb race. Trust little Dalla for that,
+Verkan Vall thought. The figures were moving with exaggerated
+slowness, as though a very fleeting picture were being stretched out
+as far as possible. Having already memorized his former wife's changed
+appearance, Verkan Vall concentrated on the man beside her until the
+picture faded.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Olirzon; what did you get?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, first of all, at Assassins' Hall," Olirzon said, rolling up his
+left sleeve, holding his bare forearm to the light, and shaving a few
+fine hairs from it to test the edge of his knife. "Of course, they
+never tell one Assassin anything about the client of another Assassin;
+that's standard practice. But I was in the Lodge Secretary's office,
+where nobody but Assassins are ever admitted. They have a big panel in
+there, with the names of all the Lodge members on it in light-letters;
+that's standard in all Lodges. If an Assassin is unattached and free
+to accept a client, his name's in white light. If he has a client, the
+light's changed to blue, and the name of the client goes up under his.
+If his whereabouts are unknown, the light's changed to amber. If he is
+discarnated, his name's removed entirely, unless the circumstances of
+his discarnation are such as to constitute an injury to the Society.
+In that case, the name's in red light until he's been properly
+avenged, or, as we say, till his blood's been mopped up. Well, the
+name of Dirzed is up in blue light, with the name of Dallona of Hadron
+under it. I found out that the light had been amber for two days after
+the disappearance, and then had been changed back to blue. Get it,
+Lord Virzal?"</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. "I think so. I'd been considering that as a
+possibility from the first. Then what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I was about and around for a couple of hours, buying drinks for
+people&mdash;unattached Assassins, Constabulary detectives, political
+workers, newscast people. You owe me fifteen System Monetary Units for
+that, Lord Virzal. What I got, when it's all sorted out&mdash;I taped it in
+detail, as soon as I got back&mdash;reduces to this: The Volitionalists are
+moving mountains to find out who was the spy at Garnon of Roxor's
+discarnation feast, but are doing nothing but nothing at all to find
+the Lady Dallona or Dirzed. The Statisticalists are making all sorts
+of secret efforts to find out what happened to her. The Constabulary
+blame the Statistos for the package-bomb: they're interested in that
+because of the discarnation of the three servants by an illegal weapon
+of indiscriminate effect. They claim that the disappearance of Dirzed
+and the Lady Dallona was a publicity hoax. The Volitionalists are
+preparing a line of publicity to deny this."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. "That ties in with what you learned at Assassins'
+Hall," he said. "They're hiding out somewhere. Is there any chance of
+reaching Dirzed through the Society of Assassins?"</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon shook his head. "If you're right&mdash;and that's the way it looks
+to me, too&mdash;he's probably just called in and notified the Society that
+he's still carnate and so is the Lady Dallona, and called off any
+search the Society might be making for him."</p>
+
+<p>"And I've got to find the Lady Dallona as soon as I can. Well, if I
+can't reach her, maybe I can get her to send word to me," Verkan Vall
+said. "That's going to take some doing, too."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you find out, Lord Virzal?" Olirzon asked. He had a piece of
+soft leather, now, and was polishing his blade lovingly.</p>
+
+<p>"The Reincarnation Research people don't know anything," Verkan Vall
+replied. "Dr. Harnosh of Hosh thinks she's discarnate. I did find out
+that the experimental work she's done, so far, has absolutely
+disproved the theory of Statistical Reincarnation. The Volitionalists'
+theory is solidly established."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, what do you think, Olirzon?" Marnik added. "They have a case on
+record of a man who worked up from field hand to millionaire in five
+reincarnations. Deliberately, that is." He went on to repeat what
+Harnosh of Hosh had said; he must have possessed an almost eidetic
+memory, for he gave the bearded psychicist's words verbatim, and threw
+in the gestures and voice-inflections.</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon grinned. "You know, there's a chance for the easy-money boys,"
+he considered. "'You, too, can Reincarnate as a millionaire! Let Dr.
+Nirzutz of Futzbutz Help You! Only 49.98 System Monetary Units for the
+Secret, Infallible, Autosuggestive Formula.' And would it sell!" He
+put away the hone and the bit of leather and slipped his knife back
+into its sheath. "If I weren't a respectable Assassin, I'd give it a
+try, myself."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall looked at his watch. "We'd better get something to eat,"
+he said. "We'll go down to the main dining room; the Martian Room, I
+think they call it. I've got to think of some way to let the Lady
+Dallona know I'm looking for her."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Martian Room, fifteen stories down, was a big place, occupying
+almost half of the floor space of one corner tower. It had been fitted
+to resemble one of the ruined buildings of the ancient and vanished
+race of Mars who were the ancestors of Terran humanity. One whole side
+of the room was a gigantic cine-solidograph screen, on which the
+gullied desolation of a Martian landscape was projected; in the course
+of about two hours, the scene changed from sunrise through daylight
+and night to sunrise again.</p>
+
+<p>It was high noon when they entered and found a table; by the time they
+had finished their dinner, the night was ending and the first glow of
+dawn was tinting the distant hills. They sat for a while, watching the
+light grow stronger, then got up and left the table.</p>
+
+<p>There were five men at a table near them; they had come in before the
+stars had grown dim, and the waiters were just bringing their first
+dishes. Two were Assassins, and the other three were of a breed Verkan
+Vall had learned to recognize on any time-line&mdash;the arrogant,
+cocksure, ambitious, leftist politician, who knows what is best for
+everybody better than anybody else does, and who is convinced that he
+is inescapably right and that whoever differs with him is not only an
+ignoramus but a venal scoundrel as well. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is; the whole thing is a fraud," the monkish young man
+was saying angrily. "But we can't prove it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Sirzob, here, can prove anything, if you give him time," the
+beefy one laughed. "The trouble is, there isn't too much time. We know
+that that communication was a fake, prearranged by the Volitionalists,
+with Dr. Harnosh and this Dallona of Hadron as their tools. They fed
+the whole thing to that idiot boy hypnotically, in advance, and then,
+on a signal, he began typing out this spurious communication. And
+then, of course, Dallona and this Assassin of hers ran off somewhere
+together, so that we'd be blamed with discarnating or abducting them,
+and so that they wouldn't be made to testify about the communication
+on a lie detector."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden happy smile touched Verkan Vall's eyes. He caught each of his
+Assassins by an arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Marnik, cover my back," he ordered. "Olirzon, cover everybody at the
+table. Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he stepped forward, halting between the chairs of the young man
+and the man with the gray hair and facing the beefy man in the light
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" he barked. "I mean YOU."</p>
+
+<p>The beefy man stopped laughing and stared at him; then sprang to his
+feet. His hand, streaking toward his left armpit, stopped and dropped
+to his side as Olirzon aimed a pistol at him. The others sat
+motionless.</p>
+
+<p>"You," Verkan Vall continued, "are a complete, deliberate, malicious,
+and unmitigated liar. The Lady Dallona of Hadron is a scientist of
+integrity, incapable of falsifying her experimental work. What's more,
+her father is one of my best friends; in his name, and in hers, I
+demand a full retraction of the slanderous statements you have just
+made."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know who I am?" the beefy one shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"I know <i>what</i> you are," Verkan Vall shouted back. Like most ancient
+languages, the Akor-Neb speech included an elaborate,
+delicately-shaded, and utterly vile vocabulary of abuse; Verkan Vall
+culled from it judiciously and at length. "And if I don't make myself
+understood verbally, we'll go down to the object level," he added,
+snatching a bowl of soup from in front of the monkish-looking young
+man and throwing it across the table.</p>
+
+<p>The soup was a dark brown, almost black. It contained bits of meat,
+and mushrooms, and slices of hard-boiled egg, and yellow Martian rock
+lichen. It produced, on the light tunic, a most spectacular effect.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, Verkan Vall was afraid the fellow would have an
+apoplectic stroke, or an epileptic fit. Mastering himself, however, he
+bowed jerkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Marnark of Bashad," he identified himself. "When and where can my
+friends consult yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Virzal of Verkan," the paratimer bowed back. "Your friends can
+negotiate with mine here and now. I am represented by these
+Gentlemen-Assassins."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't submit my friends to the indignity of negotiating with them,"
+Marnark retorted. "I insist that you be represented by persons of your
+own quality and mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do?" Olirzon broke in. "Well, is your objection personal to
+me, or to Assassins as a class? In the first case, I'll remember to
+make a private project of you, as soon as I'm through with my present
+employment; if it's the latter, I'll report your attitude to the
+Society. I'll see what Klarnood, our President-General, thinks of your
+views."</p>
+
+<p>A crowd had begun to accumulate around the table. Some of them were
+persons in evening dress, some were Assassins on the hotel payroll,
+and some were unattached Assassins.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you won't have far to look for him," one of the latter said,
+pushing through the crowd to the table.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man of middle age, inclined to stoutness; he made Verkan Vall
+think of a chocolate figure of Tortha Karf. The red badge on his
+breast was surrounded with gold lace, and, instead of black wings and
+a silver bullet, it bore silver wings and a golden dagger. He bowed
+contemptuously at Marnark of Bashad.</p>
+
+<p>"Klarnood, President-General of the Society of Assassins," he
+announced. "Marnark of Bashad, did I hear you say that you considered
+members of the Society as unworthy to negotiate an affair of honor
+with your friends, on behalf of this nobleman who has been courteous
+enough to accept your challenge?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Marnark of Bashad's arrogance suffered considerable evaporation-loss.
+His tone became almost servile.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Honorable Assassin-President," he protested. "But as I
+was going to ask these gentlemen to represent me, I thought it would
+be more fitting for the other gentleman to be represented by personal
+friends, also. In that way&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, Marnark," the gray-haired man at the table said. "I can't
+second you; I have a quarrel with the Lord Virzal, too." He rose and
+bowed. "Sirzob of Abo. Inasmuch as the Honorable Marnark is a guest at
+my table, an affront to him is an affront to me. In my quality as his
+host, I must demand satisfaction from you, Lord Virzal."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, gladly, Honorable Sirzob," Verkan Vall replied. This was getting
+better and better every moment. "Of course, your friend, the Honorable
+Marnark, enjoys priority of challenge; I'll take care of you as soon
+as I have, shall we say, satisfied, him."</p>
+
+<p>The earnest and rather consecrated-looking young man rose also, bowing
+to Verkan Vall.</p>
+
+<p>"Yirzol of Narva. I, too, have a quarrel with you, Lord Virzal; I
+cannot submit to the indignity of having my food snatched from in
+front of me, as you just did. I also demand satisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>"And quite rightly, Honorable Yirzol," Verkan Vall approved. "It looks
+like such good soup, too," he sorrowed, inspecting the front of
+Marnark's tunic. "My seconds will negotiate with yours immediately;
+your satisfaction, of course, must come after that of Honorable
+Sirzob."</p>
+
+<p>"If I may intrude," Klarnood put in smoothly, "may I suggest that as
+the Lord Virzal is represented by his Assassins, yours can represent
+all three of you at the same time. I will gladly offer my own good
+offices as impartial supervisor."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall turned and bowed as to royalty. "An honor,
+Assassin-President: I am sure no one could act in that capacity more
+satisfactorily."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when would it be most convenient to arrange the details?"
+Klarnood inquired. "I am completely at your disposal, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, here and now, while we're all together," Verkan Vall replied.</p>
+
+<p>"I object to that!" Marnark of Bashad vociferated. "We can't make
+arrangements here; why, all these hotel people, from the manager down,
+are nothing but tipsters for the newscast services!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's wrong with that?" Verkan Vall demanded. "You knew that
+when you slandered the Lady Dallona in their hearing."</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord Virzal of Verkan is correct," Klarnood ruled. "And the
+offenses for which you have challenged him were also committed in
+public. By all means, let's discuss the arrangements now." He turned
+to Verkan Vall. "As the challenged party, you have the choice of
+weapons; your opponents, then, have the right to name the conditions
+under which they are to be used."</p>
+
+<p>Marnark of Bashad raised another outcry over that. The assault upon
+him by the Lord Virzal of Verkan was deliberately provocative, and
+therefore tantamount to a challenge; he, himself, had the right to
+name the weapons. Klarnood upheld him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do the other gentlemen make the same claim?" Verkan Vall wanted to
+know.</p>
+
+<p>"If they do, I won't allow it," Klarnood replied. "You deliberately
+provoked Honorable Marnark, but the offenses of provoking him at
+Honorable Sirzob's table, and of throwing Honorable Yirzol's soup at
+him, were not given with intent to provoke. These gentlemen have a
+right to challenge, but not to consider themselves provoked."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I choose knives, then," Marnark hastened to say.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall smiled thinly. He had learned knife-play among the
+greatest masters of that art in all paratime, the Third Level Khanga
+pirates of the Caribbean Islands.</p>
+
+<p>"And we fight barefoot, stripped to the waist, and without any
+parrying weapon in the left hand," Verkan Vall stipulated.</p>
+
+<p>The beefy Marnark fairly licked his chops in anticipation. He
+outweighed Verkan Vall by forty pounds; he saw an easy victory ahead.
+Verkan Vall's own confidence increased at these signs of his
+opponent's assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"And as for Honorable Sirzob and Honorable Yirzol, I chose pistols,"
+he added.</p>
+
+<p>Sirzob and Yirzol held a hasty whispered conference.</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking both for Honorable Yirzol and for myself," Sirzob announced,
+"we stipulate that the distance shall be twenty meters, that the
+pistols shall be fully loaded, and that fire shall be at will after
+the command."</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty rounds, fire at will, at twenty meters!" Olirzon hooted. "You
+must think our principal's as bad a shot as you are!"</p>
+
+<p>The four Assassins stepped aside and held a long discussion about
+something, with considerable argument and gesticulation. Klarnood,
+observing Verkan Vall's impatience, leaned close to him and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"This is highly irregular; we must pretend ignorance and be patient.
+They're laying bets on the outcome. You must do your best, Lord
+Virzal; you don't want your supporters to lose money."</p>
+
+<p>He said it quite seriously, as though the outcome were otherwise a
+matter of indifference to Verkan Vall.</p>
+
+<p>Marnark wanted to discuss time and place, and proposed that all three
+duels be fought at dawn, on the fourth landing stage of Darsh Central
+Hospital; that was closest to the maternity wards, and statistics
+showed that most births occurred just before that hour.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," Verkan Vall vetoed. "We'll fight here and now; I
+don't propose going a couple of hundred miles to meet you at any such
+unholy hour. We'll fight in the nearest hallway that provides twenty
+meters' shooting distance."</p>
+
+<p>Marnark, Sirzob and Yirzol all clamored in protest. Verkan Vall
+shouted them down, drawing on his hypnotically acquired knowledge of
+Akor-Neb duelling customs. "The code explicitly states that
+satisfaction shall be rendered as promptly as possible, and I insist
+on a literal interpretation. I'm not going to inconvenience myself and
+Assassin-President Klarnood and these four Gentlemen-Assassins just to
+humor Statisticalist superstitions."</p>
+
+<p>The manager of the hotel, drawn to the Martian Room by the uproar,
+offered a hallway connecting the kitchens with the refrigerator rooms;
+it was fifty meters long by five in width, was well-lighted and
+soundproof, and had a bay in which the seconds and other could stand
+during the firing.</p>
+
+<p>They repaired thither in a body, Klarnood gathering up several hotel
+servants on the way through the kitchen. Verkan Vall stripped to the
+waist, pulled off his ankle boots, and examined Olirzon's knife. Its
+tapering eight-inch blade was double-edged at the point, and its
+handle was covered with black velvet to afford a good grip, and wound
+with gold wire. He nodded approvingly, gripped it with his index
+finger crooked around the cross-guard, and advanced to meet Marnark of
+Bashad.</p>
+
+<p>As he had expected, the burly politician was depending upon his
+greater brawn to overpower his antagonist. He advanced with a sidling,
+spread-legged gait, his knife hand against his right hip and his left
+hand extended in front. Verkan Vall nodded with pleased satisfaction;
+a wrist-grabber. Then he blinked. Why, the fellow was actually holding
+his knife reversed, his little finger to the guard and his thumb on
+the pommel!</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall went briskly to meet him, made a feint at his knife hand
+with his own left, and then side-stepped quickly to the right. As
+Marnark's left hand grabbed at his right wrist, his left hand brushed
+against it and closed into a fist, with Marnark's left thumb inside of
+it, He gave a quick downward twist with his wrist, pulling Marnark off
+balance.</p>
+
+<p>Caught by surprise, Marnark stumbled, his knife flailing wildly away
+from Verkan Vall. As he stumbled forward, Verkan Vall pivoted on his
+left heel and drove the point of his knife into the back of Marnark's
+neck, twisting it as he jerked it free. At the same time, he released
+Marnark's thumb. The politician continued his stumble and fell forward
+on his face, blood spurting from his neck. He gave a twitch or so, and
+was still.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall stooped and wiped the knife on the dead man's
+clothes&mdash;another Khanga pirate gesture&mdash;and then returned it to
+Olirzon.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice weapon, Olirzon," he said. "It fitted my hand as though I'd been
+born holding it."</p>
+
+<p>"You used it as though you had, Lord Virzal," the Assassin replied.
+"Only eight seconds from the time you closed with him."</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="460" /></p>
+
+<p>The function of the hotel servants whom Klarnood had gathered up now
+became apparent; they advanced, took the body of Marnark by the
+heels, and dragged it out of the way. The others watched this removal
+with mixed emotions. The two remaining principals were impassive and
+frozen-faced. Their two Assassins, who had probably bet heavily on
+Marnark, were chagrined. And Klarnood was looking at Verkan Vall with
+a considerable accretion of respect. Verkan Vall pulled on his boots
+and resumed his clothing.</p>
+
+<p>There followed some argument about the pistols; it was finally decided
+that each combatant should use his own shoulder-holster weapon. All
+three were nearly enough alike&mdash;small weapons, rather heavier than
+they looked, firing a tiny ten-grain bullet at ten thousand
+foot-seconds. On impact, such a bullet would almost disintegrate; a
+man hit anywhere in the body with one would be killed instantly, his
+nervous system paralyzed and his heart stopped by internal pressure.
+Each of the pistols carried twenty rounds in the magazine.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall and Sirzob of Abo took their places, their pistols lowered
+at their sides, facing each other across a measured twenty meters.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready, gentlemen?" Klarnood asked. "You will not raise your
+pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at will after it.
+Ready. <i>Fire!</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="458" /></p>
+
+<p>Both pistols swung up to level. Verkan Vall found Sirzob's head in his
+sights and squeezed; the pistol kicked back in his hand, and he saw a
+lance of blue flame jump from the muzzle of Sirzob's. Both weapons
+barked together, and with the double report came the whip-cracking
+sound of Sirzob's bullet passing Verkan Vall's head. Then Sirzob's
+face altered its appearance unpleasantly, and he pitched forward.
+Verkan Vall thumbed on his safety and stood motionless, while the
+servants advanced, took Sirzob's body by the heels, and dragged it
+over beside Marnark's.</p>
+
+<p>"All right; Honorable Yirzol, you're next," Verkan Vall called out.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord Virzal has fired one shot," one of the opposing seconds
+objected, "and Honorable Yirzol has a full magazine. The Lord Virzal
+should put in another magazine."</p>
+
+<p>"I grant him the advantage; let's get on with it," Verkan Vall said.</p>
+
+<p>Yirzol of Narva advanced to the firing point. He was not afraid of
+death&mdash;none of the Akor-Neb people were; their language contained no
+word to express the concept of total and final extinction&mdash;and
+discarnation by gunshot was almost entirely painless. But he was
+beginning to suspect that he had made a fool of himself by getting
+into this affair, he had work in his present reincarnation which he
+wanted to finish, and his political party would suffer loss, both of
+his services and of prestige.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready, gentlemen?" Klarnood intoned ritualistically. "You
+will not raise your pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at
+will after it. Ready, <i>Fire!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall shot Yirzol of Narva through the head before the latter
+had his pistol half raised. Yirzol fell forward on the splash of blood
+Sirzob had made, and the servants came forward and dragged his body
+over with the others. It reminded Verkan Vail of some sort of
+industrial assembly-line operation. He replaced the two expended
+rounds in his magazine with fresh ones and slid the pistol back into
+its holster. The two Assassins whose principals had been so
+expeditiously massacred were beginning to count up their losses and
+pay off the winners.</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood, the President-General of the Society of Assassins, came
+over, hooking fingers and clapping shoulders with Verkan Vall.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Virzal, I've seen quite a few duels, but nothing quite like
+that," he said. "You should have been an Assassin!"</p>
+
+<p>That was a considerable compliment. Verkan Vall thanked him modestly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to talk to you privately," the Assassin-President continued.
+"I think it'll be worth your while if we have a few words together."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. "My suite is on the fifteenth floor above; will
+that be all right?" He waited until the losers had finished settling
+their bets, then motioned to his own pair of Assassins.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As they emerged into the Martian Room again, the manager was waiting;
+he looked as though he were about to demand that Verkan Vall vacate
+his suite. However, when he saw the arm of the President-General of
+the Society of Assassins draped amicably over his guest's shoulder, he
+came forward bowing and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Larnorm, I want you to put five of your best Assassins to guarding
+the approaches to the Lord Virzal's suite," Klarnood told him. "I'll
+send five more from Assassins' Hall to replace them at their ordinary
+duties. And I'll hold you responsible with your carnate existence for
+the Lord Virzal's safety in this hotel. Understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, Honorable Assassin-President; you may trust me. The Lord
+Virzal will be perfectly safe."</p>
+
+<p>In Verkan Vall's suite, above, Klarnood sat down and got out his pipe,
+filling it with tobacco lightly mixed with <i>zerfa</i>. To his surprise,
+he saw his host light a plain tobacco cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you use <i>zerfa</i>?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Very little," Verkan Vall replied. "I grow it. If you'd see the bums
+who hang around our drying sheds, on Venus, cadging rejected leaves
+and smoking themselves into a stupor, you'd be frugal in using it,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood nodded. "You know, most men would want a pipe of fifty
+percent, or a straight <i>zerfa</i> cigarette, after what you've been
+through," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd need something like that, to deaden my conscience, if I had one
+to deaden," Verkan Vall said. "As it is, I feel like a murderer of
+babes. That overgrown fool, Marnark, handled his knife like a
+cow-butcher. The young fellow couldn't handle a pistol at all. I
+suppose the old fellow, Sirzob, was a fair shot, but dropping him
+wasn't any great feat of arms, either."</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood looked at him curiously for a moment. "You know," he said, at
+length, "I believe you actually mean that. Well, until he met you,
+Marnark of Bashad was rated as the best knife-fighter in Darsh. Sirzob
+had ten dueling victories to his credit, and young Yirzol four." He
+puffed slowly on his pipe. "I like you, Lord Virzal; a great Assassin
+was lost when you decided to reincarnate as a Venusian land-owner. I'd
+hate to see you discarnated without proper warning. I take it you're
+ignorant of the intricacies of Terran politics?"</p>
+
+<p>"To a large extent, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do you know who those three men were?" When Verkan Vall shook
+his head, Klarnood continued: "Marnark was the son and right-hand
+associate of old Mirzark of Bashad, the Statisticalist Party leader.
+Sirzob of Abo was their propaganda director. And Yirzol of Narva was
+their leading socio-economic theorist, and their candidate for
+Executive Chairman. In six minutes, with one knife thrust and two
+shots, you did the Statisticalist Party an injury second only to that
+done them by the young lady in whose name you were fighting. In two
+weeks, there will be a planet-wide general election. As it stands, the
+Statisticalists have a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the
+Executive Council. As a result of your work and the Lady Dallona's,
+they'll lose that majority, and more, when the votes are tallied."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that another reason why you like me?" Verkan Vall asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Unofficially, yes. As President-General of the Society of Assassins,
+I must be nonpolitical. The Society is rigidly so; if we let ourselves
+become involved, as an organization, in politics, we could control the
+System Government inside of five years, and we'd be wiped out of
+existence in fifty years by the very forces we sought to control,"
+Klarnood said. "But personally, I would like to see the Statisticalist
+Party destroyed. If they succeed in their program of socialization,
+the Society would be finished. A socialist state is, in its final
+development, an absolute, total, state; no total state can tolerate
+extra-legal and para-governmental organizations. So we have adopted
+the policy of giving a little inconspicuous aid, here and there, to
+people who are dangerous to the Statisticalists. The Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, are such persons. You appear to be
+another. That's why I ordered that fellow, Larnorm, to make sure you
+were safe in his hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the Lady Dallona?" Verkan Vall asked. "From your use of the
+present tense, I assume you believe her to be still carnate."</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood looked at Verkan Vall keenly. "That's a pretty blunt
+question, Lord Virzal," he said. "I wish I knew a little more about
+you. When you and your Assassins started inquiring about the Lady
+Dallona, I tried to check up on you. I found out that you had come to
+Darsh from Ghamma on a ship of the family of Zorda, accompanied by
+Brarnend of Zorda himself. And that's all I could find out. You claim
+to be a Venusian planter, and you might be. Any Terran who can handle
+weapons as you can would have come to my notice long ago. But you have
+no more ascertainable history than if you'd stepped out of another
+dimension."</p>
+
+<p>That was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. In fact, it <i>was</i>
+the truth. Verkan Vall laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, confidentially," he said, "I'm from the Arcturus System. I
+followed the Lady Dallona here from our home planet, and when I have
+rescued her from among you Solarians, I shall, according to our
+customs, receive her hand in marriage. As she is the daughter of the
+Emperor of Arcturus, that'll be quite a good thing for me."</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood chuckled. "You know, you'd only have to tell me that about
+three or four times and I'd start believing it," he said. "And Dr.
+Harnosh of Hosh would believe it the first time; he's been talking to
+himself ever since the Lady Dallona started her experimental work
+here. Lord Virzal, I'm going to take a chance on you. The Lady Dallona
+is still carnate, or was four days ago, and the same for Dirzed. They
+both went into hiding after the discarnation feast of Garnon of Roxor,
+to escape the enmity of the Statisticalists. Two days after they
+disappeared, Dirzed called Assassins' Hall and reported this, but told
+us nothing more. I suppose, in about three or four days, I could
+re-establish contact with him. We want the public to think that the
+Statisticalists made away with the Lady Dallona, at least until the
+election's over."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. "I was pretty sure that was the situation," he
+said. "It may be that they will get in touch with me; if they don't,
+I'll need your help in reaching them."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you think the Lady Dallona will try to reach you?"</p>
+
+<p>"She needs all the help she can get. She knows she can get plenty from
+me. Why do you think I interrupted my search for her, and risked my
+carnate existence, to fight those people over a matter of verbalisms
+and political propaganda?" Verkan Vall went to the newscast visiplate
+and snapped it on. "We'll see if I'm getting results, yet."</p>
+
+<p>The plate lighted, and a handsome young man in a gold-laced green suit
+was speaking out of it:</p>
+
+<p>"... where he is heavily guarded by Assassins. However, in an
+exclusive interview with representatives of this service, the Assassin
+Hirzif, one of the two who seconded the men the Lord Virzal fought,
+said that in his opinion all of the three were so outclassed as to
+have had no chance whatever, and that he had already refused an offer
+of ten thousand System Monetary Units to discarnate the Lord Virzal
+for the Statisticalist Party. 'When I want to discarnate,' Hirzif the
+Assassin said, 'I'll invite in my friends and do it properly; until I
+do, I wouldn't go up against the Lord Virzal of Verkan for ten million
+S.M.U.'"</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall snapped off the visiplate. "See what I mean?" he asked. "I
+fought those politicians just for the advertising. If Dallona and
+Dirzed are anywhere near a visiplate, they'll know how to reach me."</p>
+
+<p>"Hirzif shouldn't have talked about refusing that retainer," Klarnood
+frowned. "That isn't good Assassin ethics. Why, yes, Lord Virzal; that
+was cleverly planned. It ought to get results. But I wish you'd get
+the Lady Dallona out of Darsh, and preferably off Terra, as soon as
+you can. We've benefited by this, so far, but I shouldn't like to see
+things go much further. A real civil war could develop out of this
+situation, and I don't want that. Call on me for help; I'll give you a
+code word to use at Assassins' Hall."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A real civil war was developing even as Klarnood spoke; by mid-morning
+of the next day, the fighting that had been partially suppressed by
+the Constabulary had broken out anew. The Assassins employed by the
+Solar Hotel&mdash;heavily re-enforced during the night&mdash;had fought a
+pitched battle with Statisticalist partisans on the landing-stage
+above Verkan Vall's suite, and now several Constabulary airboats were
+patrolling around the building. The rule on Constabulary interference
+seemed to be that while individuals had an unquestionable right to
+shoot out their differences among themselves, any fighting likely to
+endanger nonparticipants was taboo.</p>
+
+<p>Just how successful in enforcing this rule the Constabulary were was
+open to some doubt. Ever since arising, Verkan Vall had heard the
+crash of small arms and the hammering of automatic weapons in other
+parts of the towering city-unit. There hadn't been a civil war on the
+Akor-Neb Sector for over five centuries, he knew, but then, Hadron
+Dalla, Doctor of Psychic Science, and intertemporal trouble-carrier
+extraordinary, had only been on this sector for a little under a year.
+If anything, he was surprised that the explosion had taken so long to
+occur.</p>
+
+<p>One of the servants furnished to him by the hotel management
+approached him in the drawing room, holding a four-inch-square wafer
+of white plastic.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Virzal, there is a masked Assassin in the hallway who brought
+this under Assassins' Truce," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall took the wafer and pared off three of the four edges,
+which showed black where they had been fused. Unfolding it, he found,
+as he had expected, that the pyrographed message within was in the
+alphabet and language of the First Paratime Level:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Vall, darling:</p>
+
+<p>Am I glad you got here; this time I really <i>am</i> in the
+middle, but good! The Assassin, Dirzed, who brings this, is
+in my service. You can trust him implicitly; he's about the
+only person in Darsh you can trust. He'll bring you to where
+I am.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">Dalla</p>
+
+<p>P.S. I hope you're not still angry about that musician. I
+told you, at the time, that he was just helping me with an
+experiment in telepathy.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">D. </p></div>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall grinned at the postscript. That had been twenty years ago,
+when he'd been eighty and she'd been seventy. He supposed she'd expect
+him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably
+wouldn't last any longer than it had, the other time; he recalled a
+Fourth Level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly
+wouldn't be boring, though.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell the Assassin to come in," he directed. Then he tossed the
+message down on a table. Outside of himself, nobody in Darsh could
+read it but the woman who had sent it; if, as he thought highly
+probable, the Statisticalists had spies among the hotel staff, it
+might serve to reduce some cryptanalyst to gibbering insanity.</p>
+
+<p>The Assassin entered, drawing off a cowllike mask. He was the man
+whose arm Dalla had been holding in the visiplate picture; Verkan Vall
+even recognized the extremely ornate pistol and knife on his belt.</p>
+
+<p>"Dirzed the Assassin," he named himself. "If you wish, we can
+visiphone Assassins' Hall for verification of my identity."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Virzal of Verkan. And my Assassins, Marnik and Olirzon." They
+all hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with the newcomer. "That
+won't be needed," Verkan Vall told Dirzed. "I know you from seeing you
+with the Lady Dallona, on the visiplate; you're 'Dirzed, her faithful
+Assassin.'"</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed's face, normally the color of a good walnut gunstock, turned
+almost black. He used shockingly bad language.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's why I have to wear this abomination," he finished,
+displaying the mask. "The Lady Dallona and I can't show our faces
+anywhere; if we did, every Statisticalist and his six-year-old brat
+would know us, and we'd be fighting off an army of them in five
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the Lady Dallona, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"In hiding, Lord Virzal, at a private dwelling dome in the forest;
+she's most anxious to see you. I'm to take you to her, and I would
+strongly advise that you bring your Assassins along. There are other
+people at this dome, and they are not personally loyal to the Lady
+Dallona. I've no reason to suspect them of secret enmity, but their
+friendship is based entirely on political expediency."</p>
+
+<p>"And political expediency is subject to change without notice," Verkan
+Vall finished for him. "Have you an airboat?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the landing stage below. Shall we go now, Lord Virzal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." Verkan Vall made a two-handed gesture to his Assassins, as
+though gripping a submachine-gun; they nodded, went into another room,
+and returned carrying light automatic weapons in their hands and
+pouches of spare drums slung over their shoulders. "And may I suggest,
+Dirzed, that one of my Assassins drives the airboat? I want you on the
+back seat with me, to explain the situation as we go."</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed's teeth flashed white against his brown skin as he gave Verkan
+Vall a quick smile.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means, Lord Virzal; I would much rather be distrusted than to
+find that my client's friends were not discreet."</p>
+
+<p>There were a couple of hotel Assassins guarding Dirzed's airboat, on
+the landing stage. Marnik climbed in under the controls, with Olirzon
+beside him; Verkan Vall and Dirzed entered the rear seat. Dirzed gave
+Marnik the co-ordinate reference for their destination.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what sort of a place is this, where we're going?" Verkan Vall
+asked. "And who's there whom we may or may not trust?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a dome house belonging to the family of Starpha; they own
+a five-mile radius around it, oak and beech forest and underbrush,
+stocked with deer and boar. A hunting lodge. Prince Jirzyn of Starpha,
+Lord Girzon of Roxor, and a few other top-level Volitionalists, know
+that the Lady Dallona's hiding there. They're keeping her out of sight
+till after the election, for propaganda purposes. We've been hiding
+there since immediately after the discarnation feast of the Lord
+Garnon of Roxor."</p>
+
+<p>"What happened, after the feast?" Verkan Vall wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know how the Lady Dallona and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh had this
+telepathic-sensitive there, in a trance and drugged with a
+<i>zerfa</i>-derivative alkaloid the Lady Dallona had developed. I was Lord
+Garnon's Assassin; I discarnated him, myself. Why, I hadn't even put
+my pistol away before he was in control of this sensitive, in a room
+five stories above the banquet hall; he began communicating at once.
+We had visiplates to show us what was going on.</p>
+
+<p>"Right away, Nirzav of Shonna, one of the Statisticalist leaders who
+was a personal friend of Lord Garnon's in spite of his politics,
+renounced Statisticalism and went over to the Volitionalists, on the
+strength of this communication. Prince Jirzyn, and Lord Girzon, the
+new family-head of Roxor, decided that there would be trouble in the
+next few days, so they advised the Lady Dallona to come to this
+hunting lodge for safety. She and I came here in her airboat, directly
+from the feast. A good thing we did, too; if we'd gone to her
+apartment, we'd have walked in before that lethal gas had time to
+clear.</p>
+
+<p>"There are four Assassins of the family of Starpha, and six
+menservants, and an upper-servant named Tarnod, the gamekeeper. The
+Starpha Assassins and I have been keeping the rest under observation.
+I left one of the Starpha Assassins guarding the Lady Dallona when I
+came for you, under brotherly oath to protect her in my name till I
+returned."</p>
+
+<p>The airboat was skimming rapidly above the treetops, toward the
+northern part of the city.</p>
+
+<p>"What's known about that package bomb?" Verkan Vall asked. "Who sent
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed shrugged. "The Statisticalists, of course. The wrapper was
+stolen from the Reincarnation Research Institute; so was the case. The
+Constabulary are working on it." Dirzed shrugged again.</p>
+
+<p>The dome, about a hundred and fifty feet in width and some fifty in
+height, stood among the trees ahead. It was almost invisible from any
+distance; the concrete dome was of mottled green and gray concrete,
+trees grew so close as to brush it with their branches, and the little
+pavilion on the flattened top was roofed with translucent green
+plastic. As the airboat came in, a couple of men in Assassins' garb
+emerged from the pavilion to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>"Marnik, stay at the controls," Verkan Vall directed. "I'll send
+Olirzon up for you if I want you. If there's any trouble, take off for
+Assassins' Hall and give the code word, then come back with twice as
+many men as you think you'll need."</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed raised his eyebrows over this. "I hadn't known the
+Assassin-President had given you a code word, Lord Virzal," he
+commented. "That doesn't happen very often."</p>
+
+<p>"The Assassin-President has honored me with his friendship," Verkan
+Vall replied noncommittally, as he, Dirzed and Olirzon climbed out of
+the airboat. Marnik was holding it an unobtrusive inch or so above the
+flat top of the dome, away from the edge of the pavilion roof.</p>
+
+<p>The two Assassins greeted him, and a man in upper-servants' garb and
+wearing a hunting knife and a long hunting pistol approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Virzal of Verkan? Welcome to Starpha Dome. The Lady Dallona
+awaits you below."</p>
+
+<p>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. 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. Even now, the
+design had been retained by those who wished to live apart from the
+towering city units, to preserve the natural appearance of the
+landscape. The Starpha hunting lodge was typical of such domes. Under
+it was a circular well, eighty feet in depth and fifty in width, with
+a fountain and a shallow circular pool at the bottom. The storerooms,
+kitchens and servants' quarters were at the top, the living quarters
+at the bottom, in segments of a wide circle around the well, back of
+balconies.</p>
+
+<p>"Tarnod, the gamekeeper," Dirzed performed the introductions. "And
+Erarno and Kirzol, Assassins."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Tarnod
+accompanied them to the lifter tubes&mdash;two percent positive gravitation
+for descent and two percent negative for ascent&mdash;and they all floated
+down the former, like air-filled balloons, to the bottom level.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lady Dallona is in the gun room," Tarnod informed Verkan Vall,
+making as though to guide him.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Tarnod; we know the way," Dirzed told him shortly, turning
+his back on the upper-servant and walking toward a closed door on the
+other side of the fountain. Verkan Vall and Olirzon followed; for a
+moment, Tarnod stood looking after them, then he followed the other
+two Assassins into the ascent tube.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't relish that fellow," Dirzed explained. "The family of Starpha
+use him for work they couldn't hire an Assassin to do at any price.
+I've been here often, when I was with the Lord Garnon; I've always
+thought he had something on Prince Jirzyn."</p>
+
+<p>He knocked sharply on the closed door with the butt of his pistol. In
+a moment, it slid open, and a young Assassin with a narrow mustache
+and a tuft of chin beard looked out.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Dirzed." He stepped outside. "The Lady Dallona is within; I
+return her to your care."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall entered, followed by Dirzed and Olirzon. The big room was
+fitted with reclining chairs and couches and low tables; its walls
+were hung with the heads of deer and boar and wolves, and with racks
+holding rifles and hunting pistols and fowling pieces. It was filled
+with the soft glow of indirect cold light. At the far side of the
+room, a young woman was seated at a desk, speaking softly into a sound
+transcriber. As they entered, she snapped it off and rose.</p>
+
+<p>Hadron Dalla wore the same costume Verkan Vall had seen on the
+visiplate: he recognized her instantly. It took her a second or two to
+perceive Verkan Vall under the brown skin and black hair of the Lord
+Virzal of Verkan. Then her face lighted with a happy smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Va-a-a-ll!" she whooped, running across the room and tossing
+herself into his not particularly reluctant arms. After all, it had
+been twenty years&mdash;"I didn't know you, at first!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, in these clothes?" he asked, seeing that she had forgotten,
+for the moment, the presence of the two Assassins. She had even
+called him by his First Level name, but that was unimportant&mdash;the
+Akor-Neb affectionate diminutive was formed by omitting the -<i>irz</i>- or
+-<i>arn</i>-. "Well, they're not exactly what I generally wear on the
+plantation." He kissed her again, then turned to his companions. "Your
+pardon, Gentlemen-Assassins; it's been something over a year since
+we've seen each other."</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon was smiling at the affectionate reunion; Dirzed wore a look of
+amused resignation, as though he might have expected something like
+this to happen. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat down on a couch near the
+desk.</p>
+
+<p>"That was really sweet of you, Vall, fighting those men for talking
+about me," she began. "You took an awful chance, though. But if you
+hadn't, I'd never have known you were in Darsh&mdash;Oh-oh! That was why
+you did it, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I had to do something. Everybody either didn't know or weren't
+saying where you were. I assumed, from the circumstances, that you
+were hiding somewhere. Tell me, Dalla; do you really have scientific
+proof of reincarnation? I mean, as an established fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; these people on this sector have had that for over ten
+centuries. They have hypnotic techniques for getting back into a part
+of the subconscious mind that we've never been able to reach. And
+after I found out how they did it, I was able to adapt some of our
+hypno-epistemological techniques to it, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All right; that's what I wanted to know," he cut her off. "We're
+getting out of here, right away."</p>
+
+<p>"But where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ghamma, in an airboat I have outside, and then back to the First
+Level. Unless there's a paratime-transposition conveyor somewhere
+nearer."</p>
+
+<p>"But why, Vall? I'm not ready to go back; I have a lot of work to do
+here, yet. They're getting ready to set up a series of
+control-experiments at the Institute, and then, I'm in the middle of
+an experiment, a two-hundred-subject memory-recall experiment. See, I
+distributed two hundred sets of equipment for my new
+technique&mdash;injection-ampoules of this <i>zerfa</i>-derivative drug, and
+sound records of the hypnotic suggestion formula, which can be played
+on an ordinary reproducer. It's just a crude variant of our hypno-mech
+process, except that instead of implanting information in the
+subconscious mind, to be brought at will to the level of
+consciousness, it works the other way, and draws into conscious
+knowledge information already in the subconscious mind. The way these
+people have always done has been to put the subject in an hypnotic
+trance and then record verbal statements made in the trance state;
+when the subject comes out of the trance, the record is all there is,
+because the memories of past reincarnations have never been in the
+conscious mind. But with my process, the subject can consciously
+remember everything about his last reincarnation, and as many
+reincarnations before that as he wishes to. I haven't heard from any
+of the people who received these auto-recall kits, and I really
+must&mdash;"</p>
+
+
+
+<p>"Dalla, I don't want to have to pull Paratime Police authority on you,
+but, so help me, if you don't come back voluntarily with me, I will.
+Security of the secret of paratime transposition."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my eye!" Dalla exclaimed. "Don't give me that, Vall!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Dalla. Suppose you get discarnated here," Verkan Vall said.
+"You say reincarnation is a scientific fact. Well, you'd reincarnate
+on this sector, and then you'd take a memory-recall, under hypnosis.
+And when you did, the paratime secret wouldn't be a secret any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Dalla's hand went to her mouth in consternation. Like every
+paratimer, she was conditioned to shrink with all her being from the
+mere thought of revealing to any out-time dweller the secret ability
+of her race to pass to other time-lines, or even the existence of
+alternate lines of probability. "And if I took one of the
+old-fashioned trance-recalls, I'd blat out everything; I wouldn't be
+able to keep a thing back. And I even know the principles of
+transposition!" She looked at him, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"When I get back, I'm going to put a recommendation through department
+channels that this whole sector be declared out of bounds for all
+paratime-transposition, until you people at Rhogom Foundation work
+out the problem of discarnate return to the First Level," he told her.
+"Now, have you any notes or anything you want to take back with you?"</p>
+
+<p>She rose. "Yes; just what's on the desk. Find me something to put the
+tape spools and notebooks in, while I'm getting them in order."</p>
+
+<p>He secured a large game bag from under a rack of fowling pieces, and
+held it while she sorted the material rapidly, stuffing spools of
+record tape and notebooks into it. They had barely begun when the door
+slid open and Olirzon, who had gone outside, sprang into the room, his
+pistol drawn, swearing vilely.</p>
+
+<p>"They've double-crossed us!" he cried. "The servants of Starpha have
+turned on us." He holstered his pistol and snatched up his
+submachine-gun, taking cover behind the edge of the door and letting
+go with a burst in the direction of the lifter tubes. "Got that one!"
+he grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"What happened, Olirzon?" Verkan Vall asked, dropping the game bag on
+the table and hurrying across the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I went up to see how Marnik was making out. As I came out of the
+lifter tube, one of the obscenities took a shot at me with a hunting
+pistol. He missed me; I didn't miss him. Then a couple more of them
+were coming up, with fowling pieces; I shot one of them before they
+could fire, and jumped into the descent tube and came down heels over
+ears. I don't know what's happened to Marnik." He fired another burst,
+and swore. "Missed him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Assassins' Truce! Assassins' Truce!" a voice howled out of the
+descent tube. "Hold your fire, we want to parley."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" Dirzed shouted, over Olirzon's shoulder. "You, Sarnax?
+Come on out; we won't shoot."</p>
+
+<p>The young Assassin with the mustache and chin beard emerged from the
+descent tube, his weapons sheathed and his clasped hands extended in
+front of him in a peculiarly ecclesiastical-looking manner. Dirzed and
+Olirzon stepped out of the gun room, followed by Verkan Vall and
+Hadron Dalla. Olirzon had left his submachine-gun behind. They met the
+other Assassin by the rim of the fountain pool.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Dallona of Hadron," the Starpha Assassin began. "I and my
+colleagues, in the employ of the family of Starpha, have received
+orders from our clients to withdraw our protection from you, and to
+discarnate you, and all with you who undertake to protect or support
+you." That much sounded like a recitation of some established formula;
+then his voice became more conversational. "I and my colleagues,
+Erarno and Kirzol and Harnif, offer our apologies for the barbarity of
+the servants of the family of Starpha, in attacking without
+declaration of cessation of friendship. Was anybody hurt or
+discarnated?"</p>
+
+<p>"None of us," Olirzon said. "How about Marnik?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was warned before hostilities were begun against him," Sarnax
+replied. "We will allow five minutes until&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon, who had been looking up the well, suddenly sprang at Dalla,
+knocking her flat, and at the same time jerking out his pistol. Before
+he could raise it, a shot banged from above and he fell on his face.
+Dirzed, Verkan Vall, and Sarnax, all drew their pistols, but whoever
+had fired the shot had vanished. There was an outburst of shouting
+above.</p>
+
+<p>"Get to cover," Sarnax told the others. "We'll let you know when we're
+ready to attack; we'll have to deal with whoever fired that shot,
+first." He looked at the dead body on the floor, exclaimed angrily,
+and hurried to the ascent tube, springing upward.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall replaced the small pistol in his shoulder holster and took
+Olirzon's belt, with his knife and heavier pistol.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there you see," Dirzed said, as they went back to the gun room.
+"So much for political expediency."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I understand why your picture and the Lady Dallona's were
+exhibited so widely," Verkan Vall said. "Now, anybody would recognize
+your bodies, and blame the Statisticalists for discarnating you."</p>
+
+<p>"That thought had occurred to me, Lord Virzal," Dirzed said. "I
+suppose our bodies will be atrociously but not unidentifiably
+mutilated, to further enrage the public," he added placidly. "If I get
+out of this carnate, I'm going to pay somebody off for it."</p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes, there was more shouting of: "Assassins' Truce!"
+from the descent tube. The two Assassins, Erarno and Kirzol, emerged,
+dragging the gamekeeper, Tarnod, between them. The upper-servant's
+face was bloody, and his jaw seemed to be broken. Sarnax followed,
+carrying a long hunting pistol in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Here he is!" he announced. "He fired during Assassins' Truce; he's
+subject to Assassins' Justice!"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded to the others. They threw the gamekeeper forward on the
+floor, and Sarnax shot him through the head, then tossed the pistol
+down beside him. "Any more of these people who violate the decencies
+will be treated similarly," he promised.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Sarnax," Dirzed spoke up. "But we lost an Assassin:
+discarnating this lackey won't equalize that. We think you should
+retire one of your number."</p>
+
+<p>"That at least, Dirzed; wait a moment."</p>
+
+<p>The three Assassins conferred at some length. Then Sarnax hooked
+fingers and clapped shoulders with his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"See you in the next reincarnation, brothers," he told them, walking
+toward the gun-room door, where Verkan Vall, Dalla and Dirzed stood.
+"I'm joining you people. You had two Assassins when the parley began,
+you'll have two when the shooting starts."</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall looked at Dirzed in some surprise. Hadron Dalla's Assassin
+nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"He's entitled to do that, Lord Virzal; the Assassins' code provides
+for such changes of allegiance."</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, Sarnax," Verkan Vall said, hooking fingers with him. "I hope
+we'll all be together when this is over."</p>
+
+<p>"We will be," Sarnax assured him cheerfully. "Discarnate. We won't get
+out of this in the body, Lord Virzal."</p>
+
+<p>A submachine-gun hammered from above, the bullets lashing the fountain
+pool; the water actually steamed, so great was their velocity.</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" a voice called down. "Assassins' Truce is over!"</p>
+
+<p>Another burst of automatic fire smashed out the lights at the bottom
+of the ascent tube. Dirzed and Dalla struggled across the room,
+pushing a heavy steel cabinet between them; Verkan Vall, who was
+holding Olirzon's submachine-gun, moved aside to allow them to drop it
+on edge in the open doorway, then wedged the door half-shut against
+it. Sarnax came over, bringing rifles, hunting pistols, and
+ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the situation, up there?" Verkan Vall asked him. "What force
+have they, and why did they turn against us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Virzal!" Dirzed objected, scandalized. "You have no right to ask
+Sarnax to betray confidences!"</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax spat against the door. "In the face of Jirzyn of Starpha!" he
+said. "And in the face of his <i>zortan</i> mother, and of his father,
+whoever he was! Dirzed, do not talk foolishly; one does not speak of
+betraying betrayers." He turned to Verkan Vall. "They have three
+menservants of the family of Starpha; your Assassin, Olirzon,
+discarnated the other three. There is one of Prince Jirzyn's poor
+relations, named Girzad. There are three other men, Volitionalist
+precinct workers, who came with Girzad, and four Assassins, the three
+who were here, and one who came with Girzad. Eleven, against the three
+of us."</p>
+
+<p>"The four of us, Sarnax," Dalla corrected. She had buckled on a
+hunting pistol, and had a light deer rifle under her arm.</p>
+
+<p>Something moved at the bottom of the descent tube. Verkan Vall gave it
+a short burst, though it was probably only a dummy, dropped to draw
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"The four of us, Lady Dallona," Sarnax agreed. "As to your other
+Assassin, the one who stayed in the airboat, I don't know how he
+fared. You see, about twenty minutes ago, this Girzad arrived in an
+airboat, with an Assassin and these three Volitionalist workers.
+Erarno and I were at the top of the dome when he came in. He told us
+that he had orders from Prince Jirzyn to discarnate the Lady Dallona
+and Dirzed at once. Tarnod, the gamekeeper"&mdash;Sarnax spat ceremoniously
+against the door again&mdash;"told him you were here, and that Marnik was
+one of your men. He was going to shoot Marnik at once, but Erarno and
+I and his Assassin stopped him. We warned Marnik about the change in
+the situation, according to the code, expecting Marnik to go down here
+and join you. Instead, he lifted the airboat, zoomed over Girzad's
+boat, and let go a rocket blast, setting Girzad's boat on fire. Well,
+that was a hostile act, so we all fired after him. We must have hit
+something, because the boat went down, trailing smoke, about ten miles
+away. Girzad got another airboat out of the hangar and he and his
+Assassin started after your man. About that time, your Assassin,
+Olirzon&mdash;happy reincarnation to him&mdash;came up, and the Starpha servants
+fired at him, and he fired back and discarnated two of them, and then
+jumped down the descent tube. One of the servants jumped after him; I
+found his body at the bottom when I came down to warn you formally.
+You know what happened after that."</p>
+
+<p>"But why did Prince Jirzyn order our discarnation?" Dalla wanted to
+know. "Was it to blame the Statisticalists with it?"</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax, about to answer, broke off suddenly and began firing at the
+opening of the ascent tube with a hunting pistol.</p>
+
+<p>"I got him," he said, in a pleased tone. "That was Erarno; he was
+always playing tricks with the tubes, climbing down against negative
+gravity and up against positive gravity. His body will float up to the
+top&mdash;Why, Lady Dallona, that was only part of it. You didn't hear
+about the big scandal, on the newscast, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't have it on. What scandal?"</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax laughed. "Oh, the very father and family-head of all scandals!
+You ought to know about it, because you started it; that's why Prince
+Jirzyn wants you out of the body&mdash;You devised a process by which
+people could give themselves memory-recalls of previous
+reincarnations, didn't you? And distributed apparatus to do it with?
+And gave one set to young Tarnov, the son of Lord Tirzov of Fastor?"</p>
+
+<p>Dalla nodded. Sarnax continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, last evening, Tarnox of Fastor used his recall outfit, and what
+do you think? It seems that thirty years ago, in his last
+reincarnation, he was Jirzid of Starpha, Jirzyn's older brother.
+Jirzid was betrothed to the Lady Annitra of Zabna. Well, his younger
+brother was carrying on a clandestine affair with the Lady Annitra,
+and he also wanted the title of Prince and family-head of Starpha. So
+he bribed this fellow Tarnod, whom I had the pleasure of discarnating,
+and who was an underservant here at the hunting lodge. Between them,
+they shot Jirzid during a boar hunt. An accident, of course. So Jirzyn
+married the Lady Annitra, and when old Prince Jarnid, his father,
+discarnated a year later, he succeeded to the title. And immediately,
+Tarnod was made head gamekeeper here."</p>
+
+<p>"What did I tell you, Lord Virzal? I knew that son of a <i>zortan</i> had
+something on Jirzyn of Starpha!" Dirzed exclaimed. "A nice family,
+this of Starpha!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's not the end of it," Sarnax continued. "This morning,
+Tarnov of Fastor, late Jirzid of Starpha, went before the High Court
+of Estates and entered suit to change his name to Jirzid of Starpha
+and laid claim to the title of Starpha family-head. The case has just
+been entered, so there's been no hearing, but there's the blazes of an
+argument among all the nobles about it&mdash;some are claiming that the
+individuality doesn't change from one reincarnation to the next, and
+others claiming that property and titles should pass along the line of
+physical descent, no matter what individuality has reincarnated into
+what body. They're the ones who want the Lady Dallona discarnated and
+her discoveries suppressed. And there's talk about revising the entire
+system of estate-ownership and estate-inheritance. Oh, it's an utter
+obscenity of a business!"</p>
+
+<p>"This," Verkan Vall told Dalla, "is something we will not emphasize
+when we get home." That was as close as he dared come to it, but she
+caught his meaning. The working of major changes in out-time social
+structures was not viewed with approval by the Paratime Commission on
+the First Level. "<i>If</i> we get home," he added. Then an idea occurred
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Dirzed, Sarnax; this place must have been used by the leaders of the
+Volitionalists for top-level conferences. Is there a secret passage
+anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax shook his head. "Not from here. There is one, on the floor
+above, but they control it. And even if there were one down here, they
+would be guarding the outlet."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I was counting on. I'd hoped to simulate an escape that
+way, and then make a rush up the regular tubes." Verkan Vall shrugged.
+"I suppose Marnik's our only chance. I hope he got away safely."</p>
+
+<p>"He was going for help? I was surprised that an Assassin would desert
+his client; I should have thought of that," Sarnax said. "Well, even
+if he got down carnate, and if Girzad didn't catch him, he'd still be
+afoot ten miles from the nearest city unit. That gives us a little
+chance&mdash;about one in a thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any way they can get at us, except by those tubes?" Dalla
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They could cut a hole in the floor, or burn one through," Sarnax
+replied. "They have plenty of thermite. They could detonate a charge
+of explosives over our heads, or clear out of the dome and drop one
+down the well. They could use lethal gas or radiodust, but their
+Assassins wouldn't permit such illegal methods. Or they could shoot
+sleep-gas down at us, and then come down and cut our throats at their
+leisure."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to get out of this room, then," Verkan Vall decided. "They
+know we've barricaded ourselves in here; this is where they'll
+attack. So we'll patrol the perimeter of the well; we'll be out of
+danger from above if we keep close to the wall. And we'll inspect all
+the rooms on this floor for evidence of cutting through from above."</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax nodded. "That's sense, Lord Virzal. How about the lifter
+tubes?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to barricade them. Sarnax, you and Dirzed know the layout
+of this place better than the Lady Dallona or I; suppose you two check
+the rooms, while we cover the tubes and the well," Verkan Vall
+directed. "Come on, now."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>They pushed the door wide-open and went out past the cabinet. Hugging
+the wall, they began a slow circuit of the well, Verkan Vall in the
+lead with the submachine-gun, then Sarnax and Dirzed, the former with
+a heavy boar-rifle and the latter with a hunting pistol in each hand,
+and Hadron Dalla brought up in the rear with her rifle. It was she who
+noticed a movement along the rim of the balcony above and snapped a
+shot at it; there was a crash above, and a shower of glass and plastic
+and metal fragments rattled on the pavement of the court. Somebody had
+been trying to lower a scanner or a visiplate-pickup, or something of
+the sort; the exact nature of the instrument was not evident from the
+wreckage Dalla's bullet had made of it.</p>
+
+<p>The rooms Dirzed and Sarnax entered were all quiet; nobody seemed to
+be attempting to cut through the ceiling, fifteen feet above. They
+dragged furniture from a couple of rooms, blocking the openings of the
+lifter tubes, and continued around the well until they had reached the
+gun room again.</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed suggested that they move some of the weapons and ammunition
+stored there to Prince Jirzyn's private apartment, halfway around to
+the lifter tubes, so that another place of refuge would be stocked
+with munitions in event of their being driven from the gun room.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving him on guard outside, Verkan Vall, Dalla and Sarnax entered
+the gun room and began gathering weapons and boxes of ammunition.
+Dalla finished packing her game bag with the recorded data and notes
+of her experiments. Verkan Vall selected four more of the heavy
+hunting pistols, more accurate than his shoulder-holster weapon or the
+dead Olirzon's belt arm, and capable of either full or semi-automatic
+fire. Sarnax chose a couple more boar rifles. Dalla slung her bag of
+recorded notes, and another bag of ammunition, and secured another
+deer rifle. They carried this accumulation of munitions to the private
+apartments of Prince Jirzyn, dumping everything in the middle of the
+drawing room, except the bag of notes, from which Dalla refused to
+separate herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe we'd better put some stuff over in one of the rooms on the
+other side of the well," Dirzed suggested. "They haven't really begun
+to come after us; when they do, we'll probably be attacked from two
+or three directions at once."</p>
+
+<p>They returned to the gun room, casting anxious glances at the edge of
+the balcony above and at the barricade they had erected across the
+openings to the lifter tubes. Verkan Vall was not satisfied with this
+last; it looked to him as though they had provided a breastwork for
+somebody to fire on them from, more than anything else.</p>
+
+<p>He was about to step around the cabinet which partially blocked the
+gun-room door when he glanced up, and saw a six-foot circle on the
+ceiling turning slowly brown. There was a smell of scorched plastic.
+He grabbed Sarnax by the arm and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Thermite," the Assassin whispered. "The ceiling's got six inches of
+spaceship-insulation between it and the floor above; it'll take them a
+few minutes to burn through it." He stooped and pushed on the
+barricade, shoving it into the room. "Keep back; they'll probably drop
+a grenade or so through, first, before they jump down. If we're quick,
+we can get a couple of them."</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed and Sarnax crouched, one at either side of the door, with
+weapons ready. Verkan Vall and Dalla had been ordered, rather
+peremptorily, to stay behind them; in a place of danger, an Assassin
+was obliged to shield his client. Verkan Vall, unable to see what was
+going on inside the room, kept his eyes and his gun muzzle on the
+barricade across the openings to the lifter tubes, the erection of
+which he was now regretting as a major tactical error.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the gun room, there was a sudden crash, as the circle of
+thermite burned through and a section of ceiling dropped out and hit
+the floor. Instantly, Dirzed flung himself back against Verkan Vall,
+and there was a tremendous explosion inside, followed by another and
+another. A second or so passed, then Dirzed, leaning around the corner
+of the door, began firing rapidly into the room. From the other side
+of the door, Sarnax began blazing away with his rifle. Verkan Vall
+kept his position, covering the lifter tubes.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, from behind the barricade, a blue-white gun flash leaped
+into being, and a pistol banged. He sprayed the opening between a
+couch and a section of bookcase from whence it had come, releasing his
+trigger as the gun rose with the recoil, squeezing and releasing and
+squeezing again. Then he jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, the other place; hurry!" he ordered.</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax swore in exasperation. "Help me with her, Dirzed!" he implored.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall turned his head, to see the two Assassins drag Dalla to
+her feet and hustle her away from the gun room; she was quite
+senseless, and they had to drag her between them. Verkan Vall gave a
+quick glance into the gun room; two of the Starpha servants and a man
+in rather flashy civil dress were lying on the floor, where they had
+been shot as they had jumped down from above. He saw a movement at the
+edge of the irregular, smoking, hole in the ceiling, and gave it a
+short burst, then fired another at the exit from the descent tube.
+Then he took to his heels and followed the Assassins and Hadron Dalla
+into Prince Jirzyn's apartment.</p>
+
+<p>As he ran through the open door, the Assassins were letting Dalla down
+into a chair; they instantly threw themselves into the work of
+barricading the doorway so as to provide cover and at the same time
+allow them to fire out into the central well.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="469" /></p>
+<p>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. The bullet had hit the game bag at her
+side; it was full of spools of metal tape, in metal cases, and notes
+in written form, pyrographed upon sheets of plastic ring fastened into
+metal binders. Because of their extreme velocity, Akor-Neb bullets
+were sure killers when they struck animal tissue, but for the same
+reason, they had very poor penetration on hard objects. The
+alloy-steel tape, and the steel spools and spool cases, and the
+notebook binders, had been enough to shatter the little bullet into
+splinters of magnesium-nickel alloy, and the stout leather back of the
+game bag had stopped all of these. But the impact, even distributed as
+it had been through the contents of the bag, had been enough to knock
+the girl unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>He found a bottle of some sort of brandy and a glass on a serving
+table nearby and poured her a drink, holding it to her lips. She
+spluttered over the first mouthful, then took the glass from him and
+sipped the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?" she asked. "I thought those bullets were sure death."</p>
+
+<p>"Your notes. The bullet hit the bag. Are you all right, now?"</p>
+
+<p>She finished the brandy. "I think so." She put a hand into the game
+bag and brought out a snarled and tangled mess of steel tape. "Oh,
+<i>blast</i>! That stuff was important; all the records on the preliminary
+auto-recall experiments." She shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't have been
+worth much more if I'd stopped that bullet, myself." She slipped the
+strap over her shoulder and started to rise.</p>
+
+<p>As she did, a bedlam of firing broke out, both from the two Assassins
+at the door and from outside. They both hit the floor and crawled out
+of line of the partly-open door; Verkan Vall recovered his
+submachine-gun, which he had set down beside Dalla's chair. Sarnax was
+firing with his rifle at some target in the direction of the lifter
+tubes; Dirzed lay slumped over the barricade, and one glance at his
+crumpled figure was enough to tell Verkan Vall that he was dead.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>"You fill magazines for us," he told Dalla, then crawled to Dirzed's
+place at the door. "What happened, Sarnax?"</p>
+
+<p>"They shoved over the barricade at the lifter tubes and came out into
+the well. I got a couple, they got Dirzed, and now they're holed up in
+rooms all around the circle. They&mdash;Aah!" He fired three shots,
+quickly, around the edge of the door. "That stopped that." The
+Assassin crouched to insert a fresh magazine into his rifle.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_06_01.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="348" class="figleft" /><img src="images/image_06_02.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="299" height="112" class="figleft" /></div>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall risked one eye around the corner of the doorway, and as he
+did, there was a red flash and a dull roar, unlike the blue flashes
+and sharp cracking reports of the pistols and rifles, from the doorway
+of the gun room. He wondered, for a split second, if it might be one
+of the fowling pieces he had seen there, and then something whizzed
+past his head and exploded with a soft <i>plop</i> behind him. Turning, he
+saw a pool of gray vapor beginning to spread in the middle of the
+room. Dalla must have got a breath of it, for she was slumped over the
+chair from which she had just risen.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping the submachine-gun and gulping a lungful of fresh air from
+outside, Verkan Vall rushed to her, caught her by the heels, and
+dragged her into Prince Jirzyn's bedroom, beyond. Leaving her in the
+middle of the floor, he took another deep breath and returned to the
+drawing room, where Sarnax was already overcome by the sleep-gas.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the serving table from which he had got the brandy, and dragged
+it over to the bedroom door, overturning it and laying it across the
+doorway, its legs in the air. Like most Akor-Neb serving tables, it
+had a gravity-counteraction unit under it; he set this for double
+minus-gravitation and snapped it on. As it was now above the inverted
+table, the table did not rise, but a tendril, of sleep-gas, curling
+toward it, bent upward and drifted away from the doorway. Satisfied
+that he had made a temporary barrier against the sleep-gas, Verkan
+Vall secured Dalla's hunting pistol and spare magazines and lay down
+at the bedroom door.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, there was silence outside. Then the besiegers evidently
+decided that the sleep-gas attack had been a success. An Assassin,
+wearing a gas mask and carrying a submachine-gun, appeared in the
+doorway, and behind him came a tall man in a tan tunic, similarly
+masked. They stepped into the room and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that he would be shooting over a two hundred percent negative
+gravitation-field, Verkan Vall aimed for the Assassin's belt-buckle
+and squeezed. The bullet caught him in the throat. Evidently the
+bullet had not only been lifted in the negative gravitation, but
+lifted point-first and deflected upward. He held his front sight just
+above the other man's knee, and hit him in the chest.</p>
+
+<p>As he fired, he saw a wisp of gas come sliding around the edge of the
+inverted table. There was silence outside, and for an instant, he was
+tempted to abandon his post and go to the bathroom, back of the
+bedroom, for wet towels to improvise a mask. Then, when he tried to
+crawl backward, he could not. There was an impression of distant
+shouting which turned to a roaring sound in his head. He tried to lift
+his pistol, but it slipped from his fingers.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When consciousness returned, he was lying on his back, and something
+cold and rubbery was pressing into his face. He raised his arms to
+fight off whatever it was, and opened his eyes, to find that he was
+staring directly at the red oval and winged bullet of the Society of
+Assassins. A hand caught his wrist as he reached for the small pistol
+under his arm. The pressure on his face eased.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, Lord Virzal," a voice came to him. "Assassins'
+Truce!"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded stupidly and repeated the words. "Assassins' Truce; I won't
+shoot. What happened?"</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat up and looked around. Prince Jirzyn's bedchamber was full
+of Assassins. Dalla, recovering from her touch of sleep-gas, was
+sitting groggily in a chair, while five or six of them fussed around
+her, getting in each others' way, handing her drinks, chaffing her
+wrists, holding damp cloths on her brow. That was standard procedure,
+when any group of males thought Dalla needed any help. Another
+Assassin, beside the bed, was putting away an oxygen-mask outfit, and
+the Assassin who had prevented Verkan Vall from drawing his pistol was
+his own follower, Marnik. And Klarnood, the Assassin-President, was
+sitting on the foot of the bed, smoking one of Prince Jirzyn's
+monogrammed and crested cigarettes critically.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall looked at Marnik, and then at Klarnood, and back to
+Marnik.</p>
+
+<p>"You got through," he said. "Good work, Marnik; I thought they'd
+downed you."</p>
+
+<p>"They did; I had to crash-land in the woods. I went about a mile on
+foot, and then I found a man and woman and two children, hiding in one
+of these little log rain shelters. They had an airboat, a good one. It
+seemed that rioting had broken out in the city unit where they lived,
+and they'd taken to the woods till things quieted down again. I
+offered them Assassins' protection if they'd take me to Assassins'
+Hall, and they did."</p>
+
+<p>"By luck, I was in when Marnik arrived," Klarnood took over. "We
+brought three boatloads of men, and came here at once. Just as we got
+here, two boatloads of Starpha dependents arrived; they tried to give
+us an argument, and we discarnated the lot of them. Then we came down
+here, crying Assassins' Truce. One of the Starpha Assassins, Kirzol,
+was still carnate; he told us what had been going on." The
+President-General's face-became grim. "You know, I take a rather poor
+view of Prince Jirzyn's procedure in this matter, not to mention that
+of his underlings. I'll have to speak to him about this. Now, how
+about you and the Lady Dallona? What do you intend doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're getting out of here," Verkan Vall said. "I'd like air transport
+and protection as far as Ghamma, to the establishment of the family of
+Zorda. Brarnend of Zorda has a private space yacht; he'll get us to
+Venus."</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood gave a sigh of obvious relief. "I'll have you and the Lady
+Dallona airborne and off for Ghamma as soon as you wish," he promised.
+"I will, frankly, be delighted to see the last of both of you. The
+Lady Dallona has started a fire here at Darsh that won't burn out in a
+half-century, and who knows what it may consume." He was interrupted
+by a heaving shock that made the underground dome dwelling shake like
+a light airboat in turbulence. Even eighty feet under the ground, they
+could hear a continued crashing roar. It was an appreciable interval
+before the sound and the shock ceased.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, there was silence, and then an excited bedlam of
+shouting broke from the Assassins in the room: Klarnood's face was
+frozen in horror.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a fission bomb!" he exclaimed. "The first one that has been
+exploded on this planet in hostility in a thousand years!" He turned
+to Verkan Vall. "If you feel well enough to walk, Lord Virzal, come
+with us. I must see what's happened."</p>
+
+<p>They hurried from the room and went streaming up the ascent tube to
+the top of the dome. About forty miles away, to the south, Verkan Vall
+saw the sinister thing that he had seen on so many other time-lines,
+in so many other paratime sectors&mdash;a great pillar of varicolored
+fire-shot smoke, rising to a mushroom head fifty thousand feet above.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's it," Klarnood said sadly. "That is civil war."</p>
+
+<p>"May I make a suggestion, Assassin-President?" Verkan Vall asked. "I
+understand that Assassins' Truce is binding even upon non-Assassins;
+is that correct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not exactly; it's generally kept by such non-Assassins as want
+to remain in their present reincarnations, though."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I meant. Well, suppose you declare a general, planet-wide
+Assassins' Truce in this political war, and make the leaders of both
+parties responsible for keeping it. Publish lists of the top two or
+three thousand Statisticalists and Volitionalists, starting with
+Mirzark of Bashad and Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, and inform them that
+they will be assassinated, in order, if the fighting doesn't cease."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" A smile grew on Klarnood's face. "Lord Virzal, my thanks; a
+good suggestion. I'll try it. And furthermore, I'll withdraw all
+Assassin protection permanently from anybody involved in political
+activity, and forbid any Assassin to accept any retainer connected
+with political factionalism. It's about time our members stopped
+discarnating each other in these political squabbles." He pointed to
+the three airboats drawn up on the top of the dome; speedy black
+craft, bearing the red oval and winged bullet. "Take your choice, Lord
+Virzal. I'll lend you a couple of my men, and you'll be in Ghamma in
+three hours." He hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with Verkan
+Vall, bent over Dalla's hand. "I still like you, Lord Virzal, and I
+have seldom met a more charming lady than you, Lady Dallona. But I
+sincerely hope I never see either of you again."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The ship for Dhergabar was driving north and west; at seventy thousand
+feet, it was still daylight, but the world below was wrapping itself
+in darkness. In the big visiscreens, which served in lieu of the
+windows which could never have withstood the pressure and friction
+heat of the ship's speed, the sun was sliding out of sight over the
+horizon to port. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat together, watching the
+blazing western sky&mdash;the sky of their own First Level time-line.</p>
+
+<p>"I blame myself terribly, Vall," Dalla was saying. "And I didn't mean
+any of them the least harm. All I was interested in was learning the
+facts. I know, that sounds like 'I didn't know it was loaded,' but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds to me like those Fourth Level Europo-American Sector
+physicists who are giving themselves guilt-complexes because they
+designed an atomic bomb," Verkan Vall replied. "All you were
+interested in was learning the facts. Well, as a scientist, that's all
+you're supposed to be interested in. You don't have to worry about any
+social or political implications. People have to learn to live with
+newly-discovered facts; if they don't, they die of them."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Vall; that sounds dreadfully irresponsible&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it? You're worrying about the results of your reincarnation
+memory-recall discoveries, the shootings and riotings and the bombing
+we saw." He touched the pommel of Olirzon's knife, which he still
+wore. "You're no more guilty of that than the man who forged this
+blade is guilty of the death of Marnark of Bashad; if he'd never
+lived, I'd have killed Marnark with some other knife somebody else
+made. And what's more, you can't know the results of your discoveries.
+All you can see is a thin film of events on the surface of an
+immediate situation, so you can't say whether the long-term results
+will be beneficial or calamitous.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this Fourth Level Europo-American atomic bomb, for example. I
+choose that because we both know that sector, but I could think of a
+hundred other examples in other paratime areas. Those people, because
+of deforestation, bad agricultural methods and general mismanagement,
+are eroding away their arable soil at an alarming rate. At the same
+time, they are breeding like rabbits. In other words, each successive
+generation has less and less food to divide among more and more
+people, and, for inherited traditional and superstitious reasons, they
+refuse to adopt any rational program of birth-control and
+population-limitation.</p>
+
+<p>"But, fortunately, they now have the atomic bomb, and they are
+developing radioactive poisons, weapons of mass-effect. 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."</p>
+
+<p>"But how about my work on the Akor-Neb Sector?" Dalla asked. "It seems
+that my memory-recall technique is more explosive than any fission
+bomb. I've laid the train for a century-long reign of anarchy!"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt that; I think Klarnood will take hold, now that he has
+committed himself to it. You know, in spite of his sanguinary
+profession, he's the nearest thing to a real man of good will I've
+found on that sector. And here's something else you haven't
+considered. Our own First Level life expectancy is from four to five
+hundred years. That's the main reason why we've accomplished as much
+as we have. We have, individually, time to accomplish things. On the
+Akor-Neb Sector, a scientist or artist or scholar or statesman will
+grow senile and die before he's as old as either of us. But now, a
+young student of twenty or so can take one of your auto-recall
+treatments and immediately have available all the knowledge and
+experience gained in four or five previous lives. He can start where
+he left off in his last reincarnation. In other words, you've made
+those people time-binders, individually as well as racially. Isn't
+that worth the temporary discarnation of a lot of ward-heelers and
+plug-uglies, or even a few decent types like Dirzed and Olirzon? If it
+isn't, I don't know what scales of values you're using."</p>
+
+<p>"Vall!" Dalla's eyes glowed with enthusiasm. "I never thought of that!
+And you said, 'temporary discarnation.' That's just what it is. Dirzed
+and Olirzon and the others aren't dead; they're just waiting,
+discarnate, between physical lives. You know, in the sacred writings
+of one of the Fourth Level peoples it is stated: 'Death is the last
+enemy.' By proving that death is just a cyclic condition of continued
+individual existence, these people have conquered their last enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Last enemy but one," Verkan Vall corrected. "They still have one
+enemy to go, an enemy within themselves. Call it semantic confusion,
+or illogic, or incomprehension, or just plain stupidity. Like
+Klarnood, stymied by verbal objections to something labeled 'political
+intervention.' He'd never have consented to use the power of his
+Society if he hadn't been shocked out of his inhibitions by that
+nuclear bomb. Or the Statisticalists, trying to create a classless
+order of society through a political program which would only result
+in universal servitude to an omnipotent government. Or the
+Volitionalist nobles, trying to preserve their hereditary feudal
+privileges, and now they can't even agree on a definition of the term
+'hereditary.' Might they not recover all the silly prejudices of their
+past lives, along with the knowledge and wisdom?"</p>
+
+<p>"But ... I thought you said&mdash;" Dalla was puzzled, a little hurt.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall's arm squeezed around her waist, and he laughed
+comfortingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You see? Any sort of result is possible, good or bad. So don't blame
+yourself in advance for something you can't possibly estimate." An
+idea occurred to him, and he straightened in the seat. "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."</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred years: that would be Year Twenty-Two of the next
+millennium. It's a date, Vall; we'll do it."</p>
+
+<p>They bent to light their cigarettes together at his lighter. When
+they raised their heads again and got the flame glare out of their
+eyes, the sky was purple-black, dusted with stars, and dead ahead,
+spilling up over the horizon, was a golden glow&mdash;the lights of
+Dhergabar and home.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Last Enemy, by Henry Beam Piper,
+Illustrated by Miller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Last Enemy
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper
+
+Illustrator: Miller
+
+Release Date: July 10, 2006  [eBook #18800]
+[Most recently updated: November 3, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+Revised by Richard Tonsing.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST ENEMY ***
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+      This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction,
+      August, 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
+      that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+LAST ENEMY
+
+
+by
+
+H. BEAM PIPER
+
+Illustrated by Miller
+
+
+
+
+    _The last enemy was the toughest of all—and conquering him
+    was in itself almost as dangerous as not conquering. For a
+    strange pattern of beliefs can make assassination an
+    honorable profession!_
+
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+Along the U-shaped table, the subdued clatter of dinnerware and the
+buzz of conversation was dying out; the soft music that drifted down
+from the overhead sound outlets seemed louder as the competing noises
+diminished. The feast was drawing to a close, and Dallona of Hadron
+fidgeted nervously with the stem of her wineglass as last-moment
+doubts assailed her.
+
+The old man at whose right she sat noticed, and reached out to lay his
+hand on hers.
+
+“My dear, you’re worried,” he said softly. “You, of all people,
+shouldn’t be, you know.”
+
+“The theory isn’t complete,” she replied. “And I could wish for more
+positive verification. I’d hate to think I’d got you into this—”
+
+Garnon of Roxor laughed. “No, no!” he assured her. “I’d decided upon
+this long before you announced the results of your experiments. Ask
+Girzon; he’ll bear me out.”
+
+“That’s true,” the young man who sat at Garnon’s left said, leaning
+forward. “Father has meant to take this step for a long time. He was
+waiting until after the election, and then he decided to do it now, to
+give you an opportunity to make experimental use of it.”
+
+The man on Dallona’s right added his voice. Like the others at the
+table, he was of medium stature, brown-skinned and dark-eyed, with a
+wide mouth, prominent cheekbones and a short, square jaw. Unlike the
+others, he was armed, with a knife and pistol on his belt, and on the
+breast of his black tunic he wore a scarlet oval patch on which a pair
+of black wings, with a tapering silver object between them had been
+superimposed.
+
+“Yes, Lady Dallona; the Lord Garnon and I discussed this, oh, two
+years ago at the least. Really, I’m surprised that you seem to shrink
+from it, now. Of course, you’re Venus-born, and customs there may be
+different, but with your scientific knowledge—”
+
+“That may be the trouble, Dirzed,” Dallona told him. “A scientist gets
+in the way of doubting, and one doubts one’s own theories most of
+all.”
+
+“That’s the scientific attitude, I’m told,” Dirzed replied, smiling.
+“But somehow, I cannot think of you as a scientist.” His eyes traveled
+over her in a way that would have made most women, scientists or
+otherwise, blush. It gave Dallona of Hadron a feeling of pleasure. Men
+often looked at her that way, especially here at Darsh. Novelty had
+something to do with it—her skin was considerably lighter than usual,
+and there was a pleasing oddness about the structure of her face. Her
+alleged Venusian origin was probably accepted as the explanation of
+that, as of so many other things.
+
+As she was about to reply, a man in dark gray, one of the
+upper-servants who were accepted as social equals by the Akor-Neb
+nobles, approached the table. He nodded respectfully to Garnon of
+Roxor.
+
+“I hate to seem to hurry things, sir, but the boy’s ready. He’s in a
+trance-state now,” he reported, pointing to the pair of visiplates at
+the end of the room.
+
+Both of the ten-foot-square plates were activated. One was a solid
+luminous white; on the other was the image of a boy of twelve or
+fourteen, seated at a big writing machine. Even allowing for the fact
+that the boy was in a hypnotic trance, there was an expression of
+idiocy on his loose-lipped, slack-jawed face, a pervading dullness.
+
+“One of our best sensitives,” a man with a beard, several places down
+the table on Dallona’s right, said. “You remember him, Dallona; he
+produced that communication from the discarnate Assassin, Sirzim.
+Normally, he’s a low-grade imbecile, but in trance-state he’s
+wonderful. And there can be no argument that the communications he
+produces originates in his own mind; he doesn’t have mind enough, of
+his own, to operate that machine.”
+
+Garnon of Roxor rose to his feet, the others rising with him. He
+unfastened a jewel from the front of his tunic and handed it to
+Dallona.
+
+“Here, my dear Lady Dallona; I want you to have this,” he said. “It’s
+been in the family of Roxor for six generations, but I know that you
+will appreciate and cherish it.” He twisted a heavy ring from his left
+hand and gave it to his son. He unstrapped his wrist watch and passed
+it across the table to the gray-clad upper-servant. He gave a pocket
+case, containing writing tools, slide rule and magnifier, to the
+bearded man on the other side of Dallona. “Something you can use, Dr.
+Harnosh,” he said. Then he took a belt, with a knife and holstered
+pistol, from a servant who had brought it to him, and gave it to the
+man with the red badge. “And something for you, Dirzed. The pistol’s
+by Farnor of Yand, and the knife was forged and tempered on Luna.”
+
+The man with the winged-bullet badge took the weapons, exclaiming in
+appreciation. Then he removed his own belt and buckled on the gift.
+
+“The pistol’s fully loaded,” Garnon told him.
+
+Dirzed drew it and checked—a man of his craft took no statement about
+weapons without verification—then slipped it back into the holster.
+
+“Shall I use it?” he asked.
+
+“By all means; I’d had that in mind when I selected it for you.”
+
+Another man, to the left of Girzon, received a cigarette case and
+lighter. He and Garnon hooked fingers and clapped shoulders.
+
+“Our views haven’t been the same, Garnon,” he said, “but I’ve always
+valued your friendship. I’m sorry you’re doing this, now; I believe
+you’ll be disappointed.”
+
+Garnon chuckled. “Would you care to make a small wager on that,
+Nirzav?” he asked. “You know what I’m putting up. If I’m proven right,
+will you accept the Volitionalist theory as verified?”
+
+Nirzav chewed his mustache for a moment. “Yes, Garnon, I will.” He
+pointed toward the blankly white screen. “If we get anything
+conclusive on that, I’ll have no other choice.”
+
+“All right, friends,” Garnon said to those around him. “Will you walk
+with me to the end of the room?”
+
+Servants removed a section from the table in front of him, to allow
+him and a few others to pass through; the rest of the guests remained
+standing at the table, facing toward the inside of the room. Garnon’s
+son, Girzon, and the gray-mustached Nirzav of Shonna, walked on his
+left; Dallona of Hadron and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh on his right. The
+gray-clad upper-servant, and two or three ladies, and a nobleman with
+a small chin beard, and several others, joined them; of those who had
+sat close to Garnon, only the man in the black tunic with the scarlet
+badge hung back. He stood still, by the break in the table, watching
+Garnon of Roxor walk away from him. Then Dirzed the Assassin drew the
+pistol he had lately received as a gift, hefted it in his hand,
+thumbed off the safety, and aimed at the back of Garnon’s head.
+
+They had nearly reached the end of the room when the pistol cracked.
+Dallona of Hadron started, almost as though the bullet had crashed
+into her own body, then caught herself and kept on walking. She closed
+her eyes and laid a hand on Dr. Harnosh’s arm for guidance,
+concentrating her mind upon a single question. The others went on as
+though Garnon of Roxor were still walking among them.
+
+“Look!” Harnosh of Hosh cried, pointing to the image in the visiplate
+ahead. “He’s under control!”
+
+They all stopped short, and Dirzed, holstering his pistol, hurried
+forward to join them. Behind, a couple of servants had approached with
+a stretcher and were gathering up the crumpled figure that had, a
+moment ago, been Garnon.
+
+A change had come over the boy at the writing machine. His eyes were
+still glazed with the stupor of the hypnotic trance, but the slack jaw
+had stiffened, and the loose mouth was compressed in a purposeful
+line. As they watched, his hands went out to the keyboard in front of
+him and began to move over it, and as they did, letters appeared on
+the white screen on the left.
+
+_Garnon of Roxor, discarnate, communicating_, they read. The machine
+stopped for a moment, then began again. _To Dallona of Hadron: The
+question you asked, after I discarnated, was: What was the last book I
+read, before the feast? While waiting for my valet to prepare my bath,
+I read the first ten verses of the fourth Canto of “Splendor of
+Space,” by Larnov of Horka, in my bedroom. When the bath was ready, I
+marked the page with a strip of message tape, containing a message
+from the bailiff of my estate on the Shevva River, concerning a
+breakdown at the power plant, and laid the book on the ivory-inlaid
+table beside the big red chair._
+
+Harnosh of Hosh looked at Dallona inquiringly; she nodded.
+
+“I rejected the question I had in my mind, and substituted that one,
+after the shot,” she said.
+
+He turned quickly to the upper-servant. “Check on that, right away,
+Kirzon,” he directed.
+
+As the upper-servant hurried out, the writing machine started again.
+
+_And to my son, Girzon: I will not use your son, Garnon, as a
+reincarnation-vehicle; I will remain discarnate until he is grown and
+has a son of his own; if he has no male child, I will reincarnate in
+the first available male child of the family of Roxor, or of some
+family allied to us by marriage. In any case, I will communicate
+before reincarnating._
+
+_To Nirzav of Shonna: Ten days ago, when I dined at your home, I took
+a small knife and cut three notches, two close together and one a
+little apart from the others, on the under side of the table. As I
+remember, I sat two places down on the left. If you find them, you
+will know that I have won that wager that I spoke of a few minutes
+ago._
+
+“I’ll have my butler check on that, right away,” Nirzav said. His eyes
+were wide with amazement, and he had begun to sweat; a man does not
+casually watch the beliefs of a lifetime invalidated in a few moments.
+
+_To Dirzed the Assassin_: the machine continued. _You have served me
+faithfully, in the last ten years, never more so than with the last
+shot you fired in my service. After you fired, the thought was in your
+mind that you would like to take service with the Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, whom you believe will need the protection of a member of the
+Society of Assassins. I advise you to do so, and I advise her to
+accept your offer. Her work, since she has come to Darsh, has not made
+her popular in some quarters. No doubt Nirzav of Shonna can bear me
+out on that._
+
+“I won’t betray things told me in confidence, or said at the Councils
+of the Statisticalists, but he’s right,” Nirzav said. “You need a good
+Assassin, and there are few better than Dirzed.”
+
+_I see that this sensitive is growing weary_, the letters on the
+screen spelled out. _His body is not strong enough for prolonged
+communication. I bid you all farewell, for the time; I will
+communicate again. Good evening, my friends, and I thank you for your
+presence at the feast._
+
+The boy, on the other screen, slumped back in his chair, his face
+relaxing into its customary expression of vacancy.
+
+“Will you accept my offer of service, Lady Dallona?” Dirzed asked.
+“It’s as Garnon said; you’ve made enemies.”
+
+Dallona smiled at him. “I’ve not been too deep in my work to know
+that. I’m glad to accept your offer, Dirzed.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nirzav of Shonna had already turned away from the group and was
+hurrying from the room, to call his home for confirmation on the
+notches made on the underside of his dining table. As he went out the
+door, he almost collided with the upper-servant, who was rushing in
+with a book in his hand.
+
+“Here it is,” the latter exclaimed, holding up the book. “Larnov’s
+‘Splendor of Space,’ just where he said it would be. I had a couple of
+servants with me as witnesses; I can call them in now, if you wish.”
+He handed the book to Harnosh of Hosh. “See, a strip of message tape
+in it, at the tenth verse of the Fourth Canto.”
+
+Nirzav of Shonna re-entered the room; he was chewing his mustache and
+muttering to himself. As he rejoined the group in front of the now
+dark visiplates, he raised his voice, addressing them all generally.
+
+“My butler found the notches, just as the communication described,” he
+said. “This settles it! Garnon, if you’re where you can hear me,
+you’ve won. I can’t believe in the Statisticalist doctrines after
+this, or in the political program based upon them. I’ll announce my
+change of attitude at the next meeting of the Executive Council, and
+resign my seat. I was elected by Statisticalist votes, and I cannot
+hold office as a Volitionalist.”
+
+“You’ll need a couple of Assassins, too,” the nobleman with the
+chin beard told him. “Your former colleagues and fellow-party-members
+are regrettably given to the forcible discarnation of those who differ
+with them.”
+
+“I’ve never employed personal Assassins before,” Nirzav replied, “but
+I think you’re right. As soon as I get home, I’ll call Assassins’ Hall
+and make the necessary arrangements.”
+
+“Better do it now,” Girzon of Roxor told him, lowering his voice.
+“There are over a hundred guests here, and I can’t vouch for all of
+them. The Statisticalists would be sure to have a spy planted among
+them. My father was one of their most dangerous opponents, when he was
+on the Council; they’ve always been afraid he’d come out of retirement
+and stand for re-election. They’d want to make sure he was really
+discarnate. And if that’s the case, you can be sure your change of
+attitude is known to old Mirzark of Bashad by this time. He won’t dare
+allow you to make a public renunciation of Statisticalism.” He turned
+to the other nobleman. “Prince Jirzyn, why don’t you call the
+Volitionist headquarters and have a couple of our Assassins sent here
+to escort Lord Nirzav home?”
+
+“I’ll do that immediately,” Jirzyn of Starpha said. “It’s as Lord
+Girzon says; we can be pretty sure there was a spy among the guests,
+and now that you’ve come over to our way of thinking, we’re
+responsible for your safety.”
+
+He left the room to make the necessary visiphone call. Dallona,
+accompanied by Dirzed, returned to her place at the table, where she
+was joined by Harnosh of Hosh and some of the others.
+
+“There’s no question about the results,” Harnosh was exulting. “I’ll
+grant that the boy might have picked up some of that stuff
+telepathically from the carnate minds present here; even from the mind
+of Garnon, before he was discarnated. But he could not have picked up
+enough data, in that way, to make a connected and coherent
+communication. It takes a sensitive with a powerful mind of his own to
+practice telesthesia, and that boy’s almost an idiot.” He turned to
+Dallona. “You asked a question, mentally, after Garnon was
+discarnate, and got an answer that could have been contained only in
+Garnon’s mind. I think it’s conclusive proof that the discarnate
+Garnon was fully conscious and communicating.”
+
+“Dirzed also asked a question, mentally, after the discarnation, and
+got an answer. Dr. Harnosh, we can state positively that the surviving
+individuality is fully conscious in the discarnate state, is
+telepathically sensitive, and is capable of telepathic communication
+with other minds,” Dallona agreed. “And in view of our earlier work
+with memory-recalls, we’re justified in stating positively that the
+individual is capable of exercising choice in reincarnation vehicles.”
+
+“My father had been considering voluntary discarnation for a long
+time,” Girzon of Roxor said. “Ever since the discarnation of my
+mother. He deferred that step because he was unwilling to deprive the
+Volitionalist Party of his support. Now it would seem that he has done
+more to combat Statisticalism by discarnating than he ever did in his
+carnate existence.”
+
+“I don’t know, Girzon,” Jirzyn of Starpha said, as he joined the
+group. “The Statisticalists will denounce the whole thing as a
+prearranged fraud. And if they can discarnate the Lady Dallona before
+she can record her testimony under truth hypnosis or on a lie
+detector, we’re no better off than we were before. Dirzed, you have a
+great responsibility in guarding the Lady Dallona; some extraordinary
+security precautions will be needed.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In his office, in the First Level city of Dhergabar, Tortha Karf,
+Chief of Paratime Police, leaned forward in his chair to hold his
+lighter for his special assistant, Verkan Vall, then lit his own
+cigarette. 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?”
+
+Verkan Vall’s handsome features became even more immobile than usual
+as he mentally pronounced the verbal trigger symbols which should
+bring hypnotically acquired knowledge into his conscious mind. Then he
+shook his head.
+
+“Must be a singularly well-behaved sector, sir,” he said. “Or else
+we’ve been lucky, so far. I never was on an Akor-Neb operation; don’t
+even have a hypno-mech for that sector. All I know is from general
+reading.
+
+“Like all the Second Level, its time-lines descend from the
+probability of one or more shiploads of colonists having come to Terra
+from Mars about seventy-five to a hundred thousand years ago, and then
+having been cut off from the home planet and forced to develop a
+civilization of their own here. The Akor-Neb civilization is of a
+fairly high culture-order, even for Second Level. An atomic-power,
+interplanetary culture; gravity-counteraction, direct conversion of
+nuclear energy to electrical power, that sort of thing. We buy fine
+synthetic plastics and fabrics from them.” He fingered the material of
+his smartly-cut green police uniform. “I think this cloth is Akor-Neb.
+We sell a lot of Venusian _zerfa_-leaf; they smoke it, straight and
+mixed with tobacco. They have a single System-wide government, a
+single race, and a universal language. They’re a dark-brown race,
+which evolved in its present form about fifty thousand years ago; the
+present civilization is about ten thousand years old, developed out of
+the wreckage of several earlier civilizations which decayed or fell
+through wars, exhaustion of resources, et cetera. They have legends,
+maybe historical records, of their extraterrestrial origin.”
+
+Tortha Karf nodded. “Pretty good, for consciously acquired knowledge,”
+he commented. “Well, our luck’s run out, on that sector; we have
+troubles there, now. I want you to go iron them out. I know, you’ve
+been going pretty hard, lately—that night-hound business, on the
+Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, wasn’t any picnic. But the fact
+is that a lot of my ordinary and deputy assistants have a little too
+much regard for the alleged sanctity of human life, and this is
+something that may need some pretty drastic action.”
+
+“Some of our people getting out of line?” Verkan Vall asked.
+
+“Well, the data isn’t too complete, but one of our people has run into
+trouble on that sector, and needs rescuing—a psychic-science
+researcher, a young lady named Hadron Dalla. I believe you know her,
+don’t you?” Tortha Karf asked innocently.
+
+“Slightly,” Verkan Vall deadpanned. “I enjoyed a brief but rather
+hectic companionate-marriage with her, about twenty years ago. What
+sort of a jam’s little Dalla got herself into, now?”
+
+“Well, frankly, we don’t know. I hope she’s still alive, but I’m not
+unduly optimistic. It seems that about a year ago, Dr. Hadron
+transposed to the Second Level, to study alleged proof of
+reincarnation which the Akor-Neb people were reported to possess. She
+went to Gindrabar, on Venus, and transposed to the Second Paratime
+Level, to a station maintained by Outtime Import & Export Trading
+Corporation—a _zerfa_ plantation just east of the High Ridge country.
+There she assumed an identity as the daughter of a planter, and took
+the name of Dallona of Hadron. Parenthetically, all Akor-Neb
+family-names are prepositional; family-names were originally place
+names. I believe that ancient Akor-Neb marital relations were too
+complicated to permit exact establishment of paternity. And all
+Akor-Neb men’s personal names have -_irz_- or -_arn_- inserted in the
+middle, and women’s names end in -_itra_- or -_ona_. You could call
+yourself Virzal of Verkan, for instance.
+
+“Anyhow, she made the Second Level Venus-Terra trip on a regular
+passenger liner, and landed at the Akor-Neb city of Ghamma, on the
+upper Nile. There she established contact with the Outtime Trading
+Corporation representative, Zortan Brend, locally known as Brarnend of
+Zorda. He couldn’t call himself Brarnend of Zortan—in the Akor-Neb
+language, _zortan_ is a particularly nasty dirty-word. Hadron Dalla
+spent a few weeks at his residence, briefing herself on local
+conditions. Then she went to the capital city, Darsh, in eastern
+Europe, and enrolled as a student at something called the Independent
+Institute for Reincarnation Research, having secured a letter of
+introduction to its director, a Dr. Harnosh of Hosh.
+
+“Almost at once, she began sending in reports to her home
+organization, the Rhogom Memorial Foundation of Psychic Science, here
+at Dhergabar, through Zortan Brend. The people there were wildly
+enthusiastic. I don’t have more than the average intelligent—I
+hope—layman’s knowledge of psychics, but Dr. Volzar Darv, the
+director of Rhogom Foundation, tells me that even in the present
+incomplete form, her reports have opened whole new horizons in the
+science. It seems that these Akor-Neb people have actually
+demonstrated, as a scientific fact, that the human individuality
+reincarnates after physical death—that your personality, and mine,
+have existed, as such, for ages, and will exist for ages to come.
+More, they have means of recovering, from almost anybody, memories of
+past reincarnations.
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+“Well, after about a month, the people at this Reincarnation Institute
+realized that this Dallona of Hadron wasn’t any ordinary student. She
+probably had trouble keeping down to the local level of psychic
+knowledge. So, as soon as she’d learned their techniques, she was
+allowed to undertake experimental work of her own. I imagine she let
+herself out on that; as soon as she’d mastered the standard Akor-Neb
+methods of recovering memories of past reincarnations, she began
+refining and developing them more than the local yokels had been able
+to do in the past thousand years. I can’t tell you just what she did,
+because I don’t know the subject, but she must have lit things up
+properly. She got quite a lot of local publicity; not only scientific
+journals, but general newscasts.
+
+“Then, four days ago, she disappeared, and her disappearance seems to
+have been coincident with an unsuccessful attempt on her life. We
+don’t know as much about this as we should; all we have is Zortan
+Brend’s account.
+
+“It seems that on the evening of her disappearance, she had been
+attending the voluntary discarnation feast—suicide party—of a
+prominent nobleman named Garnon of Roxor. Evidently when the Akor-Neb
+people get tired of their current reincarnation they invite in their
+friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere
+of general conviviality. Frequently they take poison or inhale lethal
+gas; this fellow had his personal trigger man shoot him through the
+head. Dalla was one of the guests of honor, along with this Harnosh of
+Hosh. They’d made rather elaborate preparations, and after the shooting
+they got a detailed and apparently authentic spirit-communication from
+the late Garnon. The voluntary discarnation was just a routine social
+event, it seems, but the communication caused quite an uproar, and rated
+top place on the System-wide newscasts, and started a storm of
+controversy.
+
+“After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating
+gun artist, one Dirzed, into her own service. This Dirzed was spoken
+of as a generally respected member of something called the Society of
+Assassins, and that’ll give you an idea of what things are like on
+that sector, and why I don’t want to send anybody who might develop
+trigger-finger cramp at the wrong moment. She and Dirzed left the home
+of the gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for
+Dalla’s apartment, about a hundred miles away. That’s the last that’s
+been heard of either of them.
+
+“This attempt on Dalla’s life occurred while the pre-mortem revels
+were still going on. She lived in a six-room apartment, with three
+servants, on one of the upper floors of a three-thousand-foot
+tower—Akor-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable
+interval between units—and while she was at this feast, a package was
+delivered at the apartment, ostensibly from the Reincarnation
+Institute and made up to look as though it contained record tapes. One
+of the servants accepted it from a service employee of the apartments.
+The next morning, a little before noon, Dr. Harnosh of Hosh called her
+on the visiphone and got no answer; he then called the apartment
+manager, who entered the apartment. He found all three of the servants
+dead, from a lethal-gas bomb which had exploded when one of them had
+opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the
+apartment, the night before.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless as he ran
+Tortha Karf’s narrative through the intricate semantic and
+psychological processes of the First Level mentality. The fact that
+Hadron Dalla had been a former wife of his had been relegated to one
+corner of his consciousness and contained there; it was not a fact
+that would, at the moment, contribute to the problem or to his
+treatment of it.
+
+“The package was delivered while she was at this suicide party,” he
+considered. “It must, therefore, have been sent by somebody who either
+did not know she would be out of the apartment, or who did not expect
+it to function until after her return. On the other hand, if her
+disappearance was due to hostile action, it was the work of somebody
+who knew she was at the feast and did not want her to reach her
+apartment again. This would seem to exclude the sender of the package
+bomb.”
+
+Tortha Karf nodded. He had reached that conclusion, himself.
+
+“Thus,” Verkan Vall continued, “if her disappearance was the work of
+an enemy, she must have two enemies, each working in ignorance of the
+other’s plans.”
+
+“What do you think she did to provoke such enmity?”
+
+“Well, of course, it just might be that Dalla’s normally complicated
+love-life had got a little more complicated than usual and
+short-circuited on her,” Verkan Vall said, out of the fullness of
+personal knowledge, “but I doubt that, at the moment. I would think
+that this affair has political implications.”
+
+“So?” Tortha Karf had not thought of politics as an explanation. He
+waited for Verkan Vall to elaborate.
+
+“Don’t you see, chief?” the special assistant asked. “We find a belief
+in reincarnation on many time-lines, as a religious doctrine, but
+these people accept it as a scientific fact. Such acceptance would
+carry much more conviction; it would influence a people’s entire
+thinking. We see it reflected in their disregard for death—suicide as
+a social function, this Society of Assassins, and the like. It would
+naturally color their political thinking, because politics is nothing
+but common action to secure more favorable living conditions, and to
+these people, the term ‘living conditions’ includes not only the
+present life, but also an indefinite number of future lives as well. I
+find this title, ‘Independent’ Institute, suggestive. Independent of
+what? Possibly of partisan affiliation.”
+
+“But wouldn’t these people be grateful to her for her new discoveries,
+which would enable them to plan their future reincarnations more
+intelligently?” Tortha Karf asked.
+
+“Oh, chief!” Verkan Vall reproached. “You know better than that! How
+many times have our people got in trouble on other time-lines because
+they divulged some useful scientific fact that conflicted with the
+locally revered nonsense? You show me ten men who cherish some
+religious doctrine or political ideology, and I’ll show you nine men
+whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which
+contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such
+evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. For instance, on
+the Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, where I was just working,
+there is a political sect, the Communists, who, in the territory under
+their control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established facts
+of genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit the
+world-picture demanded by their political doctrines. And on the same
+sector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sections
+successfully, to outlaw the teaching of evolution by natural
+selection.”
+
+Tortha Karf nodded. “I remember some stories my grandfather told me,
+about his narrow escapes from an organization called the Holy
+Inquisition, when he was a paratime trader on the Fourth Level, about
+four hundred years ago. I believe that thing’s still operating, on the
+Europo-American Sector, under the name of the NKVD. So you think Dalla
+may have proven something that conflicted with local reincarnation
+theories, and somebody who had a vested interest in maintaining those
+theories is trying to stop her?”
+
+“You spoke of a controversy over the communication alleged to have
+originated with this voluntarily discarnated nobleman. That would
+suggest a difference of opinion on the manner of nature of
+reincarnation or the discarnate state. This difference may mark the
+dividing line between the different political parties. Now, to get to
+this Darsh place, do I have to go to Venus, as Dalla did?”
+
+“No. The Outtime Trading Corporation has transposition facilities at
+Ravvanan, on the Nile, which is spatially co-existent with the city of
+Ghamma on the Akor-Neb Sector, where Zortan Brend is. You transpose
+through there, and Zortan Brend will furnish you transportation to
+Darsh. It’ll take you about two days, here, getting your hypno-mech
+indoctrinations and having your skin pigmented, and your hair turned
+black. I’ll notify Zortan Brend at once that you’re coming through.
+Is there anything special you’ll want?”
+
+“Why, I’ll want an abstract of the reports Dalla sent back to Rhogom
+Foundation. It’s likely that there is some clue among them as to whom
+her discoveries may have antagonized. I’m going to be a Venusian
+_zerfa_-planter, a friend of her father’s; I’ll want full hypno-mech
+indoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I’ll want to
+familiarize myself with Akor-Neb weapons and combat techniques. I
+think that will be all, chief.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last of the tall city units of Ghamma were sliding out of sight as
+the ship passed over them—shaft-like buildings that rose two or three
+thousand feet above the ground in clumps of three or four or six, one
+at each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Each
+of these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five miles
+square; no unit was much more or less than twenty miles from its
+nearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden-brown of
+ripening grain, crisscrossed with the threads of irrigation canals and
+dotted here and there with sturdy farm-village buildings and tall,
+stack-like granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at the
+fifty-thousand-foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats darted
+back and forth on different levels, depending upon speed and
+direction. Far ahead, to the northeast, was the shimmer of the Red Sea
+and the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond.
+
+Verkan Vall—the Lord Virzal of Verkan, temporarily—stood at the
+glass front of the observation deck, looking down. He was a different
+Verkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in the
+latter’s office, two days before. The First Level cosmeticists had
+worked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a soft
+chocolate-brown, now; his hair was jet-black, and so were his eyes.
+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. A civilization
+which built its cities vertically, since it had learned to counteract
+gravitation. A civilization which still depended upon natural cereals
+for food, but one which had learned to make the most efficient use of
+its soil. The network of dams and irrigation canals which he saw was
+as good as anything on his own paratime level. The wide dispersal of
+buildings, he knew, was a heritage of a series of disastrous atomic
+wars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come to
+love the wide inter-vistas of open country and forest, and had
+continued to scatter their buildings, even after the necessity had
+passed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been reared
+by a people who had banished nationalism and, with it, the threat of
+total war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities of
+the Khiftan civilization, only a few thousand para-years distant.
+
+Three men came out of the lounge behind him and joined him. 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. Unlike Verkan
+Vall and Zortan Brend, who wore shoulder holsters under their short
+tunics, the Assassins openly displayed pistols and knives on their
+belts.
+
+“We heard that you were coming two days ago, Lord Virzal,” Zortan
+Brend said. “We delayed the take-off of this ship, so that you could
+travel to Darsh as inconspicuously as possible. I also booked a suite
+for you at the Solar Hotel, at Darsh. And these are your
+Assassins—Olirzon, and Marnik.”
+
+Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them.
+
+“Virzal of Verkan,” he identified himself. “I am satisfied to intrust
+myself to you.”
+
+“We’ll do our best for you, Lord Virzal,” the older of the pair,
+Olirzon, said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued: “Understand,
+Lord Virzal, I only ask for information useful in serving and
+protecting you. But is this of the Lady Dallona a political matter?”
+
+“Not from our side,” Verkan Vall told him. “The Lady Dallona is a
+scientist, entirely nonpolitical. The Honorable Brarnend is a business
+man; he doesn’t meddle with politics as long as the politicians leave
+him alone. And I’m a planter on Venus; I have enough troubles, with
+the natives, and the weather, and blue-rot in the _zerfa_ plants, and
+poison roaches, and javelin bugs, without getting into politics. But
+psychic science is inextricably mixed with politics, and the Lady
+Dallona’s work had evidently tended to discredit the theory of
+Statistical Reincarnation.”
+
+“Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Virzal?” Olirzon
+grinned. “In the last six months, she’s knocked Statistical
+Reincarnation to splinters.”
+
+“Well, I’m not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don’t know much
+about Terran politics,” Verkan Vall replied. “I know that the
+Statisticalists favor complete socialization and political control of
+the whole economy, because they want everybody to have the same
+opportunities in every reincarnation. And the Volitionalists believe
+that everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favor
+continuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth and
+private profit under a system of free competition. And that’s about
+all I do know. Naturally, as a land-owner and the holder of a title of
+nobility, I’m a Volitionalist in politics, but the socialization
+issue isn’t important on Venus. There is still too much unseated land
+there, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialism
+attractive to anybody.”
+
+“Well, that’s about it,” Zortan Brend told him. “I’m not enough of a
+psychicist to know what the Lady Dallona’s been doing, but she’s
+knocked the theoretical basis from under Statistical Reincarnation,
+and that’s the basis, in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we’ll
+find that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whatever
+happened to her.”
+
+Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, then
+addressed Verkan Vall:
+
+“Lord Virzal, I know none of the personalities involved in this
+matter, and I speak without wishing to give offense, but is it not
+possible that the Lady Dallona and the Assassin Dirzed may have gone
+somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and he has many
+qualities which women find attractive, and he is by no means
+indifferent to the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Virzal—”
+
+“I understand all too perfectly, Marnik,” Verkan Vall replied, out of
+the fullness of experience. “The Lady Dallona has had affairs with a
+number of men, myself among them. But under the circumstances, I find
+that explanation unthinkable.”
+
+Marnik looked at him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where
+an attractive man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that
+explanation was never unthinkable.
+
+“The Lady Dallona is a scientist,” Verkan Vall elaborated. “She is not
+above diverting herself with love affairs, but that’s all they are—a
+not too important form of diversion. And, if you recall, she had just
+participated in a most significant experiment: you can be sure that
+she had other things on her mind at the time than pleasure jaunts with
+good-looking Assassins.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ship was passing around the Caucasus Mountains, with the Caspian
+Sea in sight ahead, when several of the crew appeared on the
+observation deck and began preparing the shielding to protect the deck
+from gunfire. Zortan Brend inquired of the petty officer in charge of
+the work as to the necessity.
+
+“We’ve been getting reports of trouble at Darsh, sir,” the man said.
+“Newscast bulletins every couple of minutes: rioting in different
+parts of the city. Started yesterday afternoon, when a couple of
+Statisticalist members of the Executive Council resigned and went over
+to the Volitionalists. Lord Nirzav of Shonna, the only nobleman of any
+importance in the Statisticalist Party, was one of them; he was shot
+immediately afterward, while leaving the Council Chambers, along with
+a couple of Assassins who were with him. Some people in an airboat
+sprayed them with a machine rifle as they came out onto the landing
+stage.”
+
+The two Assassins exclaimed in horrified anger over this.
+
+“That wasn’t the work of members of the Society of Assassins!” Olirzon
+declared. “Even after he’d resigned, the Lord Nirzav was still immune
+till he left the Government Building. There’s too blasted much illegal
+assassination going on!”
+
+“What happened next?” Verkan Vall wanted to know.
+
+“About what you’d expect, sir. The Volitionalists weren’t going to
+take that quietly. In the past eighteen hours, four prominent
+Statisticalists were forcibly discarnated, and there was even a fight
+in Mirzark of Bashad’s house, when Volitionalist Assassins broke in;
+three of them and four of Mirzark’s Assassins were discarnated.”
+
+“You know, something is going to have to be done about that, too,”
+Olirzon said to Marnik. “It’s getting to a point where these political
+faction fights are being carried on entirely between members of the
+Society. In Ghamma alone, last year, thirty or forty of our members
+were discarnated that way.”
+
+“Plug in a newscast visiplate, Karnil,” Zortan Brend told the petty
+officer. “Let’s see what’s going on in Darsh now.”
+
+In Darsh, it seemed, an uneasy peace was being established. Verkan
+Vall watched heavily-armed airboats and light combat ships patrolling
+among the high towers of the city. He saw a couple of minor riots
+being broken up by the blue-uniformed Constabulary, with considerable
+shooting and a ruthless disregard for who might get shot. It wasn’t
+exactly the sort of policing that would have been tolerated in the
+First Level Civil Order Section, but it seemed to suit Akor-Neb
+conditions. And he listened to a series of angry recriminations and
+contradictory statements by different politicians, all of whom blamed
+the disorders on their opponents. The Volitionalists spoke of the
+Statisticalists as “insane criminals” and “underminers of social
+stability,” and the Statisticalists called the Volitionalists
+“reactionary criminals” and “enemies of social progress.” Politicians,
+he had observed, differed little in their vocabularies from one
+time-line to another.
+
+This kept up all the while the ship was passing over the Caspian Sea;
+as they were turning up the Volga valley, one of the ship’s officers
+came down from the control deck, above.
+
+“We’re coming into Darsh, now,” he said, and as Verkan Vall turned
+from the visiplate to the forward windows, he could see the white and
+pastel-tinted towers of the city rising above the hardwood forests
+that covered the whole Volga basin on this sector. “Your luggage has
+been put into the airboat, Lord Virzal and Honorable Assassins, and
+it’s ready for launching whenever you are.” The officer glanced at his
+watch. “We dock at Commercial Center in twenty minutes; we’ll be
+passing the Solar Hotel in ten.”
+
+They all rose, and Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders
+with Zortan Brend.
+
+“Good luck, Lord Virzal,” the latter said. “I hope you find the Lady
+Dallona safe and carnate. If you need help, I’ll be at Mercantile
+House for the next day or so; if you get back to Ghamma before I do,
+you know who to ask for there.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A number of assassins loitered in the hallways and offices of the
+Independent Institute of Reincarnation Research when Verkan Vall,
+accompanied by Marnik, called there that afternoon. Some of them
+carried submachine-guns or sleep-gas projectors, and they were
+stopping people and questioning them. Marnik needed only to give them
+a quick gesture and the words, “Assassins’ Truce,” and he and his
+client were allowed to pass. They entered a lifter tube and floated up
+to the office of Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, with whom Verkan Vall had made
+an appointment.
+
+“I’m sorry, Lord Virzal,” the director of the Institute told him, “but
+I have no idea what has befallen the Lady Dallona, or even if she is
+still carnate. I am quite worried; I admired her extremely, both as an
+individual and as a scientist. I do hope she hasn’t been discarnated;
+that would be a serious blow to science. It is fortunate that she
+accomplished as much as she did, while she was with us.”
+
+“You think she is no longer carnate, then?”
+
+“I’m afraid so. The political effects of her discoveries—” Harnosh of
+Hosh shrugged sadly. “She was devoted, to a rare degree, to her work.
+I am sure that nothing but her discarnation could have taken her away
+from us, at this time, with so many important experiments still
+uncompleted.”
+
+Marnik nodded to Verkan Vall, as much as to say: “You were right.”
+
+“Well, I intend acting upon the assumption that she is still carnate
+and in need of help, until I am positive to the contrary,” Verkan Vall
+said. “And in the latter case, I intend finding out who discarnated
+her, and send him to apologize for it in person. People don’t forcibly
+discarnate my friends with impunity.”
+
+“Sound attitude,” Dr. Harnosh commented. “There’s certainly no
+positive evidence that she isn’t still carnate. I’ll gladly give you
+all the assistance I can, if you’ll only tell me what you want.”
+
+“Well, in the first place,” Verkan Vall began, “just what sort of work
+was she doing?” He already knew the answer to that, from the reports
+she had sent back to the First Level, but he wanted to hear Dr.
+Harnosh’s version. “And what, exactly, are the political effects you
+mentioned? Understand, Dr. Harnosh, I am really quite ignorant of any
+scientific subject unrelated to _zerfa_ culture, and equally so of
+Terran politics. Politics, on Venus, is mainly a question of who gets
+how much graft out of what.”
+
+Dr. Harnosh smiled; evidently he had heard about Venusian politics.
+“Ah, yes, of course. But you are familiar with the main differences
+between Statistical and Volitional reincarnation theories?”
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+“In a general way. The Volitionalists hold that the discarnate
+individuality is fully conscious, and is capable of something
+analogous to sense-perception, and is also capable of exercising
+choice in the matter of reincarnation vehicles, and can reincarnate or
+remain in the discarnate state as it chooses. They also believe that
+discarnate individualities can communicate with one another, and with
+at least some carnate individualities, by telepathy,” he said. “The
+Statisticalists deny all this; their opinion is that the discarnate
+individuality is in a more or less somnambulistic state, that it is
+drawn by a process akin to tropism to the nearest available
+reincarnation vehicle, and that it must reincarnate in and only in
+that vehicle. They are labeled Statisticalists because they believe
+that the process of reincarnation is purely at random, or governed by
+unknown and uncontrollable causes, and is unpredictable except as to
+aggregates.”
+
+“That’s a fairly good generalized summary,” Dr. Harnosh of Hosh
+grudged, unwilling to give a mere layman too much credit. He dipped a
+spoon into a tobacco humidor, dusted the tobacco lightly with dried
+_zerfa_, and rammed it into his pipe. “You must understand that our
+modern Statisticalists are the intellectual heirs of those ancient
+materialistic thinkers who denied the possibility of any discarnate
+existence, or of any extraphysical mind, or even of extrasensory
+perception. Since all these things have been demonstrated to be facts,
+the materialistic dogma has been broadened to include them, but always
+strictly within the frame of materialism.
+
+“We have proven, for instance, that the human individuality can exist
+in a discarnate state, and that it reincarnates into the body of an
+infant, shortly after birth. But the Statisticalists cannot accept the
+idea of discarnate consciousness, since they conceive of consciousness
+purely as a function of the physical brain. So they postulate an
+unconscious discarnate personality, or, as you put it, one in a
+somnambulistic state. They have to concede memory to this discarnate
+personality, since it was by recovery of memories of previous
+reincarnations that discarnate existence and reincarnation were proven
+to be facts. So they picture the discarnate individuality as a
+material object, or physical event, of negligible but actual mass, in
+which an indefinite number of memories can be stored as electronic
+charges. And they picture it as being drawn irresistibly to the body
+of the nearest non-incarnated infant. Curiously enough, the
+reincarnation vehicle chosen is almost always of the same sex as the
+vehicle of the previous reincarnation, the exceptions being cases of
+persons who had a previous history of psychological sex-inversion.”
+
+Dr. Harnosh remembered the unlighted pipe in his hand, thrust it into
+his mouth, and lit it. For a moment, he sat with it jutting out of his
+black beard, until it was drawing to his satisfaction. “This belief in
+immediate reincarnation leads the Statisticalists, when they fight
+duels or perform voluntary discarnation, to do so in the neighborhood
+of maternity hospitals,” he added. “I know, personally, of one
+reincarnation memory-recall, in which the subject, a Statisticalist,
+voluntarily discarnated by lethal-gas inhaler in a private room at one
+of our local maternity hospitals, and reincarnated twenty years later
+in the city of Jeddul, three thousand miles away.” The square black
+beard jiggled as the scientist laughed.
+
+“Now, as to the political implications of these contradictory
+theories: Since the Statisticalists believe that they will reincarnate
+entirely at random, their aim is to create an utterly classless social
+and economic order, in which, theoretically, each individuality will
+reincarnate into a condition of equality with everybody else. Their
+political program, therefore, is one of complete socialization of all
+means of production and distribution, abolition of hereditary titles
+and inherited wealth—eventually, all private wealth—and total
+government control of all economic, social and cultural activities. Of
+course,” Dr. Harnosh apologized, “politics isn’t my subject; I
+wouldn’t presume to judge how that would function in practice.”
+
+“I would,” Verkan Vall said shortly, thinking of all the different
+time-lines on which he had seen systems like that in operation. “You
+wouldn’t like it, doctor. And the Volitionalists?”
+
+“Well, since they believe that they are able to choose the
+circumstances of their next reincarnations for themselves, they are
+the party of the _status quo_. Naturally, almost all the nobles,
+almost all the wealthy trading and manufacturing families, and almost
+all professional people, are Volitionalists; most of the workers and
+peasants are Statisticalists. Or, at least, they were, for the most
+part, before we began announcing the results of the Lady Dallona’s
+experimental work.”
+
+“Ah; now we come to it,” Verkan Vall said as the story clarified.
+
+“Yes. In somewhat oversimplified form, the situation is rather like
+this,” Dr. Harnosh of Hosh said. “The Lady Dallona introduced a number
+of refinements and some outright innovations into our technique of
+recovering memories of past reincarnations. Previously, it was
+necessary to keep the subject in an hypnotic trance, during which he
+or she would narrate what was remembered of past reincarnations, and
+this would be recorded. On emerging from the trance, the subject would
+remember nothing; the tape-recording would be all that would be left.
+But the Lady Dallona devised a technique by which these memories would
+remain in what might be called the fore part of the subject’s
+subconscious mind, so that they could be brought to the level of
+consciousness at will. More, she was able to recover memories of past
+discarnate existences, something we had never been able to do
+heretofore.” Dr. Harnosh shook his head. “And to think, when I first
+met her, I thought that she was just another sensation-seeking young
+lady of wealth, and was almost about to refuse her enrollment!”
+
+He wasn’t the only one whom little Dalla had surprised, Verkan Vall
+thought. At least, he had been pleasantly surprised.
+
+“You see, this entirely disproves the Statistical Theory of
+Reincarnation. For example, we got a fine set of memory-recalls from one
+subject, for four previous reincarnations and four inter-carnations. In
+the first of these, the subject had been a peasant on the estate of a
+wealthy noble. Unlike most of his fellows, who reincarnated into other
+peasant families almost immediately after discarnation, this man waited
+for fifty years in the discarnate state for an opportunity to
+reincarnate as the son of an over-servant. In his next reincarnation, he
+was the son of a technician, and received a technical education; he
+became a physics researcher. For his next reincarnation, he chose the
+son of a nobleman by a concubine as his vehicle; in his present
+reincarnation, he is a member of a wealthy manufacturing family, and
+married into a family of the nobility. In five reincarnations, he has
+climbed from the lowest to the next-to-highest rung of the social
+ladder. Few individuals of the class from whence he began this ascent
+possess so much persistence or determination. Then, of course, there was
+the case of Lord Garnon of Roxor.”
+
+He went on to describe the last experiment in which Hadron Dalla had
+participated.
+
+“Well, that all sounds pretty conclusive,” Verkan Vall commented. “I
+take it the leaders of the Volitionalist Party here are pleased with
+the result of the Lady Dallona’s work?”
+
+“Pleased? My dear Lord Virzal, they’re fairly bursting with glee over
+it!” Harnosh of Hosh declared. “As I pointed out, the Statisticalist
+program of socialization is based entirely on the proposition that no
+one can choose the circumstances of his next reincarnation, and that’s
+been demonstrated to be utter nonsense. Until the Lady Dallona’s
+discoveries were announced, they were the dominant party, controlling
+a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the Executive Council.
+Only the Constitution kept them from enacting their entire
+socialization program long ago, and they were about to legislate
+constitutional changes which would remove that barrier. They had
+expected to be able to do so after the forthcoming general elections.
+But now, social inequality has become desirable: it gives people
+something to look forward to in the next reincarnation. Instead of
+wanting to abolish wealth and privilege and nobility, the proletariat
+want to reincarnate into them.” Harnosh of Hosh laughed happily. “So
+you can see how furious the Statisticalist Party organization is!”
+
+“There’s a catch to this, somewhere,” Marnik the Assassin, speaking
+for the first time, declared. “They can’t all reincarnate as princes,
+there aren’t enough vacancies to go ’round. And no noble is going to
+reincarnate as a tractor driver to make room for a tractor driver who
+wants to reincarnate as a noble.”
+
+“That’s correct,” Dr. Harnosh replied. “There is a catch to it; a
+catch most people would never admit, even to themselves. Very few
+individuals possess the will power, the intelligence or the capacity
+for mental effort displayed by the subject of the case I just quoted.
+The average man’s interests are almost entirely on the physical side;
+he actually finds mental effort painful, and makes as little of it as
+possible. And that is the only sort of effort a discarnate
+individuality can exert. So, unable to endure the fifty or so years
+needed to make a really good reincarnation, he reincarnates in a year
+or so, out of pure boredom, into the first vehicle he can find,
+usually one nobody else wants.” Dr. Harnosh dug out the heel of his
+pipe and blew through the stem. “But nobody will admit his own mental
+inferiority, even to himself. Now, every machine operator and field
+hand on the planet thinks he can reincarnate as a prince or a
+millionaire. Politics isn’t my subject, but I’m willing to bet that
+since Statistical Reincarnation is an exploded psychic theory,
+Statisticalist Socialism has been caught in the blast area and
+destroyed along with it.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Olirzon was in the drawing room of the hotel suite when they returned,
+sitting on the middle of his spinal column in a reclining chair,
+smoking a pipe, dressing the edge of his knife with a pocket-hone, and
+gazing lecherously at a young woman in the visiplate. She was an
+extremely well-designed young woman, in a rather fragmentary costume,
+and she was heaving her bosom at the invisible audience in anger,
+sorrow, scorn, entreaty, and numerous other emotions.
+
+“... this revolting crime,” she was declaiming, in a husky contralto,
+as Verkan Vall and Marnik entered, “foul even for the criminal beasts
+who conceived and perpetrated it!” She pointed an accusing finger.
+“This murder of the beautiful Lady Dallona of Hadron!”
+
+Verkan Vall stopped short, considering the possibility of something
+having been discovered lately of which he was ignorant. Olirzon must
+have guessed his thought; he grinned reassuringly.
+
+“Think nothing of it, Lord Virzal,” he said, waving his knife at the
+visiplate. “Just political propaganda; strictly for the sparrows. Nice
+propagandist, though.”
+
+“And now,” the woman with the magnificent natural resources lowered
+her voice reverently, “we bring you the last image of the Lady
+Dallona, and of Dirzed, her faithful Assassin, taken just before they
+vanished, never to be seen again.”
+
+The plate darkened, and there were strains of slow, dirgelike music;
+then it lighted again, presenting a view of a broad hallway, thronged
+with men and women in bright varicolored costumes. In the foreground,
+wearing a tight skirt of deep blue and a short red jacket, was Hadron
+Dalla, just as she had looked in the solidographs taken in Dhergabar
+after her alteration by the First Level cosmeticians to conform to the
+appearance of the Malayoid Akor-Neb people. She was holding the arm of
+a man who wore the black tunic and red badge of an Assassin, a
+handsome specimen of the Akor-Neb race. Trust little Dalla for that,
+Verkan Vall thought. The figures were moving with exaggerated
+slowness, as though a very fleeting picture were being stretched out
+as far as possible. Having already memorized his former wife’s changed
+appearance, Verkan Vall concentrated on the man beside her until the
+picture faded.
+
+“All right, Olirzon; what did you get?” he asked.
+
+“Well, first of all, at Assassins’ Hall,” Olirzon said, rolling up his
+left sleeve, holding his bare forearm to the light, and shaving a few
+fine hairs from it to test the edge of his knife. “Of course, they
+never tell one Assassin anything about the client of another Assassin;
+that’s standard practice. But I was in the Lodge Secretary’s office,
+where nobody but Assassins are ever admitted. They have a big panel in
+there, with the names of all the Lodge members on it in light-letters;
+that’s standard in all Lodges. If an Assassin is unattached and free
+to accept a client, his name’s in white light. If he has a client, the
+light’s changed to blue, and the name of the client goes up under his.
+If his whereabouts are unknown, the light’s changed to amber. If he is
+discarnated, his name’s removed entirely, unless the circumstances of
+his discarnation are such as to constitute an injury to the Society.
+In that case, the name’s in red light until he’s been properly
+avenged, or, as we say, till his blood’s been mopped up. Well, the
+name of Dirzed is up in blue light, with the name of Dallona of Hadron
+under it. I found out that the light had been amber for two days after
+the disappearance, and then had been changed back to blue. Get it,
+Lord Virzal?”
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. “I think so. I’d been considering that as a
+possibility from the first. Then what?”
+
+“Then I was about and around for a couple of hours, buying drinks for
+people—unattached Assassins, Constabulary detectives, political
+workers, newscast people. You owe me fifteen System Monetary Units for
+that, Lord Virzal. What I got, when it’s all sorted out—I taped it in
+detail, as soon as I got back—reduces to this: The Volitionalists are
+moving mountains to find out who was the spy at Garnon of Roxor’s
+discarnation feast, but are doing nothing but nothing at all to find
+the Lady Dallona or Dirzed. The Statisticalists are making all sorts
+of secret efforts to find out what happened to her. The Constabulary
+blame the Statistos for the package bomb: they’re interested in that
+because of the discarnation of the three servants by an illegal weapon
+of indiscriminate effect. They claim that the disappearance of Dirzed
+and the Lady Dallona was a publicity hoax. The Volitionalists are
+preparing a line of publicity to deny this.”
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. “That ties in with what you learned at Assassins’
+Hall,” he said. “They’re hiding out somewhere. Is there any chance of
+reaching Dirzed through the Society of Assassins?”
+
+Olirzon shook his head. “If you’re right—and that’s the way it looks
+to me, too—he’s probably just called in and notified the Society that
+he’s still carnate and so is the Lady Dallona, and called off any
+search the Society might be making for him.”
+
+“And I’ve got to find the Lady Dallona as soon as I can. Well, if I
+can’t reach her, maybe I can get her to send word to me,” Verkan Vall
+said. “That’s going to take some doing, too.”
+
+“What did you find out, Lord Virzal?” Olirzon asked. He had a piece of
+soft leather, now, and was polishing his blade lovingly.
+
+“The Reincarnation Research people don’t know anything,” Verkan Vall
+replied. “Dr. Harnosh of Hosh thinks she’s discarnate. I did find out
+that the experimental work she’s done, so far, has absolutely
+disproved the theory of Statistical Reincarnation. The Volitionalists’
+theory is solidly established.”
+
+“Yes, what do you think, Olirzon?” Marnik added. “They have a case on
+record of a man who worked up from field hand to millionaire in five
+reincarnations. Deliberately, that is.” He went on to repeat what
+Harnosh of Hosh had said; he must have possessed an almost eidetic
+memory, for he gave the bearded psychicist’s words verbatim, and threw
+in the gestures and voice-inflections.
+
+Olirzon grinned. “You know, there’s a chance for the easy-money boys,”
+he considered. “‘You, too, can Reincarnate as a millionaire! Let Dr.
+Nirzutz of Futzbutz Help You! Only 49.98 System Monetary Units for the
+Secret, Infallible, Autosuggestive Formula.’ And would it sell!” He
+put away the hone and the bit of leather and slipped his knife back
+into its sheath. “If I weren’t a respectable Assassin, I’d give it a
+try, myself.”
+
+Verkan Vall looked at his watch. “We’d better get something to eat,”
+he said. “We’ll go down to the main dining room; the Martian Room, I
+think they call it. I’ve got to think of some way to let the Lady
+Dallona know I’m looking for her.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Martian Room, fifteen stories down, was a big place, occupying
+almost half of the floor space of one corner tower. It had been fitted
+to resemble one of the ruined buildings of the ancient and vanished
+race of Mars who were the ancestors of Terran humanity. One whole side
+of the room was a gigantic cine-solidograph screen, on which the
+gullied desolation of a Martian landscape was projected; in the course
+of about two hours, the scene changed from sunrise through daylight
+and night to sunrise again.
+
+It was high noon when they entered and found a table; by the time they
+had finished their dinner, the night was ending and the first glow of
+dawn was tinting the distant hills. They sat for a while, watching the
+light grow stronger, then got up and left the table.
+
+There were five men at a table near them; they had come in before the
+stars had grown dim, and the waiters were just bringing their first
+dishes. Two were Assassins, and the other three were of a breed Verkan
+Vall had learned to recognize on any time-line—the arrogant,
+cocksure, ambitious, leftist politician, who knows what is best for
+everybody better than anybody else does, and who is convinced that he
+is inescapably right and that whoever differs with him is not only an
+ignoramus but a venal scoundrel as well. 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.
+
+“Of course it is; the whole thing is a fraud,” the monkish young man
+was saying angrily. “But we can’t prove it.”
+
+“Oh, Sirzob, here, can prove anything, if you give him time,” the
+beefy one laughed. “The trouble is, there isn’t too much time. We know
+that that communication was a fake, prearranged by the Volitionalists,
+with Dr. Harnosh and this Dallona of Hadron as their tools. They fed
+the whole thing to that idiot boy hypnotically, in advance, and then,
+on a signal, he began typing out this spurious communication. And
+then, of course, Dallona and this Assassin of hers ran off somewhere
+together, so that we’d be blamed with discarnating or abducting them,
+and so that they wouldn’t be made to testify about the communication
+on a lie detector.”
+
+A sudden happy smile touched Verkan Vall’s eyes. He caught each of his
+Assassins by an arm.
+
+“Marnik, cover my back,” he ordered. “Olirzon, cover everybody at the
+table. Come on!”
+
+Then he stepped forward, halting between the chairs of the young man
+and the man with the gray hair and facing the beefy man in the light
+tunic.
+
+“You!” he barked. “I mean YOU.”
+
+The beefy man stopped laughing and stared at him; then sprang to his
+feet. His hand, streaking toward his left armpit, stopped and dropped
+to his side as Olirzon aimed a pistol at him. The others sat
+motionless.
+
+“You,” Verkan Vall continued, “are a complete, deliberate, malicious,
+and unmitigated liar. The Lady Dallona of Hadron is a scientist of
+integrity, incapable of falsifying her experimental work. What’s more,
+her father is one of my best friends; in his name, and in hers, I
+demand a full retraction of the slanderous statements you have just
+made.”
+
+“Do you know who I am?” the beefy one shouted.
+
+“I know _what_ you are,” Verkan Vall shouted back. Like most ancient
+languages, the Akor-Neb speech included an elaborate, delicately-shaded,
+and utterly vile vocabulary of abuse; Verkan Vall culled from it
+judiciously and at length. “And if I don’t make myself understood verbally,
+we’ll go down to the object level,” he added, snatching a bowl of soup from
+in front of the monkish-looking young man and throwing it across the table.
+
+The soup was a dark brown, almost black. It contained bits of meat,
+and mushrooms, and slices of hard-boiled egg, and yellow Martian rock
+lichen. It produced, on the light tunic, a most spectacular effect.
+
+For a moment, Verkan Vall was afraid the fellow would have an
+apoplectic stroke, or an epileptic fit. Mastering himself, however, he
+bowed jerkily.
+
+“Marnark of Bashad,” he identified himself. “When and where can my
+friends consult yours?”
+
+“Lord Virzal of Verkan,” the paratimer bowed back. “Your friends can
+negotiate with mine here and now. I am represented by these
+Gentlemen-Assassins.”
+
+“I won’t submit my friends to the indignity of negotiating with them,”
+Marnark retorted. “I insist that you be represented by persons of your
+own quality and mine.”
+
+“Oh, you do?” Olirzon broke in. “Well, is your objection personal to
+me, or to Assassins as a class? In the first case, I’ll remember to
+make a private project of you, as soon as I’m through with my present
+employment; if it’s the latter, I’ll report your attitude to the
+Society. I’ll see what Klarnood, our President-General, thinks of your
+views.”
+
+A crowd had begun to accumulate around the table. Some of them were
+persons in evening dress, some were Assassins on the hotel payroll,
+and some were unattached Assassins.
+
+“Well, you won’t have far to look for him,” one of the latter said,
+pushing through the crowd to the table.
+
+He was a man of middle age, inclined to stoutness; he made Verkan Vall
+think of a chocolate figure of Tortha Karf. The red badge on his
+breast was surrounded with gold lace, and, instead of black wings and
+a silver bullet, it bore silver wings and a golden dagger. He bowed
+contemptuously at Marnark of Bashad.
+
+“Klarnood, President-General of the Society of Assassins,” he
+announced. “Marnark of Bashad, did I hear you say that you considered
+members of the Society as unworthy to negotiate an affair of honor
+with your friends, on behalf of this nobleman who has been courteous
+enough to accept your challenge?” he demanded.
+
+Marnark of Bashad’s arrogance suffered considerable evaporation-loss.
+His tone became almost servile.
+
+“Not at all, Honorable Assassin-President,” he protested. “But as I
+was going to ask these gentlemen to represent me, I thought it would
+be more fitting for the other gentleman to be represented by personal
+friends, also. In that way—”
+
+“Sorry, Marnark,” the gray-haired man at the table said. “I can’t
+second you; I have a quarrel with the Lord Virzal, too.” He rose and
+bowed. “Sirzob of Abo. Inasmuch as the Honorable Marnark is a guest at
+my table, an affront to him is an affront to me. In my quality as his
+host, I must demand satisfaction from you, Lord Virzal.”
+
+“Why, gladly, Honorable Sirzob,” Verkan Vall replied. This was getting
+better and better every moment. “Of course, your friend, the Honorable
+Marnark, enjoys priority of challenge; I’ll take care of you as soon
+as I have, shall we say, satisfied, him.”
+
+The earnest and rather consecrated-looking young man rose also, bowing
+to Verkan Vall.
+
+“Yirzol of Narva. I, too, have a quarrel with you, Lord Virzal; I
+cannot submit to the indignity of having my food snatched from in
+front of me, as you just did. I also demand satisfaction.”
+
+“And quite rightly, Honorable Yirzol,” Verkan Vall approved. “It looks
+like such good soup, too,” he sorrowed, inspecting the front of
+Marnark’s tunic. “My seconds will negotiate with yours immediately;
+your satisfaction, of course, must come after that of Honorable
+Sirzob.”
+
+“If I may intrude,” Klarnood put in smoothly, “may I suggest that as
+the Lord Virzal is represented by his Assassins, yours can represent
+all three of you at the same time. I will gladly offer my own good
+offices as impartial supervisor.”
+
+Verkan Vall turned and bowed as to royalty. “An honor,
+Assassin-President: I am sure no one could act in that capacity more
+satisfactorily.”
+
+“Well, when would it be most convenient to arrange the details?”
+Klarnood inquired. “I am completely at your disposal, gentlemen.”
+
+“Why, here and now, while we’re all together,” Verkan Vall replied.
+
+“I object to that!” Marnark of Bashad vociferated. “We can’t make
+arrangements here; why, all these hotel people, from the manager down,
+are nothing but tipsters for the newscast services!”
+
+“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Verkan Vall demanded. “You knew that
+when you slandered the Lady Dallona in their hearing.”
+
+“The Lord Virzal of Verkan is correct,” Klarnood ruled. “And the
+offenses for which you have challenged him were also committed in
+public. By all means, let’s discuss the arrangements now.” He turned
+to Verkan Vall. “As the challenged party, you have the choice of
+weapons; your opponents, then, have the right to name the conditions
+under which they are to be used.”
+
+Marnark of Bashad raised another outcry over that. The assault upon
+him by the Lord Virzal of Verkan was deliberately provocative, and
+therefore tantamount to a challenge; he, himself, had the right to
+name the weapons. Klarnood upheld him.
+
+“Do the other gentlemen make the same claim?” Verkan Vall wanted to
+know.
+
+“If they do, I won’t allow it,” Klarnood replied. “You deliberately
+provoked Honorable Marnark, but the offenses of provoking him at
+Honorable Sirzob’s table, and of throwing Honorable Yirzol’s soup at
+him, were not given with intent to provoke. These gentlemen have a
+right to challenge, but not to consider themselves provoked.”
+
+“Well, I choose knives, then,” Marnark hastened to say.
+
+Verkan Vall smiled thinly. He had learned knife-play among the
+greatest masters of that art in all paratime, the Third Level Khanga
+pirates of the Caribbean Islands.
+
+“And we fight barefoot, stripped to the waist, and without any
+parrying weapon in the left hand,” Verkan Vall stipulated.
+
+The beefy Marnark fairly licked his chops in anticipation. He
+outweighed Verkan Vall by forty pounds; he saw an easy victory ahead.
+Verkan Vall’s own confidence increased at these signs of his
+opponent’s assurance.
+
+“And as for Honorable Sirzob and Honorable Yirzol, I chose pistols,”
+he added.
+
+Sirzob and Yirzol held a hasty whispered conference.
+
+“Speaking both for Honorable Yirzol and for myself,” Sirzob announced,
+“we stipulate that the distance shall be twenty meters, that the
+pistols shall be fully loaded, and that fire shall be at will after
+the command.”
+
+“Twenty rounds, fire at will, at twenty meters!” Olirzon hooted. “You
+must think our principal’s as bad a shot as you are!”
+
+The four Assassins stepped aside and held a long discussion about
+something, with considerable argument and gesticulation. Klarnood,
+observing Verkan Vall’s impatience, leaned close to him and whispered:
+
+“This is highly irregular; we must pretend ignorance and be patient.
+They’re laying bets on the outcome. You must do your best, Lord
+Virzal; you don’t want your supporters to lose money.”
+
+He said it quite seriously, as though the outcome were otherwise a
+matter of indifference to Verkan Vall.
+
+Marnark wanted to discuss time and place, and proposed that all three
+duels be fought at dawn, on the fourth landing stage of Darsh Central
+Hospital; that was closest to the maternity wards, and statistics
+showed that most births occurred just before that hour.
+
+“Certainly not,” Verkan Vall vetoed. “We’ll fight here and now; I
+don’t propose going a couple of hundred miles to meet you at any such
+unholy hour. We’ll fight in the nearest hallway that provides twenty
+meters’ shooting distance.”
+
+Marnark, Sirzob and Yirzol all clamored in protest. Verkan Vall
+shouted them down, drawing on his hypnotically acquired knowledge of
+Akor-Neb duelling customs. “The code explicitly states that
+satisfaction shall be rendered as promptly as possible, and I insist
+on a literal interpretation. I’m not going to inconvenience myself and
+Assassin-President Klarnood and these four Gentlemen-Assassins just to
+humor Statisticalist superstitions.”
+
+The manager of the hotel, drawn to the Martian Room by the uproar,
+offered a hallway connecting the kitchens with the refrigerator rooms;
+it was fifty meters long by five in width, was well-lighted and
+soundproof, and had a bay in which the seconds and other could stand
+during the firing.
+
+They repaired thither in a body, Klarnood gathering up several hotel
+servants on the way through the kitchen. Verkan Vall stripped to the
+waist, pulled off his ankle boots, and examined Olirzon’s knife. Its
+tapering eight-inch blade was double-edged at the point, and its
+handle was covered with black velvet to afford a good grip, and wound
+with gold wire. He nodded approvingly, gripped it with his index
+finger crooked around the cross-guard, and advanced to meet Marnark of
+Bashad.
+
+As he had expected, the burly politician was depending upon his
+greater brawn to overpower his antagonist. He advanced with a sidling,
+spread-legged gait, his knife hand against his right hip and his left
+hand extended in front. Verkan Vall nodded with pleased satisfaction;
+a wrist-grabber. Then he blinked. Why, the fellow was actually holding
+his knife reversed, his little finger to the guard and his thumb on
+the pommel!
+
+Verkan Vall went briskly to meet him, made a feint at his knife hand
+with his own left, and then side-stepped quickly to the right. As
+Marnark’s left hand grabbed at his right wrist, his left hand brushed
+against it and closed into a fist, with Marnark’s left thumb inside of
+it, He gave a quick downward twist with his wrist, pulling Marnark off
+balance.
+
+Caught by surprise, Marnark stumbled, his knife flailing wildly away
+from Verkan Vall. As he stumbled forward, Verkan Vall pivoted on his
+left heel and drove the point of his knife into the back of Marnark’s
+neck, twisting it as he jerked it free. At the same time, he released
+Marnark’s thumb. The politician continued his stumble and fell forward
+on his face, blood spurting from his neck. He gave a twitch or so, and
+was still.
+
+Verkan Vall stooped and wiped the knife on the dead man’s
+clothes—another Khanga pirate gesture—and then returned it to
+Olirzon.
+
+“Nice weapon, Olirzon,” he said. “It fitted my hand as though I’d been
+born holding it.”
+
+“You used it as though you had, Lord Virzal,” the Assassin replied.
+“Only eight seconds from the time you closed with him.”
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+The function of the hotel servants whom Klarnood had gathered up now
+became apparent; they advanced, took the body of Marnark by the
+heels, and dragged it out of the way. The others watched this removal
+with mixed emotions. The two remaining principals were impassive and
+frozen-faced. Their two Assassins, who had probably bet heavily on
+Marnark, were chagrined. And Klarnood was looking at Verkan Vall with
+a considerable accretion of respect. Verkan Vall pulled on his boots
+and resumed his clothing.
+
+There followed some argument about the pistols; it was finally decided
+that each combatant should use his own shoulder-holster weapon. All
+three were nearly enough alike—small weapons, rather heavier than
+they looked, firing a tiny ten-grain bullet at ten thousand
+foot-seconds. On impact, such a bullet would almost disintegrate; a
+man hit anywhere in the body with one would be killed instantly, his
+nervous system paralyzed and his heart stopped by internal pressure.
+Each of the pistols carried twenty rounds in the magazine.
+
+Verkan Vall and Sirzob of Abo took their places, their pistols lowered
+at their sides, facing each other across a measured twenty meters.
+
+“Are you ready, gentlemen?” Klarnood asked. “You will not raise your
+pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at will after it.
+Ready. _Fire!_”
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+Both pistols swung up to level. Verkan Vall found Sirzob’s head in his
+sights and squeezed; the pistol kicked back in his hand, and he saw a
+lance of blue flame jump from the muzzle of Sirzob’s. Both weapons
+barked together, and with the double report came the whip-cracking
+sound of Sirzob’s bullet passing Verkan Vall’s head. Then Sirzob’s
+face altered its appearance unpleasantly, and he pitched forward.
+Verkan Vall thumbed on his safety and stood motionless, while the
+servants advanced, took Sirzob’s body by the heels, and dragged it
+over beside Marnark’s.
+
+“All right; Honorable Yirzol, you’re next,” Verkan Vall called out.
+
+“The Lord Virzal has fired one shot,” one of the opposing seconds
+objected, “and Honorable Yirzol has a full magazine. The Lord Virzal
+should put in another magazine.”
+
+“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. But he was
+beginning to suspect that he had made a fool of himself by getting
+into this affair, he had work in his present reincarnation which he
+wanted to finish, and his political party would suffer loss, both of
+his services and of prestige.
+
+“Are you ready, gentlemen?” Klarnood intoned ritualistically. “You
+will not raise your pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at
+will after it. Ready, _Fire!_”
+
+Verkan Vall shot Yirzol of Narva through the head before the latter
+had his pistol half raised. Yirzol fell forward on the splash of blood
+Sirzob had made, and the servants came forward and dragged his body
+over with the others. It reminded Verkan Vail of some sort of
+industrial assembly-line operation. He replaced the two expended
+rounds in his magazine with fresh ones and slid the pistol back into
+its holster. The two Assassins whose principals had been so
+expeditiously massacred were beginning to count up their losses and
+pay off the winners.
+
+Klarnood, the President-General of the Society of Assassins, came
+over, hooking fingers and clapping shoulders with Verkan Vall.
+
+“Lord Virzal, I’ve seen quite a few duels, but nothing quite like
+that,” he said. “You should have been an Assassin!”
+
+That was a considerable compliment. Verkan Vall thanked him modestly.
+
+“I’d like to talk to you privately,” the Assassin-President continued.
+“I think it’ll be worth your while if we have a few words together.”
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. “My suite is on the fifteenth floor above; will
+that be all right?” He waited until the losers had finished settling
+their bets, then motioned to his own pair of Assassins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they emerged into the Martian Room again, the manager was waiting;
+he looked as though he were about to demand that Verkan Vall vacate
+his suite. However, when he saw the arm of the President-General of
+the Society of Assassins draped amicably over his guest’s shoulder, he
+came forward bowing and smiling.
+
+“Larnorm, I want you to put five of your best Assassins to guarding
+the approaches to the Lord Virzal’s suite,” Klarnood told him. “I’ll
+send five more from Assassins’ Hall to replace them at their ordinary
+duties. And I’ll hold you responsible with your carnate existence for
+the Lord Virzal’s safety in this hotel. Understand?”
+
+“Oh, yes, Honorable Assassin-President; you may trust me. The Lord
+Virzal will be perfectly safe.”
+
+In Verkan Vall’s suite, above, Klarnood sat down and got out his pipe,
+filling it with tobacco lightly mixed with _zerfa_. To his surprise,
+he saw his host light a plain tobacco cigarette.
+
+“Don’t you use _zerfa_?” he asked.
+
+“Very little,” Verkan Vall replied. “I grow it. If you’d see the bums
+who hang around our drying sheds, on Venus, cadging rejected leaves
+and smoking themselves into a stupor, you’d be frugal in using it,
+too.”
+
+Klarnood nodded. “You know, most men would want a pipe of fifty
+percent, or a straight _zerfa_ cigarette, after what you’ve been
+through,” he said.
+
+“I’d need something like that, to deaden my conscience, if I had one
+to deaden,” Verkan Vall said. “As it is, I feel like a murderer of
+babes. That overgrown fool, Marnark, handled his knife like a
+cow-butcher. The young fellow couldn’t handle a pistol at all. I
+suppose the old fellow, Sirzob, was a fair shot, but dropping him
+wasn’t any great feat of arms, either.”
+
+Klarnood looked at him curiously for a moment. “You know,” he said, at
+length, “I believe you actually mean that. Well, until he met you,
+Marnark of Bashad was rated as the best knife-fighter in Darsh. Sirzob
+had ten dueling victories to his credit, and young Yirzol four.” He
+puffed slowly on his pipe. “I like you, Lord Virzal; a great Assassin
+was lost when you decided to reincarnate as a Venusian land-owner. I’d
+hate to see you discarnated without proper warning. I take it you’re
+ignorant of the intricacies of Terran politics?”
+
+“To a large extent, yes.”
+
+“Well, do you know who those three men were?” When Verkan Vall shook
+his head, Klarnood continued: “Marnark was the son and right-hand
+associate of old Mirzark of Bashad, the Statisticalist Party leader.
+Sirzob of Abo was their propaganda director. And Yirzol of Narva was
+their leading socio-economic theorist, and their candidate for
+Executive Chairman. In six minutes, with one knife thrust and two
+shots, you did the Statisticalist Party an injury second only to that
+done them by the young lady in whose name you were fighting. In two
+weeks, there will be a planet-wide general election. As it stands, the
+Statisticalists have a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the
+Executive Council. As a result of your work and the Lady Dallona’s,
+they’ll lose that majority, and more, when the votes are tallied.”
+
+“Is that another reason why you like me?” Verkan Vall asked.
+
+“Unofficially, yes. As President-General of the Society of Assassins,
+I must be nonpolitical. The Society is rigidly so; if we let ourselves
+become involved, as an organization, in politics, we could control the
+System Government inside of five years, and we’d be wiped out of
+existence in fifty years by the very forces we sought to control,”
+Klarnood said. “But personally, I would like to see the Statisticalist
+Party destroyed. If they succeed in their program of socialization,
+the Society would be finished. A socialist state is, in its final
+development, an absolute, total, state; no total state can tolerate
+extra-legal and para-governmental organizations. So we have adopted
+the policy of giving a little inconspicuous aid, here and there, to
+people who are dangerous to the Statisticalists. The Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, are such persons. You appear to be
+another. That’s why I ordered that fellow, Larnorm, to make sure you
+were safe in his hotel.”
+
+“Where is the Lady Dallona?” Verkan Vall asked. “From your use of the
+present tense, I assume you believe her to be still carnate.”
+
+Klarnood looked at Verkan Vall keenly. “That’s a pretty blunt
+question, Lord Virzal,” he said. “I wish I knew a little more about
+you. When you and your Assassins started inquiring about the Lady
+Dallona, I tried to check up on you. I found out that you had come to
+Darsh from Ghamma on a ship of the family of Zorda, accompanied by
+Brarnend of Zorda himself. And that’s all I could find out. You claim
+to be a Venusian planter, and you might be. Any Terran who can handle
+weapons as you can would have come to my notice long ago. But you have
+no more ascertainable history than if you’d stepped out of another
+dimension.”
+
+That was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. In fact, it _was_
+the truth. Verkan Vall laughed.
+
+“Well, confidentially,” he said, “I’m from the Arcturus System. I
+followed the Lady Dallona here from our home planet, and when I have
+rescued her from among you Solarians, I shall, according to our
+customs, receive her hand in marriage. As she is the daughter of the
+Emperor of Arcturus, that’ll be quite a good thing for me.”
+
+Klarnood chuckled. “You know, you’d only have to tell me that about
+three or four times and I’d start believing it,” he said. “And Dr.
+Harnosh of Hosh would believe it the first time; he’s been talking to
+himself ever since the Lady Dallona started her experimental work
+here. Lord Virzal, I’m going to take a chance on you. The Lady Dallona
+is still carnate, or was four days ago, and the same for Dirzed. They
+both went into hiding after the discarnation feast of Garnon of Roxor,
+to escape the enmity of the Statisticalists. Two days after they
+disappeared, Dirzed called Assassins’ Hall and reported this, but told
+us nothing more. I suppose, in about three or four days, I could
+re-establish contact with him. We want the public to think that the
+Statisticalists made away with the Lady Dallona, at least until the
+election’s over.”
+
+Verkan Vall nodded. “I was pretty sure that was the situation,” he
+said. “It may be that they will get in touch with me; if they don’t,
+I’ll need your help in reaching them.”
+
+“Why do you think the Lady Dallona will try to reach you?”
+
+“She needs all the help she can get. She knows she can get plenty from
+me. Why do you think I interrupted my search for her, and risked my
+carnate existence, to fight those people over a matter of verbalisms
+and political propaganda?” Verkan Vall went to the newscast visiplate
+and snapped it on. “We’ll see if I’m getting results, yet.”
+
+The plate lighted, and a handsome young man in a gold-laced green suit
+was speaking out of it:
+
+“... where he is heavily guarded by Assassins. However, in an
+exclusive interview with representatives of this service, the Assassin
+Hirzif, one of the two who seconded the men the Lord Virzal fought,
+said that in his opinion all of the three were so outclassed as to
+have had no chance whatever, and that he had already refused an offer
+of ten thousand System Monetary Units to discarnate the Lord Virzal
+for the Statisticalist Party. ‘When I want to discarnate,’ Hirzif the
+Assassin said, ‘I’ll invite in my friends and do it properly; until I
+do, I wouldn’t go up against the Lord Virzal of Verkan for ten million
+S.M.U.’”
+
+Verkan Vall snapped off the visiplate. “See what I mean?” he asked. “I
+fought those politicians just for the advertising. If Dallona and
+Dirzed are anywhere near a visiplate, they’ll know how to reach me.”
+
+“Hirzif shouldn’t have talked about refusing that retainer,” Klarnood
+frowned. “That isn’t good Assassin ethics. Why, yes, Lord Virzal; that
+was cleverly planned. It ought to get results. But I wish you’d get
+the Lady Dallona out of Darsh, and preferably off Terra, as soon as
+you can. We’ve benefited by this, so far, but I shouldn’t like to see
+things go much further. A real civil war could develop out of this
+situation, and I don’t want that. Call on me for help; I’ll give you a
+code word to use at Assassins’ Hall.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A real civil war was developing even as Klarnood spoke; by mid-morning
+of the next day, the fighting that had been partially suppressed by
+the Constabulary had broken out anew. The Assassins employed by the
+Solar Hotel—heavily re-enforced during the night—had fought a
+pitched battle with Statisticalist partisans on the landing stage
+above Verkan Vall’s suite, and now several Constabulary airboats were
+patrolling around the building. The rule on Constabulary interference
+seemed to be that while individuals had an unquestionable right to
+shoot out their differences among themselves, any fighting likely to
+endanger nonparticipants was taboo.
+
+Just how successful in enforcing this rule the Constabulary were was
+open to some doubt. Ever since arising, Verkan Vall had heard the
+crash of small arms and the hammering of automatic weapons in other
+parts of the towering city unit. There hadn’t been a civil war on the
+Akor-Neb Sector for over five centuries, he knew, but then, Hadron
+Dalla, Doctor of Psychic Science, and intertemporal trouble-carrier
+extraordinary, had only been on this sector for a little under a year.
+If anything, he was surprised that the explosion had taken so long to
+occur.
+
+One of the servants furnished to him by the hotel management
+approached him in the drawing room, holding a four-inch-square wafer
+of white plastic.
+
+“Lord Virzal, there is a masked Assassin in the hallway who brought
+this under Assassins’ Truce,” he said.
+
+Verkan Vall took the wafer and pared off three of the four edges,
+which showed black where they had been fused. Unfolding it, he found,
+as he had expected, that the pyrographed message within was in the
+alphabet and language of the First Paratime Level:
+
+    Vall, darling:
+
+    Am I glad you got here; this time I really _am_ in the
+    middle, but good! The Assassin, Dirzed, who brings this, is
+    in my service. You can trust him implicitly; he’s about the
+    only person in Darsh you can trust. He’ll bring you to where I
+    am.
+
+                                                        Dalla
+
+    P.S. I hope you’re not still angry about that musician. I
+    told you, at the time, that he was just helping me with an
+    experiment in telepathy.
+
+                                                        D.
+
+Verkan Vall grinned at the postscript. That had been twenty years ago,
+when he’d been eighty and she’d been seventy. He supposed she’d expect
+him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably
+wouldn’t last any longer than it had, the other time; he recalled a
+Fourth Level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly
+wouldn’t be boring, though.
+
+“Tell the Assassin to come in,” he directed. Then he tossed the
+message down on a table. Outside of himself, nobody in Darsh could
+read it but the woman who had sent it; if, as he thought highly
+probable, the Statisticalists had spies among the hotel staff, it
+might serve to reduce some cryptanalyst to gibbering insanity.
+
+The Assassin entered, drawing off a cowl-like mask. He was the man
+whose arm Dalla had been holding in the visiplate picture; Verkan Vall
+even recognized the extremely ornate pistol and knife on his belt.
+
+“Dirzed the Assassin,” he named himself. “If you wish, we can
+visiphone Assassins’ Hall for verification of my identity.”
+
+“Lord Virzal of Verkan. And my Assassins, Marnik and Olirzon.” They
+all hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with the newcomer. “That
+won’t be needed,” Verkan Vall told Dirzed. “I know you from seeing you
+with the Lady Dallona, on the visiplate; you’re ‘Dirzed, her faithful
+Assassin.’”
+
+Dirzed’s face, normally the color of a good walnut gunstock, turned
+almost black. He used shockingly bad language.
+
+“And that’s why I have to wear this abomination,” he finished,
+displaying the mask. “The Lady Dallona and I can’t show our faces
+anywhere; if we did, every Statisticalist and his six-year-old brat
+would know us, and we’d be fighting off an army of them in five
+minutes.”
+
+“Where’s the Lady Dallona, now?”
+
+“In hiding, Lord Virzal, at a private dwelling dome in the forest;
+she’s most anxious to see you. I’m to take you to her, and I would
+strongly advise that you bring your Assassins along. There are other
+people at this dome, and they are not personally loyal to the Lady
+Dallona. I’ve no reason to suspect them of secret enmity, but their
+friendship is based entirely on political expediency.”
+
+“And political expediency is subject to change without notice,” Verkan
+Vall finished for him. “Have you an airboat?”
+
+“On the landing stage below. Shall we go now, Lord Virzal?”
+
+“Yes.” Verkan Vall made a two-handed gesture to his Assassins, as
+though gripping a submachine-gun; they nodded, went into another room,
+and returned carrying light automatic weapons in their hands and
+pouches of spare drums slung over their shoulders. “And may I suggest,
+Dirzed, that one of my Assassins drives the airboat? I want you on the
+back seat with me, to explain the situation as we go.”
+
+Dirzed’s teeth flashed white against his brown skin as he gave Verkan
+Vall a quick smile.
+
+“By all means, Lord Virzal; I would much rather be distrusted than to
+find that my client’s friends were not discreet.”
+
+There were a couple of hotel Assassins guarding Dirzed’s airboat, on
+the landing stage. Marnik climbed in under the controls, with Olirzon
+beside him; Verkan Vall and Dirzed entered the rear seat. Dirzed gave
+Marnik the co-ordinate reference for their destination.
+
+“Now, what sort of a place is this, where we’re going?” Verkan Vall
+asked. “And who’s there whom we may or may not trust?”
+
+“Well, it’s a dome house belonging to the family of Starpha; they own
+a five-mile radius around it, oak and beech forest and underbrush,
+stocked with deer and boar. A hunting lodge. Prince Jirzyn of Starpha,
+Lord Girzon of Roxor, and a few other top-level Volitionalists, know
+that the Lady Dallona’s hiding there. They’re keeping her out of sight
+till after the election, for propaganda purposes. We’ve been hiding
+there since immediately after the discarnation feast of the Lord
+Garnon of Roxor.”
+
+“What happened, after the feast?” Verkan Vall wanted to know.
+
+“Well, you know how the Lady Dallona and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh had this
+telepathic-sensitive there, in a trance and drugged with a
+_zerfa_-derivative alkaloid the Lady Dallona had developed. I was Lord
+Garnon’s Assassin; I discarnated him, myself. Why, I hadn’t even put
+my pistol away before he was in control of this sensitive, in a room
+five stories above the banquet hall; he began communicating at once.
+We had visiplates to show us what was going on.
+
+“Right away, Nirzav of Shonna, one of the Statisticalist leaders who
+was a personal friend of Lord Garnon’s in spite of his politics,
+renounced Statisticalism and went over to the Volitionalists, on the
+strength of this communication. Prince Jirzyn, and Lord Girzon, the
+new family-head of Roxor, decided that there would be trouble in the
+next few days, so they advised the Lady Dallona to come to this
+hunting lodge for safety. She and I came here in her airboat, directly
+from the feast. A good thing we did, too; if we’d gone to her
+apartment, we’d have walked in before that lethal gas had time to
+clear.
+
+“There are four Assassins of the family of Starpha, and six
+menservants, and an upper-servant named Tarnod, the gamekeeper. The
+Starpha Assassins and I have been keeping the rest under observation.
+I left one of the Starpha Assassins guarding the Lady Dallona when I
+came for you, under brotherly oath to protect her in my name till I
+returned.”
+
+The airboat was skimming rapidly above the treetops, toward the
+northern part of the city.
+
+“What’s known about that package bomb?” Verkan Vall asked. “Who sent
+it?”
+
+Dirzed shrugged. “The Statisticalists, of course. The wrapper was
+stolen from the Reincarnation Research Institute; so was the case. The
+Constabulary are working on it.” Dirzed shrugged again.
+
+The dome, about a hundred and fifty feet in width and some fifty in
+height, stood among the trees ahead. It was almost invisible from any
+distance; the concrete dome was of mottled green and gray concrete,
+trees grew so close as to brush it with their branches, and the little
+pavilion on the flattened top was roofed with translucent green
+plastic. As the airboat came in, a couple of men in Assassins’ garb
+emerged from the pavilion to meet them.
+
+“Marnik, stay at the controls,” Verkan Vall directed. “I’ll send
+Olirzon up for you if I want you. If there’s any trouble, take off for
+Assassins’ Hall and give the code word, then come back with twice as
+many men as you think you’ll need.”
+
+Dirzed raised his eyebrows over this. “I hadn’t known the
+Assassin-President had given you a code word, Lord Virzal,” he
+commented. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
+
+“The Assassin-President has honored me with his friendship,” Verkan
+Vall replied noncommittally, as he, Dirzed and Olirzon climbed out of
+the airboat. Marnik was holding it an unobtrusive inch or so above the
+flat top of the dome, away from the edge of the pavilion roof.
+
+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. 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. Even now, the
+design had been retained by those who wished to live apart from the
+towering city units, to preserve the natural appearance of the
+landscape. The Starpha hunting lodge was typical of such domes. Under
+it was a circular well, eighty feet in depth and fifty in width, with
+a fountain and a shallow circular pool at the bottom. The storerooms,
+kitchens and servants’ quarters were at the top, the living quarters
+at the bottom, in segments of a wide circle around the well, back of
+balconies.
+
+“Tarnod, the gamekeeper,” Dirzed performed the introductions. “And
+Erarno and Kirzol, Assassins.”
+
+Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Tarnod
+accompanied them to the lifter tubes—two percent positive gravitation
+for descent and two percent negative for ascent—and they all floated
+down the former, like air-filled balloons, to the bottom level.
+
+“The Lady Dallona is in the gun room,” Tarnod informed Verkan Vall,
+making as though to guide him.
+
+“Thanks, Tarnod; we know the way,” Dirzed told him shortly, turning
+his back on the upper-servant and walking toward a closed door on the
+other side of the fountain. Verkan Vall and Olirzon followed; for a
+moment, Tarnod stood looking after them, then he followed the other
+two Assassins into the ascent tube.
+
+“I don’t relish that fellow,” Dirzed explained. “The family of Starpha
+use him for work they couldn’t hire an Assassin to do at any price.
+I’ve been here often, when I was with the Lord Garnon; I’ve always
+thought he had something on Prince Jirzyn.”
+
+He knocked sharply on the closed door with the butt of his pistol. In
+a moment, it slid open, and a young Assassin with a narrow mustache
+and a tuft of chin beard looked out.
+
+“Ah, Dirzed.” He stepped outside. “The Lady Dallona is within; I
+return her to your care.”
+
+Verkan Vall entered, followed by Dirzed and Olirzon. The big room was
+fitted with reclining chairs and couches and low tables; its walls
+were hung with the heads of deer and boar and wolves, and with racks
+holding rifles and hunting pistols and fowling pieces. It was filled
+with the soft glow of indirect cold light. At the far side of the
+room, a young woman was seated at a desk, speaking softly into a sound
+transcriber. As they entered, she snapped it off and rose.
+
+Hadron Dalla wore the same costume Verkan Vall had seen on the
+visiplate: he recognized her instantly. It took her a second or two to
+perceive Verkan Vall under the brown skin and black hair of the Lord
+Virzal of Verkan. Then her face lighted with a happy smile.
+
+“Why, Va-a-a-ll!” she whooped, running across the room and tossing
+herself into his not particularly reluctant arms. After all, it had
+been twenty years—“I didn’t know you, at first!”
+
+“You mean, in these clothes?” he asked, seeing that she had forgotten,
+for the moment, the presence of the two Assassins. She had even called
+him by his First Level name, but that was unimportant—the Akor-Neb
+affectionate diminutive was formed by omitting the -_irz_- or -_arn_-.
+“Well, they’re not exactly what I generally wear on the plantation.”
+He kissed her again, then turned to his companions. “Your pardon,
+Gentlemen-Assassins; it’s been something over a year since we’ve seen
+each other.”
+
+Olirzon was smiling at the affectionate reunion; Dirzed wore a look of
+amused resignation, as though he might have expected something like
+this to happen. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat down on a couch near the
+desk.
+
+“That was really sweet of you, Vall, fighting those men for talking
+about me,” she began. “You took an awful chance, though. But if you
+hadn’t, I’d never have known you were in Darsh—Oh-oh! That was why
+you did it, wasn’t it?”
+
+“Well, I had to do something. Everybody either didn’t know or weren’t
+saying where you were. I assumed, from the circumstances, that you
+were hiding somewhere. Tell me, Dalla; do you really have scientific
+proof of reincarnation? I mean, as an established fact?”
+
+“Oh, yes; these people on this sector have had that for over ten
+centuries. They have hypnotic techniques for getting back into a part
+of the subconscious mind that we’ve never been able to reach. And
+after I found out how they did it, I was able to adapt some of our
+hypno-epistemological techniques to it, and—”
+
+“All right; that’s what I wanted to know,” he cut her off. “We’re
+getting out of here, right away.”
+
+“But where?”
+
+“Ghamma, in an airboat I have outside, and then back to the First
+Level. Unless there’s a paratime-transposition conveyor somewhere
+nearer.”
+
+“But why, Vall? I’m not ready to go back; I have a lot of work to do here,
+yet. They’re getting ready to set up a series of control-experiments at the
+Institute, and then, I’m in the middle of an experiment, a
+two-hundred-subject memory-recall experiment. See, I distributed two
+hundred sets of equipment for my new technique—injection-ampoules of this
+_zerfa_-derivative drug, and sound records of the hypnotic suggestion
+formula, which can be played on an ordinary reproducer. It’s just a crude
+variant of our hypno-mech process, except that instead of implanting
+information in the subconscious mind, to be brought at will to the level of
+consciousness, it works the other way, and draws into conscious knowledge
+information already in the subconscious mind. The way these people have
+always done has been to put the subject in an hypnotic trance and then
+record verbal statements made in the trance-state; when the subject comes
+out of the trance, the record is all there is, because the memories of past
+reincarnations have never been in the conscious mind. But with my process,
+the subject can consciously remember everything about his last
+reincarnation, and as many reincarnations before that as he wishes to. I
+haven’t heard from any of the people who received these auto-recall kits,
+and I really must—”
+
+“Dalla, I don’t want to have to pull Paratime Police authority on you,
+but, so help me, if you don’t come back voluntarily with me, I will.
+Security of the secret of paratime transposition.”
+
+“Oh, my eye!” Dalla exclaimed. “Don’t give me that, Vall!”
+
+“Look, Dalla. Suppose you get discarnated here,” Verkan Vall said.
+“You say reincarnation is a scientific fact. Well, you’d reincarnate
+on this sector, and then you’d take a memory-recall, under hypnosis.
+And when you did, the paratime secret wouldn’t be a secret any more.”
+
+“Oh!” Dalla’s hand went to her mouth in consternation. Like every
+paratimer, she was conditioned to shrink with all her being from the
+mere thought of revealing to any out-time dweller the secret ability
+of her race to pass to other time-lines, or even the existence of
+alternate lines of probability. “And if I took one of the
+old-fashioned trance-recalls, I’d blat out everything; I wouldn’t be
+able to keep a thing back. And I even know the principles of
+transposition!” She looked at him, aghast.
+
+“When I get back, I’m going to put a recommendation through department
+channels that this whole sector be declared out of bounds for all
+paratime transposition, until you people at Rhogom Foundation work
+out the problem of discarnate return to the First Level,” he told her.
+“Now, have you any notes or anything you want to take back with you?”
+
+She rose. “Yes; just what’s on the desk. Find me something to put the
+tape spools and notebooks in, while I’m getting them in order.”
+
+He secured a large game bag from under a rack of fowling pieces, and
+held it while she sorted the material rapidly, stuffing spools of
+record tape and notebooks into it. They had barely begun when the door
+slid open and Olirzon, who had gone outside, sprang into the room, his
+pistol drawn, swearing vilely.
+
+“They’ve double-crossed us!” he cried. “The servants of Starpha have
+turned on us.” He holstered his pistol and snatched up his
+submachine-gun, taking cover behind the edge of the door and letting
+go with a burst in the direction of the lifter tubes. “Got that one!”
+he grunted.
+
+“What happened, Olirzon?” Verkan Vall asked, dropping the game bag on
+the table and hurrying across the room.
+
+“I went up to see how Marnik was making out. As I came out of the
+lifter tube, one of the obscenities took a shot at me with a hunting
+pistol. He missed me; I didn’t miss him. Then a couple more of them
+were coming up, with fowling pieces; I shot one of them before they
+could fire, and jumped into the descent tube and came down heels over
+ears. I don’t know what’s happened to Marnik.” He fired another burst,
+and swore. “Missed him!”
+
+“Assassins’ Truce! Assassins’ Truce!” a voice howled out of the
+descent tube. “Hold your fire, we want to parley.”
+
+“Who is it?” Dirzed shouted, over Olirzon’s shoulder. “You, Sarnax?
+Come on out; we won’t shoot.”
+
+The young Assassin with the mustache and chin beard emerged from the
+descent tube, his weapons sheathed and his clasped hands extended in
+front of him in a peculiarly ecclesiastical-looking manner. Dirzed and
+Olirzon stepped out of the gun room, followed by Verkan Vall and
+Hadron Dalla. Olirzon had left his submachine-gun behind. They met the
+other Assassin by the rim of the fountain pool.
+
+“Lady Dallona of Hadron,” the Starpha Assassin began. “I and my
+colleagues, in the employ of the family of Starpha, have received
+orders from our clients to withdraw our protection from you, and to
+discarnate you, and all with you who undertake to protect or support
+you.” That much sounded like a recitation of some established formula;
+then his voice became more conversational. “I and my colleagues,
+Erarno and Kirzol and Harnif, offer our apologies for the barbarity of
+the servants of the family of Starpha, in attacking without
+declaration of cessation of friendship. Was anybody hurt or
+discarnated?”
+
+“None of us,” Olirzon said. “How about Marnik?”
+
+“He was warned before hostilities were begun against him,” Sarnax
+replied. “We will allow five minutes until—”
+
+Olirzon, who had been looking up the well, suddenly sprang at Dalla,
+knocking her flat, and at the same time jerking out his pistol. Before
+he could raise it, a shot banged from above and he fell on his face.
+Dirzed, Verkan Vall, and Sarnax, all drew their pistols, but whoever
+had fired the shot had vanished. There was an outburst of shouting
+above.
+
+“Get to cover,” Sarnax told the others. “We’ll let you know when we’re
+ready to attack; we’ll have to deal with whoever fired that shot,
+first.” He looked at the dead body on the floor, exclaimed angrily,
+and hurried to the ascent tube, springing upward.
+
+Verkan Vall replaced the small pistol in his shoulder holster and took
+Olirzon’s belt, with his knife and heavier pistol.
+
+“Well, there you see,” Dirzed said, as they went back to the gun room.
+“So much for political expediency.”
+
+“I think I understand why your picture and the Lady Dallona’s were
+exhibited so widely,” Verkan Vall said. “Now, anybody would recognize
+your bodies, and blame the Statisticalists for discarnating you.”
+
+“That thought had occurred to me, Lord Virzal,” Dirzed said. “I
+suppose our bodies will be atrociously but not unidentifiably
+mutilated, to further enrage the public,” he added placidly. “If I get
+out of this carnate, I’m going to pay somebody off for it.”
+
+After a few minutes, there was more shouting of: “Assassins’ Truce!”
+from the descent tube. The two Assassins, Erarno and Kirzol, emerged,
+dragging the gamekeeper, Tarnod, between them. The upper-servant’s
+face was bloody, and his jaw seemed to be broken. Sarnax followed,
+carrying a long hunting pistol in his hand.
+
+“Here he is!” he announced. “He fired during Assassins’ Truce; he’s
+subject to Assassins’ Justice!”
+
+He nodded to the others. They threw the gamekeeper forward on the
+floor, and Sarnax shot him through the head, then tossed the pistol
+down beside him. “Any more of these people who violate the decencies
+will be treated similarly,” he promised.
+
+“Thank you, Sarnax,” Dirzed spoke up. “But we lost an Assassin:
+discarnating this lackey won’t equalize that. We think you should
+retire one of your number.”
+
+“That at least, Dirzed; wait a moment.”
+
+The three Assassins conferred at some length. Then Sarnax hooked
+fingers and clapped shoulders with his companions.
+
+“See you in the next reincarnation, brothers,” he told them, walking
+toward the gun-room door, where Verkan Vall, Dalla and Dirzed stood.
+“I’m joining you people. You had two Assassins when the parley began,
+you’ll have two when the shooting starts.”
+
+Verkan Vall looked at Dirzed in some surprise. Hadron Dalla’s Assassin
+nodded.
+
+“He’s entitled to do that, Lord Virzal; the Assassins’ code provides
+for such changes of allegiance.”
+
+“Welcome, Sarnax,” Verkan Vall said, hooking fingers with him. “I hope
+we’ll all be together when this is over.”
+
+“We will be,” Sarnax assured him cheerfully. “Discarnate. We won’t get
+out of this in the body, Lord Virzal.”
+
+A submachine-gun hammered from above, the bullets lashing the fountain
+pool; the water actually steamed, so great was their velocity.
+
+“All right!” a voice called down. “Assassins’ Truce is over!”
+
+Another burst of automatic fire smashed out the lights at the bottom
+of the ascent tube. Dirzed and Dalla struggled across the room,
+pushing a heavy steel cabinet between them; Verkan Vall, who was
+holding Olirzon’s submachine-gun, moved aside to allow them to drop it
+on edge in the open doorway, then wedged the door half-shut against
+it. Sarnax came over, bringing rifles, hunting pistols, and
+ammunition.
+
+“What’s the situation, up there?” Verkan Vall asked him. “What force
+have they, and why did they turn against us?”
+
+“Lord Virzal!” Dirzed objected, scandalized. “You have no right to ask
+Sarnax to betray confidences!”
+
+Sarnax spat against the door. “In the face of Jirzyn of Starpha!” he
+said. “And in the face of his _zortan_ mother, and of his father,
+whoever he was! Dirzed, do not talk foolishly; one does not speak of
+betraying betrayers.” He turned to Verkan Vall. “They have three
+menservants of the family of Starpha; your Assassin, Olirzon,
+discarnated the other three. There is one of Prince Jirzyn’s poor
+relations, named Girzad. There are three other men, Volitionalist
+precinct workers, who came with Girzad, and four Assassins, the three
+who were here, and one who came with Girzad. Eleven, against the three
+of us.”
+
+“The four of us, Sarnax,” Dalla corrected. She had buckled on a
+hunting pistol, and had a light deer rifle under her arm.
+
+Something moved at the bottom of the descent tube. Verkan Vall gave it
+a short burst, though it was probably only a dummy, dropped to draw
+fire.
+
+“The four of us, Lady Dallona,” Sarnax agreed. “As to your other
+Assassin, the one who stayed in the airboat, I don’t know how he
+fared. You see, about twenty minutes ago, this Girzad arrived in an
+airboat, with an Assassin and these three Volitionalist workers.
+Erarno and I were at the top of the dome when he came in. He told us
+that he had orders from Prince Jirzyn to discarnate the Lady Dallona
+and Dirzed at once. Tarnod, the gamekeeper”—Sarnax spat ceremoniously
+against the door again—“told him you were here, and that Marnik was
+one of your men. He was going to shoot Marnik at once, but Erarno and
+I and his Assassin stopped him. We warned Marnik about the change in
+the situation, according to the code, expecting Marnik to go down here
+and join you. Instead, he lifted the airboat, zoomed over Girzad’s
+boat, and let go a rocket blast, setting Girzad’s boat on fire. Well,
+that was a hostile act, so we all fired after him. We must have hit
+something, because the boat went down, trailing smoke, about ten miles
+away. Girzad got another airboat out of the hangar and he and his
+Assassin started after your man. About that time, your Assassin,
+Olirzon—happy reincarnation to him—came up, and the Starpha servants
+fired at him, and he fired back and discarnated two of them, and then
+jumped down the descent tube. One of the servants jumped after him; I
+found his body at the bottom when I came down to warn you formally.
+You know what happened after that.”
+
+“But why did Prince Jirzyn order our discarnation?” Dalla wanted to
+know. “Was it to blame the Statisticalists with it?”
+
+Sarnax, about to answer, broke off suddenly and began firing at the
+opening of the ascent tube with a hunting pistol.
+
+“I got him,” he said, in a pleased tone. “That was Erarno; he was
+always playing tricks with the tubes, climbing down against negative
+gravity and up against positive gravity. His body will float up to the
+top—Why, Lady Dallona, that was only part of it. You didn’t hear
+about the big scandal, on the newscast, then?”
+
+“We didn’t have it on. What scandal?”
+
+Sarnax laughed. “Oh, the very father and family-head of all scandals!
+You ought to know about it, because you started it; that’s why Prince
+Jirzyn wants you out of the body—You devised a process by which
+people could give themselves memory-recalls of previous
+reincarnations, didn’t you? And distributed apparatus to do it with?
+And gave one set to young Tarnov, the son of Lord Tirzov of Fastor?”
+
+Dalla nodded. Sarnax continued:
+
+“Well, last evening, Tarnov of Fastor used his recall outfit, and what
+do you think? It seems that thirty years ago, in his last
+reincarnation, he was Jirzid of Starpha, Jirzyn’s older brother.
+Jirzid was betrothed to the Lady Annitra of Zabna. Well, his younger
+brother was carrying on a clandestine affair with the Lady Annitra,
+and he also wanted the title of Prince and family-head of Starpha. So
+he bribed this fellow Tarnod, whom I had the pleasure of discarnating,
+and who was an underservant here at the hunting lodge. Between them,
+they shot Jirzid during a boar hunt. An accident, of course. So Jirzyn
+married the Lady Annitra, and when old Prince Jarnid, his father,
+discarnated a year later, he succeeded to the title. And immediately,
+Tarnod was made head gamekeeper here.”
+
+“What did I tell you, Lord Virzal? I knew that son of a _zortan_ had
+something on Jirzyn of Starpha!” Dirzed exclaimed. “A nice family,
+this of Starpha!”
+
+“Well, that’s not the end of it,” Sarnax continued. “This morning,
+Tarnov of Fastor, late Jirzid of Starpha, went before the High Court
+of Estates and entered suit to change his name to Jirzid of Starpha
+and laid claim to the title of Starpha family-head. The case has just
+been entered, so there’s been no hearing, but there’s the blazes of an
+argument among all the nobles about it—some are claiming that the
+individuality doesn’t change from one reincarnation to the next, and
+others claiming that property and titles should pass along the line of
+physical descent, no matter what individuality has reincarnated into
+what body. They’re the ones who want the Lady Dallona discarnated and
+her discoveries suppressed. And there’s talk about revising the entire
+system of estate-ownership and estate-inheritance. Oh, it’s an utter
+obscenity of a business!”
+
+“This,” Verkan Vall told Dalla, “is something we will not emphasize
+when we get home.” That was as close as he dared come to it, but she
+caught his meaning. The working of major changes in out-time social
+structures was not viewed with approval by the Paratime Commission on
+the First Level. “_If_ we get home,” he added. Then an idea occurred
+to him.
+
+“Dirzed, Sarnax; this place must have been used by the leaders of the
+Volitionalists for top-level conferences. Is there a secret passage
+anywhere?”
+
+Sarnax shook his head. “Not from here. There is one, on the floor
+above, but they control it. And even if there were one down here, they
+would be guarding the outlet.”
+
+“That’s what I was counting on. I’d hoped to simulate an escape that
+way, and then make a rush up the regular tubes.” Verkan Vall shrugged.
+“I suppose Marnik’s our only chance. I hope he got away safely.”
+
+“He was going for help? I was surprised that an Assassin would desert
+his client; I should have thought of that,” Sarnax said. “Well, even
+if he got down carnate, and if Girzad didn’t catch him, he’d still be
+afoot ten miles from the nearest city unit. That gives us a little
+chance—about one in a thousand.”
+
+“Is there any way they can get at us, except by those tubes?” Dalla
+asked.
+
+“They could cut a hole in the floor, or burn one through,” Sarnax
+replied. “They have plenty of thermite. They could detonate a charge
+of explosives over our heads, or clear out of the dome and drop one
+down the well. They could use lethal gas or radio-dust, but their
+Assassins wouldn’t permit such illegal methods. Or they could shoot
+sleep-gas down at us, and then come down and cut our throats at their
+leisure.”
+
+“We’ll have to get out of this room, then,” Verkan Vall decided. “They
+know we’ve barricaded ourselves in here; this is where they’ll
+attack. So we’ll patrol the perimeter of the well; we’ll be out of
+danger from above if we keep close to the wall. And we’ll inspect all
+the rooms on this floor for evidence of cutting through from above.”
+
+Sarnax nodded. “That’s sense, Lord Virzal. How about the lifter
+tubes?”
+
+“We’ll have to barricade them. Sarnax, you and Dirzed know the layout
+of this place better than the Lady Dallona or I; suppose you two check
+the rooms, while we cover the tubes and the well,” Verkan Vall
+directed. “Come on, now.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They pushed the door wide-open and went out past the cabinet. Hugging
+the wall, they began a slow circuit of the well, Verkan Vall in the
+lead with the submachine-gun, then Sarnax and Dirzed, the former with
+a heavy boar-rifle and the latter with a hunting pistol in each hand,
+and Hadron Dalla brought up in the rear with her rifle. It was she who
+noticed a movement along the rim of the balcony above and snapped a
+shot at it; there was a crash above, and a shower of glass and plastic
+and metal fragments rattled on the pavement of the court. Somebody had
+been trying to lower a scanner or a visiplate-pickup, or something of
+the sort; the exact nature of the instrument was not evident from the
+wreckage Dalla’s bullet had made of it.
+
+The rooms Dirzed and Sarnax entered were all quiet; nobody seemed to
+be attempting to cut through the ceiling, fifteen feet above. They
+dragged furniture from a couple of rooms, blocking the openings of the
+lifter tubes, and continued around the well until they had reached the
+gun room again.
+
+Dirzed suggested that they move some of the weapons and ammunition
+stored there to Prince Jirzyn’s private apartment, halfway around to
+the lifter tubes, so that another place of refuge would be stocked
+with munitions in event of their being driven from the gun room.
+
+Leaving him on guard outside, Verkan Vall, Dalla and Sarnax entered
+the gun room and began gathering weapons and boxes of ammunition.
+Dalla finished packing her game bag with the recorded data and notes
+of her experiments. Verkan Vall selected four more of the heavy
+hunting pistols, more accurate than his shoulder-holster weapon or the
+dead Olirzon’s belt arm, and capable of either full or semi-automatic
+fire. Sarnax chose a couple more boar rifles. Dalla slung her bag of
+recorded notes, and another bag of ammunition, and secured another
+deer rifle. They carried this accumulation of munitions to the private
+apartments of Prince Jirzyn, dumping everything in the middle of the
+drawing room, except the bag of notes, from which Dalla refused to
+separate herself.
+
+“Maybe we’d better put some stuff over in one of the rooms on the
+other side of the well,” Dirzed suggested. “They haven’t really begun
+to come after us; when they do, we’ll probably be attacked from two
+or three directions at once.”
+
+They returned to the gun room, casting anxious glances at the edge of
+the balcony above and at the barricade they had erected across the
+openings to the lifter tubes. Verkan Vall was not satisfied with this
+last; it looked to him as though they had provided a breastwork for
+somebody to fire on them from, more than anything else.
+
+He was about to step around the cabinet which partially blocked the
+gun-room door when he glanced up, and saw a six-foot circle on the
+ceiling turning slowly brown. There was a smell of scorched plastic.
+He grabbed Sarnax by the arm and pointed.
+
+“Thermite,” the Assassin whispered. “The ceiling’s got six inches of
+spaceship-insulation between it and the floor above; it’ll take them a
+few minutes to burn through it.” He stooped and pushed on the
+barricade, shoving it into the room. “Keep back; they’ll probably drop
+a grenade or so through, first, before they jump down. If we’re quick,
+we can get a couple of them.”
+
+Dirzed and Sarnax crouched, one at either side of the door, with
+weapons ready. Verkan Vall and Dalla had been ordered, rather
+peremptorily, to stay behind them; in a place of danger, an Assassin
+was obliged to shield his client. Verkan Vall, unable to see what was
+going on inside the room, kept his eyes and his gun muzzle on the
+barricade across the openings to the lifter tubes, the erection of
+which he was now regretting as a major tactical error.
+
+Inside the gun room, there was a sudden crash, as the circle of
+thermite burned through and a section of ceiling dropped out and hit
+the floor. Instantly, Dirzed flung himself back against Verkan Vall,
+and there was a tremendous explosion inside, followed by another and
+another. A second or so passed, then Dirzed, leaning around the corner
+of the door, began firing rapidly into the room. From the other side
+of the door, Sarnax began blazing away with his rifle. Verkan Vall
+kept his position, covering the lifter tubes.
+
+Suddenly, from behind the barricade, a blue-white gun flash leaped
+into being, and a pistol banged. He sprayed the opening between a
+couch and a section of bookcase from whence it had come, releasing his
+trigger as the gun rose with the recoil, squeezing and releasing and
+squeezing again. Then he jumped to his feet.
+
+“Come on, the other place; hurry!” he ordered.
+
+Sarnax swore in exasperation. “Help me with her, Dirzed!” he implored.
+
+Verkan Vall turned his head, to see the two Assassins drag Dalla to
+her feet and hustle her away from the gun room; she was quite
+senseless, and they had to drag her between them. Verkan Vall gave a
+quick glance into the gun room; two of the Starpha servants and a man
+in rather flashy civil dress were lying on the floor, where they had
+been shot as they had jumped down from above. He saw a movement at the
+edge of the irregular, smoking, hole in the ceiling, and gave it a
+short burst, then fired another at the exit from the descent tube.
+Then he took to his heels and followed the Assassins and Hadron Dalla
+into Prince Jirzyn’s apartment.
+
+As he ran through the open door, the Assassins were letting Dalla down
+into a chair; they instantly threw themselves into the work of
+barricading the doorway so as to provide cover and at the same time
+allow them to fire out into the central well.
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+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. The bullet had hit the game bag at her
+side; it was full of spools of metal tape, in metal cases, and notes
+in written form, pyrographed upon sheets of plastic ring fastened into
+metal binders. Because of their extreme velocity, Akor-Neb bullets
+were sure killers when they struck animal tissue, but for the same
+reason, they had very poor penetration on hard objects. The
+alloy-steel tape, and the steel spools and spool cases, and the
+notebook binders, had been enough to shatter the little bullet into
+splinters of magnesium-nickel alloy, and the stout leather back of the
+game bag had stopped all of these. But the impact, even distributed as
+it had been through the contents of the bag, had been enough to knock
+the girl unconscious.
+
+He found a bottle of some sort of brandy and a glass on a serving
+table nearby and poured her a drink, holding it to her lips. She
+spluttered over the first mouthful, then took the glass from him and
+sipped the rest.
+
+“What happened?” she asked. “I thought those bullets were sure death.”
+
+“Your notes. The bullet hit the bag. Are you all right, now?”
+
+She finished the brandy. “I think so.” She put a hand into the game
+bag and brought out a snarled and tangled mess of steel tape. “Oh,
+_blast_! That stuff was important; all the records on the preliminary
+auto-recall experiments.” She shrugged. “Well, it wouldn’t have been
+worth much more if I’d stopped that bullet, myself.” She slipped the
+strap over her shoulder and started to rise.
+
+As she did, a bedlam of firing broke out, both from the two Assassins
+at the door and from outside. They both hit the floor and crawled out
+of line of the partly-open door; Verkan Vall recovered his
+submachine-gun, which he had set down beside Dalla’s chair. Sarnax was
+firing with his rifle at some target in the direction of the lifter
+tubes; Dirzed lay slumped over the barricade, and one glance at his
+crumpled figure was enough to tell Verkan Vall that he was dead.
+
+“You fill magazines for us,” he told Dalla, then crawled to Dirzed’s
+place at the door. “What happened, Sarnax?”
+
+“They shoved over the barricade at the lifter tubes and came out into
+the well. I got a couple, they got Dirzed, and now they’re holed up in
+rooms all around the circle. They—Aah!” He fired three shots,
+quickly, around the edge of the door. “That stopped that.” The
+Assassin crouched to insert a fresh magazine into his rifle.
+
+[Illustration: ]
+
+Verkan Vall risked one eye around the corner of the doorway, and as he
+did, there was a red flash and a dull roar, unlike the blue flashes
+and sharp cracking reports of the pistols and rifles, from the doorway
+of the gun room. He wondered, for a split second, if it might be one
+of the fowling pieces he had seen there, and then something whizzed
+past his head and exploded with a soft _plop_ behind him. Turning, he
+saw a pool of gray vapor beginning to spread in the middle of the
+room. Dalla must have got a breath of it, for she was slumped over the
+chair from which she had just risen.
+
+Dropping the submachine-gun and gulping a lungful of fresh air from
+outside, Verkan Vall rushed to her, caught her by the heels, and
+dragged her into Prince Jirzyn’s bedroom, beyond. Leaving her in the
+middle of the floor, he took another deep breath and returned to the
+drawing room, where Sarnax was already overcome by the sleep-gas.
+
+He saw the serving table from which he had got the brandy, and dragged
+it over to the bedroom door, overturning it and laying it across the
+doorway, its legs in the air. Like most Akor-Neb serving tables, it
+had a gravity-counteraction unit under it; he set this for double
+minus-gravitation and snapped it on. As it was now above the inverted
+table, the table did not rise, but a tendril, of sleep-gas, curling
+toward it, bent upward and drifted away from the doorway. Satisfied
+that he had made a temporary barrier against the sleep-gas, Verkan
+Vall secured Dalla’s hunting pistol and spare magazines and lay down
+at the bedroom door.
+
+For some time, there was silence outside. Then the besiegers evidently
+decided that the sleep-gas attack had been a success. An Assassin,
+wearing a gas mask and carrying a submachine-gun, appeared in the
+doorway, and behind him came a tall man in a tan tunic, similarly
+masked. They stepped into the room and looked around.
+
+Knowing that he would be shooting over a two hundred percent negative
+gravitation-field, Verkan Vall aimed for the Assassin’s belt-buckle
+and squeezed. The bullet caught him in the throat. Evidently the
+bullet had not only been lifted in the negative gravitation, but
+lifted point-first and deflected upward. He held his front sight just
+above the other man’s knee, and hit him in the chest.
+
+As he fired, he saw a wisp of gas come sliding around the edge of the
+inverted table. There was silence outside, and for an instant, he was
+tempted to abandon his post and go to the bathroom, back of the
+bedroom, for wet towels to improvise a mask. Then, when he tried to
+crawl backward, he could not. There was an impression of distant
+shouting which turned to a roaring sound in his head. He tried to lift
+his pistol, but it slipped from his fingers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When consciousness returned, he was lying on his back, and something
+cold and rubbery was pressing into his face. He raised his arms to
+fight off whatever it was, and opened his eyes, to find that he was
+staring directly at the red oval and winged bullet of the Society of
+Assassins. A hand caught his wrist as he reached for the small pistol
+under his arm. The pressure on his face eased.
+
+“It’s all right, Lord Virzal,” a voice came to him. “Assassins’
+Truce!”
+
+He nodded stupidly and repeated the words. “Assassins’ Truce; I won’t
+shoot. What happened?”
+
+Then he sat up and looked around. Prince Jirzyn’s bedchamber was full
+of Assassins. Dalla, recovering from her touch of sleep-gas, was
+sitting groggily in a chair, while five or six of them fussed around
+her, getting in each others’ way, handing her drinks, chaffing her
+wrists, holding damp cloths on her brow. That was standard procedure,
+when any group of males thought Dalla needed any help. Another
+Assassin, beside the bed, was putting away an oxygen-mask outfit, and
+the Assassin who had prevented Verkan Vall from drawing his pistol was
+his own follower, Marnik. And Klarnood, the Assassin-President, was
+sitting on the foot of the bed, smoking one of Prince Jirzyn’s
+monogrammed and crested cigarettes critically.
+
+Verkan Vall looked at Marnik, and then at Klarnood, and back to
+Marnik.
+
+“You got through,” he said. “Good work, Marnik; I thought they’d
+downed you.”
+
+“They did; I had to crash-land in the woods. I went about a mile on
+foot, and then I found a man and woman and two children, hiding in one
+of these little log rain shelters. They had an airboat, a good one. It
+seemed that rioting had broken out in the city unit where they lived,
+and they’d taken to the woods till things quieted down again. I
+offered them Assassins’ protection if they’d take me to Assassins’
+Hall, and they did.”
+
+“By luck, I was in when Marnik arrived,” Klarnood took over. “We
+brought three boatloads of men, and came here at once. Just as we got
+here, two boatloads of Starpha dependents arrived; they tried to give
+us an argument, and we discarnated the lot of them. Then we came down
+here, crying Assassins’ Truce. One of the Starpha Assassins, Kirzol,
+was still carnate; he told us what had been going on.” The
+President-General’s face-became grim. “You know, I take a rather poor
+view of Prince Jirzyn’s procedure in this matter, not to mention that
+of his underlings. I’ll have to speak to him about this. Now, how
+about you and the Lady Dallona? What do you intend doing?”
+
+“We’re getting out of here,” Verkan Vall said. “I’d like air transport
+and protection as far as Ghamma, to the establishment of the family of
+Zorda. Brarnend of Zorda has a private space yacht; he’ll get us to
+Venus.”
+
+Klarnood gave a sigh of obvious relief. “I’ll have you and the Lady
+Dallona airborne and off for Ghamma as soon as you wish,” he promised.
+“I will, frankly, be delighted to see the last of both of you. The
+Lady Dallona has started a fire here at Darsh that won’t burn out in a
+half-century, and who knows what it may consume.” He was interrupted
+by a heaving shock that made the underground dome dwelling shake like
+a light airboat in turbulence. Even eighty feet under the ground, they
+could hear a continued crashing roar. It was an appreciable interval
+before the sound and the shock ceased.
+
+For an instant, there was silence, and then an excited bedlam of
+shouting broke from the Assassins in the room: Klarnood’s face was
+frozen in horror.
+
+“That was a fission bomb!” he exclaimed. “The first one that has been
+exploded on this planet in hostility in a thousand years!” He turned
+to Verkan Vall. “If you feel well enough to walk, Lord Virzal, come
+with us. I must see what’s happened.”
+
+They hurried from the room and went streaming up the ascent tube to
+the top of the dome. About forty miles away, to the south, Verkan Vall
+saw the sinister thing that he had seen on so many other time-lines,
+in so many other paratime sectors—a great pillar of varicolored
+fire-shot smoke, rising to a mushroom head fifty thousand feet above.
+
+“Well, that’s it,” Klarnood said sadly. “That is civil war.”
+
+“May I make a suggestion, Assassin-President?” Verkan Vall asked. “I
+understand that Assassins’ Truce is binding even upon non-Assassins;
+is that correct?”
+
+“Well, not exactly; it’s generally kept by such non-Assassins as want
+to remain in their present reincarnations, though.”
+
+“That’s what I meant. Well, suppose you declare a general, planet-wide
+Assassins’ Truce in this political war, and make the leaders of both
+parties responsible for keeping it. Publish lists of the top two or
+three thousand Statisticalists and Volitionalists, starting with
+Mirzark of Bashad and Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, and inform them that
+they will be assassinated, in order, if the fighting doesn’t cease.”
+
+“Well!” A smile grew on Klarnood’s face. “Lord Virzal, my thanks; a
+good suggestion. I’ll try it. And furthermore, I’ll withdraw all
+Assassin protection permanently from anybody involved in political
+activity, and forbid any Assassin to accept any retainer connected
+with political factionalism. It’s about time our members stopped
+discarnating each other in these political squabbles.” He pointed to
+the three airboats drawn up on the top of the dome; speedy black
+craft, bearing the red oval and winged bullet. “Take your choice, Lord
+Virzal. I’ll lend you a couple of my men, and you’ll be in Ghamma in
+three hours.” He hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with Verkan
+Vall, bent over Dalla’s hand. “I still like you, Lord Virzal, and I
+have seldom met a more charming lady than you, Lady Dallona. But I
+sincerely hope I never see either of you again.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ship for Dhergabar was driving north and west; at seventy thousand
+feet, it was still daylight, but the world below was wrapping itself
+in darkness. In the big visiscreens, which served in lieu of the
+windows which could never have withstood the pressure and friction
+heat of the ship’s speed, the sun was sliding out of sight over the
+horizon to port. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat together, watching the
+blazing western sky—the sky of their own First Level time-line.
+
+“I blame myself terribly, Vall,” Dalla was saying. “And I didn’t mean
+any of them the least harm. All I was interested in was learning the
+facts. I know, that sounds like ‘I didn’t know it was loaded,’ but—”
+
+“It sounds to me like those Fourth Level Europo-American Sector
+physicists who are giving themselves guilt-complexes because they
+designed an atomic bomb,” Verkan Vall replied. “All you were
+interested in was learning the facts. Well, as a scientist, that’s all
+you’re supposed to be interested in. You don’t have to worry about any
+social or political implications. People have to learn to live with
+newly-discovered facts; if they don’t, they die of them.”
+
+“But, Vall; that sounds dreadfully irresponsible—”
+
+“Does it? You’re worrying about the results of your reincarnation
+memory-recall discoveries, the shootings and riotings and the bombing
+we saw.” He touched the pommel of Olirzon’s knife, which he still
+wore. “You’re no more guilty of that than the man who forged this
+blade is guilty of the death of Marnark of Bashad; if he’d never
+lived, I’d have killed Marnark with some other knife somebody else
+made. And what’s more, you can’t know the results of your discoveries.
+All you can see is a thin film of events on the surface of an
+immediate situation, so you can’t say whether the long-term results
+will be beneficial or calamitous.
+
+“Take this Fourth Level Europo-American atomic bomb, for example. I
+choose that because we both know that sector, but I could think of a
+hundred other examples in other paratime areas. Those people, because
+of deforestation, bad agricultural methods and general mismanagement,
+are eroding away their arable soil at an alarming rate. At the same
+time, they are breeding like rabbits. In other words, each successive
+generation has less and less food to divide among more and more
+people, and, for inherited traditional and superstitious reasons, they
+refuse to adopt any rational program of birth-control and
+population-limitation.
+
+“But, fortunately, they now have the atomic bomb, and they are
+developing radioactive poisons, weapons of mass-effect. 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. “It seems
+that my memory-recall technique is more explosive than any fission
+bomb. I’ve laid the train for a century-long reign of anarchy!”
+
+“I doubt that; I think Klarnood will take hold, now that he has
+committed himself to it. You know, in spite of his sanguinary
+profession, he’s the nearest thing to a real man of good will I’ve
+found on that sector. And here’s something else you haven’t
+considered. Our own First Level life expectancy is from four to five
+hundred years. That’s the main reason why we’ve accomplished as much
+as we have. We have, individually, time to accomplish things. On the
+Akor-Neb Sector, a scientist or artist or scholar or statesman will
+grow senile and die before he’s as old as either of us. But now, a
+young student of twenty or so can take one of your auto-recall
+treatments and immediately have available all the knowledge and
+experience gained in four or five previous lives. He can start where
+he left off in his last reincarnation. In other words, you’ve made
+those people time-binders, individually as well as racially. Isn’t
+that worth the temporary discarnation of a lot of ward-heelers and
+plug-uglies, or even a few decent types like Dirzed and Olirzon? If it
+isn’t, I don’t know what scales of values you’re using.”
+
+“Vall!” Dalla’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm. “I never thought of that!
+And you said, ‘temporary discarnation.’ That’s just what it is. Dirzed
+and Olirzon and the others aren’t dead; they’re just waiting,
+discarnate, between physical lives. You know, in the sacred writings
+of one of the Fourth Level peoples it is stated: ‘Death is the last
+enemy.’ By proving that death is just a cyclic condition of continued
+individual existence, these people have conquered their last enemy.”
+
+“Last enemy but one,” Verkan Vall corrected. “They still have one
+enemy to go, an enemy within themselves. Call it semantic confusion,
+or illogic, or incomprehension, or just plain stupidity. Like
+Klarnood, stymied by verbal objections to something labeled ‘political
+intervention.’ He’d never have consented to use the power of his
+Society if he hadn’t been shocked out of his inhibitions by that
+nuclear bomb. Or the Statisticalists, trying to create a classless
+order of society through a political program which would only result
+in universal servitude to an omnipotent government. Or the
+Volitionalist nobles, trying to preserve their hereditary feudal
+privileges, and now they can’t even agree on a definition of the term
+‘hereditary.’ Might they not recover all the silly prejudices of their
+past lives, along with the knowledge and wisdom?”
+
+“But ... I thought you said—” Dalla was puzzled, a little hurt.
+
+Verkan Vall’s arm squeezed around her waist, and he laughed
+comfortingly.
+
+“You see? Any sort of result is possible, good or bad. So don’t blame
+yourself in advance for something you can’t possibly estimate.” An
+idea occurred to him, and he straightened in the seat. “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.”
+
+They bent to light their cigarettes together at his lighter. When
+they raised their heads again and got the flame glare out of their
+eyes, the sky was purple-black, dusted with stars, and dead ahead,
+spilling up over the horizon, was a golden glow—the lights of
+Dhergabar and home.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST ENEMY ***
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Last Enemy, by Henry Beam Piper</title>
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+  <body>
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Last Enemy, by Henry Beam Piper, Illustrated
+by Miller</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Last Enemy</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry Beam Piper</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Miller</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 10, 2006  [eBook #18800]<br />
+[Most recently updated: November 3, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net/)
+<br />Revised by Richard Tonsing.</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST ENEMY ***</div>
+
+
+
+
+ <p class="tr">Transcriber’s Note:<br /><br />
+This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, August, 1950.
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this
+publication was renewed.</p>
+<p> </p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Frontispiece" width="600" height="417" /></p>
+<p> </p>
+
+
+<h1>LAST ENEMY</h1>
+<p> </p>
+<p> </p>
+
+<div class="ph2">BY H. BEAM PIPER</div>
+<p> </p>
+<p> </p>
+<p> </p>
+
+
+<div class="chapter"><h2><i>The last enemy was the toughest of all—and conquering him was
+in itself almost as dangerous as not conquering. For a strange pattern
+of beliefs can make assassination an honorable profession!</i></h2></div>
+<p> </p>
+<p> </p>
+<p> </p>
+
+<div class="ph2">Illustrated by Miller</div>
+<p> </p>
+<p> </p>
+<hr style="width:65%" />
+<p>Along the U-shaped table, the subdued clatter of dinnerware and the
+buzz of conversation was dying out; the soft music that drifted down
+from the overhead sound outlets seemed louder as the competing noises
+diminished. The feast was drawing to a close, and Dallona of Hadron
+fidgeted nervously with the stem of her wineglass as last-moment
+doubts assailed her.</p>
+
+<p>The old man at whose right she sat noticed, and reached out to lay his
+hand on hers.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear, you’re worried,” he said softly. “You, of all people,
+shouldn’t be, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>“The theory isn’t complete,” she replied. “And I could wish for more
+positive verification. I’d hate to think I’d got you into this—”</p>
+
+<p>Garnon of Roxor laughed. “No, no!” he assured her. “I’d decided upon
+this long before you announced the results of your experiments. Ask
+Girzon; he’ll bear me out.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s true,” the young man who sat at Garnon’s left said, leaning
+forward. “Father has meant to take this step for a long time. He was
+waiting until after the election, and then he decided to do it now, to
+give you an opportunity to make experimental use of it.”</p>
+
+<p>The man on Dallona’s right added his voice. Like the others at the
+table, he was of medium stature, brown-skinned and dark-eyed, with a
+wide mouth, prominent cheekbones and a short, square jaw. Unlike the
+others, he was armed, with a knife and pistol on his belt, and on the
+breast of his black tunic he wore a scarlet oval patch on which a pair
+of black wings, with a tapering silver object between them had been
+superimposed.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Lady Dallona; the Lord Garnon and I discussed this, oh, two
+years ago at the least. Really, I’m surprised that you seem to shrink
+from it, now. Of course, you’re Venus-born, and customs there may be
+different, but with your scientific knowledge—”</p>
+
+<p>“That may be the trouble, Dirzed,” Dallona told him. “A scientist gets
+in the way of doubting, and one doubts one’s own theories most of
+all.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s the scientific attitude, I’m told,” Dirzed replied, smiling.
+“But somehow, I cannot think of you as a scientist.” His eyes traveled
+over her in a way that would have made most women, scientists or
+otherwise, blush. It gave Dallona of Hadron a feeling of pleasure. Men
+often looked at her that way, especially here at Darsh. Novelty had
+something to do with it—her skin was considerably lighter than usual,
+and there was a pleasing oddness about the structure of her face. Her
+alleged Venusian origin was probably accepted as the explanation of
+that, as of so many other things.</p>
+
+<p>As she was about to reply, a man in dark gray, one of the
+upper-servants who were accepted as social equals by the Akor-Neb
+nobles, approached the table. He nodded respectfully to Garnon of
+Roxor.</p>
+
+<p>“I hate to seem to hurry things, sir, but the boy’s ready. He’s in a
+trance-state now,” he reported, pointing to the pair of visiplates at
+the end of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Both of the ten-foot-square plates were activated. One was a solid
+luminous white; on the other was the image of a boy of twelve or
+fourteen, seated at a big writing machine. Even allowing for the fact
+that the boy was in a hypnotic trance, there was an expression of
+idiocy on his loose-lipped, slack-jawed face, a pervading dullness.</p>
+
+<p>“One of our best sensitives,” a man with a beard, several places down
+the table on Dallona’s right, said. “You remember him, Dallona; he
+produced that communication from the discarnate Assassin, Sirzim.
+Normally, he’s a low-grade imbecile, but in trance-state he’s
+wonderful. And there can be no argument that the communications he
+produces originates in his own mind; he doesn’t have mind enough, of
+his own, to operate that machine.”</p>
+
+<p>Garnon of Roxor rose to his feet, the others rising with him. He
+unfastened a jewel from the front of his tunic and handed it to
+Dallona.</p>
+
+<p>“Here, my dear Lady Dallona; I want you to have this,” he said. “It’s
+been in the family of Roxor for six generations, but I know that you
+will appreciate and cherish it.” He twisted a heavy ring from his left
+hand and gave it to his son. He unstrapped his wrist watch and passed
+it across the table to the gray-clad upper-servant. He gave a pocket
+case, containing writing tools, slide rule and magnifier, to the
+bearded man on the other side of Dallona. “Something you can use, Dr.
+Harnosh,” he said. Then he took a belt, with a knife and holstered
+pistol, from a servant who had brought it to him, and gave it to the
+man with the red badge. “And something for you, Dirzed. The pistol’s
+by Farnor of Yand, and the knife was forged and tempered on Luna.”</p>
+
+<p>The man with the winged-bullet badge took the weapons, exclaiming in
+appreciation. Then he removed his own belt and buckled on the gift.</p>
+
+<p>“The pistol’s fully loaded,” Garnon told him.</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed drew it and checked—a man of his craft took no statement about
+weapons without verification—then slipped it back into the holster.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I use it?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“By all means; I’d had that in mind when I selected it for you.”</p>
+
+<p>Another man, to the left of Girzon, received a cigarette case and
+lighter. He and Garnon hooked fingers and clapped shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>“Our views haven’t been the same, Garnon,” he said, “but I’ve always
+valued your friendship. I’m sorry you’re doing this, now; I believe
+you’ll be disappointed.”</p>
+
+<p>Garnon chuckled. “Would you care to make a small wager on that,
+Nirzav?” he asked. “You know what I’m putting up. If I’m proven right,
+will you accept the Volitionalist theory as verified?”</p>
+
+<p>Nirzav chewed his mustache for a moment. “Yes, Garnon, I will.” He
+pointed toward the blankly white screen. “If we get anything
+conclusive on that, I’ll have no other choice.”</p>
+
+<p>“All right, friends,” Garnon said to those around him. “Will you walk
+with me to the end of the room?”</p>
+
+<p>Servants removed a section from the table in front of him, to allow
+him and a few others to pass through; the rest of the guests remained
+standing at the table, facing toward the inside of the room. Garnon’s
+son, Girzon, and the gray-mustached Nirzav of Shonna, walked on his
+left; Dallona of Hadron and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh on his right. The
+gray-clad upper-servant, and two or three ladies, and a nobleman with
+a small chin beard, and several others, joined them; of those who had
+sat close to Garnon, only the man in the black tunic with the scarlet
+badge hung back. He stood still, by the break in the table, watching
+Garnon of Roxor walk away from him. Then Dirzed the Assassin drew the
+pistol he had lately received as a gift, hefted it in his hand,
+thumbed off the safety, and aimed at the back of Garnon’s head.</p>
+
+<p>They had nearly reached the end of the room when the pistol cracked.
+Dallona of Hadron started, almost as though the bullet had crashed
+into her own body, then caught herself and kept on walking. She closed
+her eyes and laid a hand on Dr. Harnosh’s arm for guidance,
+concentrating her mind upon a single question. The others went on as
+though Garnon of Roxor were still walking among them.</p>
+
+<p>“Look!” Harnosh of Hosh cried, pointing to the image in the visiplate
+ahead. “He’s under control!”</p>
+
+<p>They all stopped short, and Dirzed, holstering his pistol, hurried
+forward to join them. Behind, a couple of servants had approached with
+a stretcher and were gathering up the crumpled figure that had, a
+moment ago, been Garnon.</p>
+
+<p>A change had come over the boy at the writing machine. His eyes were
+still glazed with the stupor of the hypnotic trance, but the slack jaw
+had stiffened, and the loose mouth was compressed in a purposeful
+line. As they watched, his hands went out to the keyboard in front of
+him and began to move over it, and as they did, letters appeared on
+the white screen on the left.</p>
+
+<p><i>Garnon of Roxor, discarnate, communicating</i>, they read. The machine
+stopped for a moment, then began again. <i>To Dallona of Hadron: The
+question you asked, after I discarnated, was: What was the last book I
+read, before the feast? While waiting for my valet to prepare my bath,
+I read the first ten verses of the fourth Canto of “Splendor of
+Space,” by Larnov of Horka, in my bedroom. When the bath was ready, I
+marked the page with a strip of message tape, containing a message
+from the bailiff of my estate on the Shevva River, concerning a
+breakdown at the power plant, and laid the book on the ivory-inlaid
+table beside the big red chair.</i></p>
+
+<p>Harnosh of Hosh looked at Dallona inquiringly; she nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“I rejected the question I had in my mind, and substituted that one,
+after the shot,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly to the upper-servant. “Check on that, right away,
+Kirzon,” he directed.</p>
+
+<p>As the upper-servant hurried out, the writing machine started again.</p>
+
+<p><i>And to my son, Girzon: I will not use your son, Garnon, as a
+reincarnation-vehicle; I will remain discarnate until he is grown and
+has a son of his own; if he has no male child, I will reincarnate in
+the first available male child of the family of Roxor, or of some
+family allied to us by marriage. In any case, I will communicate
+before reincarnating.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>To Nirzav of Shonna: Ten days ago, when I dined at your home, I took
+a small knife and cut three notches, two close together and one a
+little apart from the others, on the under side of the table. As I
+remember, I sat two places down on the left. If you find them, you
+will know that I have won that wager that I spoke of a few minutes
+ago.</i></p>
+
+<p>“I’ll have my butler check on that, right away,” Nirzav said. His eyes
+were wide with amazement, and he had begun to sweat; a man does not
+casually watch the beliefs of a lifetime invalidated in a few moments.</p>
+
+<p><i>To Dirzed the Assassin</i>: the machine continued. <i>You have served me
+faithfully, in the last ten years, never more so than with the last
+shot you fired in my service. After you fired, the thought was in your
+mind that you would like to take service with the Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, whom you believe will need the protection of a member of the
+Society of Assassins. I advise you to do so, and I advise her to
+accept your offer. Her work, since she has come to Darsh, has not made
+her popular in some quarters. No doubt Nirzav of Shonna can bear me
+out on that.</i></p>
+
+<p>“I won’t betray things told me in confidence, or said at the Councils
+of the Statisticalists, but he’s right,” Nirzav said. “You need a good
+Assassin, and there are few better than Dirzed.”</p>
+
+<p><i>I see that this sensitive is growing weary</i>, the letters on the
+screen spelled out. <i>His body is not strong enough for prolonged
+communication. I bid you all farewell, for the time; I will
+communicate again. Good evening, my friends, and I thank you for your
+presence at the feast.</i></p>
+
+<p>The boy, on the other screen, slumped back in his chair, his face
+relaxing into its customary expression of vacancy.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you accept my offer of service, Lady Dallona?” Dirzed asked.
+“It’s as Garnon said; you’ve made enemies.”</p>
+
+<p>Dallona smiled at him. “I’ve not been too deep in my work to know
+that. I’m glad to accept your offer, Dirzed.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Nirzav of Shonna had already turned away from the group and was
+hurrying from the room, to call his home for confirmation on the
+notches made on the underside of his dining table. As he went out the
+door, he almost collided with the upper-servant, who was rushing in
+with a book in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Here it is,” the latter exclaimed, holding up the book. “Larnov’s
+‘Splendor of Space,’ just where he said it would be. I had a couple of
+servants with me as witnesses; I can call them in now, if you wish.”
+He handed the book to Harnosh of Hosh. “See, a strip of message tape
+in it, at the tenth verse of the Fourth Canto.”</p>
+
+<p>Nirzav of Shonna re-entered the room; he was chewing his mustache and
+muttering to himself. As he rejoined the group in front of the now
+dark visiplates, he raised his voice, addressing them all generally.</p>
+
+<p>“My butler found the notches, just as the communication described,” he
+said. “This settles it! Garnon, if you’re where you can hear me,
+you’ve won. I can’t believe in the Statisticalist doctrines after
+this, or in the political program based upon them. I’ll announce my
+change of attitude at the next meeting of the Executive Council, and
+resign my seat. I was elected by Statisticalist votes, and I cannot
+hold office as a Volitionalist.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll need a couple of Assassins, too,” the nobleman with the
+chin beard told him. “Your former colleagues and fellow-party-members
+are regrettably given to the forcible discarnation of those who differ
+with them.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve never employed personal Assassins before,” Nirzav replied, “but
+I think you’re right. As soon as I get home, I’ll call Assassins’ Hall
+and make the necessary arrangements.”</p>
+
+<p>“Better do it now,” Girzon of Roxor told him, lowering his voice.
+“There are over a hundred guests here, and I can’t vouch for all of
+them. The Statisticalists would be sure to have a spy planted among
+them. My father was one of their most dangerous opponents, when he was
+on the Council; they’ve always been afraid he’d come out of retirement
+and stand for re-election. They’d want to make sure he was really
+discarnate. And if that’s the case, you can be sure your change of
+attitude is known to old Mirzark of Bashad by this time. He won’t dare
+allow you to make a public renunciation of Statisticalism.” He turned
+to the other nobleman. “Prince Jirzyn, why don’t you call the
+Volitionist headquarters and have a couple of our Assassins sent here
+to escort Lord Nirzav home?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll do that immediately,” Jirzyn of Starpha said. “It’s as Lord
+Girzon says; we can be pretty sure there was a spy among the guests,
+and now that you’ve come over to our way of thinking, we’re
+responsible for your safety.”</p>
+
+<p>He left the room to make the necessary visiphone call. Dallona,
+accompanied by Dirzed, returned to her place at the table, where she
+was joined by Harnosh of Hosh and some of the others.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s no question about the results,” Harnosh was exulting. “I’ll
+grant that the boy might have picked up some of that stuff
+telepathically from the carnate minds present here; even from the mind
+of Garnon, before he was discarnated. But he could not have picked up
+enough data, in that way, to make a connected and coherent
+communication. It takes a sensitive with a powerful mind of his own to
+practice telesthesia, and that boy’s almost an idiot.” He turned to
+Dallona. “You asked a question, mentally, after Garnon was
+discarnate, and got an answer that could have been contained only in
+Garnon’s mind. I think it’s conclusive proof that the discarnate
+Garnon was fully conscious and communicating.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dirzed also asked a question, mentally, after the discarnation, and
+got an answer. Dr. Harnosh, we can state positively that the surviving
+individuality is fully conscious in the discarnate state, is
+telepathically sensitive, and is capable of telepathic communication
+with other minds,” Dallona agreed. “And in view of our earlier work
+with memory-recalls, we’re justified in stating positively that the
+individual is capable of exercising choice in reincarnation vehicles.”</p>
+
+<p>“My father had been considering voluntary discarnation for a long
+time,” Girzon of Roxor said. “Ever since the discarnation of my
+mother. He deferred that step because he was unwilling to deprive the
+Volitionalist Party of his support. Now it would seem that he has done
+more to combat Statisticalism by discarnating than he ever did in his
+carnate existence.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know, Girzon,” Jirzyn of Starpha said, as he joined the
+group. “The Statisticalists will denounce the whole thing as a
+prearranged fraud. And if they can discarnate the Lady Dallona before
+she can record her testimony under truth hypnosis or on a lie
+detector, we’re no better off than we were before. Dirzed, you have a
+great responsibility in guarding the Lady Dallona; some extraordinary
+security precautions will be needed.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In his office, in the First Level city of Dhergabar, Tortha Karf,
+Chief of Paratime Police, leaned forward in his chair to hold his
+lighter for his special assistant, Verkan Vall, then lit his own
+cigarette. 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.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you know about the Second Level Akor-Neb Sector, Vall?” he
+inquired. “Ever work in that paratime-area?”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall’s handsome features became even more immobile than usual
+as he mentally pronounced the verbal trigger symbols which should
+bring hypnotically acquired knowledge into his conscious mind. Then he
+shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“Must be a singularly well-behaved sector, sir,” he said. “Or else
+we’ve been lucky, so far. I never was on an Akor-Neb operation; don’t
+even have a hypno-mech for that sector. All I know is from general
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>“Like all the Second Level, its time-lines descend from the
+probability of one or more shiploads of colonists having come to Terra
+from Mars about seventy-five to a hundred thousand years ago, and then
+having been cut off from the home planet and forced to develop a
+civilization of their own here. The Akor-Neb civilization is of a
+fairly high culture-order, even for Second Level. An atomic-power,
+interplanetary culture; gravity-counteraction, direct conversion of
+nuclear energy to electrical power, that sort of thing. We buy fine
+synthetic plastics and fabrics from them.” He fingered the material of
+his smartly-cut green police uniform. “I think this cloth is Akor-Neb.
+We sell a lot of Venusian <i>zerfa</i>-leaf; they smoke it, straight and
+mixed with tobacco. They have a single System-wide government, a
+single race, and a universal language. They’re a dark-brown race,
+which evolved in its present form about fifty thousand years ago; the
+present civilization is about ten thousand years old, developed out of
+the wreckage of several earlier civilizations which decayed or fell
+through wars, exhaustion of resources, et cetera. They have legends,
+maybe historical records, of their extraterrestrial origin.”</p>
+
+<p>Tortha Karf nodded. “Pretty good, for consciously acquired knowledge,”
+he commented. “Well, our luck’s run out, on that sector; we have
+troubles there, now. I want you to go iron them out. I know, you’ve
+been going pretty hard, lately—that night-hound business, on the
+Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, wasn’t any picnic. But the fact
+is that a lot of my ordinary and deputy assistants have a little too
+much regard for the alleged sanctity of human life, and this is
+something that may need some pretty drastic action.”</p>
+
+<p>“Some of our people getting out of line?” Verkan Vall asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, the data isn’t too complete, but one of our people has run into
+trouble on that sector, and needs rescuing—a psychic-science
+researcher, a young lady named Hadron Dalla. I believe you know her,
+don’t you?” Tortha Karf asked innocently.</p>
+
+<p>“Slightly,” Verkan Vall deadpanned. “I enjoyed a brief but rather
+hectic companionate-marriage with her, about twenty years ago. What
+sort of a jam’s little Dalla got herself into, now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, frankly, we don’t know. I hope she’s still alive, but I’m not
+unduly optimistic. It seems that about a year ago, Dr. Hadron
+transposed to the Second Level, to study alleged proof of
+reincarnation which the Akor-Neb people were reported to possess. She
+went to Gindrabar, on Venus, and transposed to the Second Paratime
+Level, to a station maintained by Outtime Import &amp; Export Trading
+Corporation—a <i>zerfa</i> plantation just east of the High Ridge country.
+There she assumed an identity as the daughter of a planter, and took
+the name of Dallona of Hadron. Parenthetically, all Akor-Neb
+family-names are prepositional; family-names were originally place
+names. I believe that ancient Akor-Neb marital relations were too
+complicated to permit exact establishment of paternity. And all
+Akor-Neb men’s personal names have -<i>irz</i>- or -<i>arn</i>- inserted in the
+middle, and women’s names end in -<i>itra</i>- or -<i>ona</i>. You could call
+yourself Virzal of Verkan, for instance.</p>
+
+<div class="figright"><img src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="300" height="838" /></div>
+
+<p>“Anyhow, she made the Second Level Venus-Terra trip on a regular
+passenger liner, and landed at the Akor-Neb city of Ghamma, on the
+upper Nile. There she established contact with the Outtime Trading
+Corporation representative, Zortan Brend, locally known as Brarnend of
+Zorda. He couldn’t call himself Brarnend of Zortan—in the Akor-Neb
+language, <i>zortan</i> is a particularly nasty dirty-word. Hadron Dalla
+spent a few weeks at his residence, briefing herself on local
+conditions. Then she went to the capital city, Darsh, in eastern
+Europe, and enrolled as a student at something called the Independent
+Institute for Reincarnation Research, having secured a letter of
+introduction to its director, a Dr. Harnosh of Hosh.</p>
+
+<p>“Almost at once, she began sending in reports to her home
+organization, the Rhogom Memorial Foundation of Psychic Science, here
+at Dhergabar, through Zortan Brend. The people there were wildly
+enthusiastic. I don’t have more than the average intelligent—I
+hope—layman’s knowledge of psychics, but Dr. Volzar Darv, the
+director of Rhogom Foundation, tells me that even in the present
+incomplete form, her reports have opened whole new horizons in the
+science. It seems that these Akor-Neb people have actually
+demonstrated, as a scientific fact, that the human individuality
+reincarnates after physical death—that your personality, and mine,
+have existed, as such, for ages, and will exist for ages to come.
+More, they have means of recovering, from almost anybody, memories of
+past reincarnations.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>“Well, after about a month, the people at this Reincarnation Institute
+realized that this Dallona of Hadron wasn’t any ordinary student. She
+probably had trouble keeping down to the local level of psychic
+knowledge. So, as soon as she’d learned their techniques, she was
+allowed to undertake experimental work of her own. I imagine she let
+herself out on that; as soon as she’d mastered the standard Akor-Neb
+methods of recovering memories of past reincarnations, she began
+refining and developing them more than the local yokels had been able
+to do in the past thousand years. I can’t tell you just what she did,
+because I don’t know the subject, but she must have lit things up
+properly. She got quite a lot of local publicity; not only scientific
+journals, but general newscasts.</p>
+
+<p>“Then, four days ago, she disappeared, and her disappearance seems to
+have been coincident with an unsuccessful attempt on her life. We
+don’t know as much about this as we should; all we have is Zortan
+Brend’s account.</p>
+
+<p>“It seems that on the evening of her disappearance, she had been
+attending the voluntary discarnation feast—suicide party—of a
+prominent nobleman named Garnon of Roxor. Evidently when the Akor-Neb
+people get tired of their current reincarnation they invite in their
+friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere
+of general conviviality. Frequently they take poison or inhale lethal
+gas; this fellow had his personal trigger man shoot him through the
+head. Dalla was one of the guests of honor, along with this Harnosh of
+Hosh. They’d made rather elaborate preparations, and after the
+shooting they got a detailed and apparently authentic
+spirit-communication from the late Garnon. The voluntary discarnation
+was just a routine social event, it seems, but the communication
+caused quite an uproar, and rated top place on the System-wide
+newscasts, and started a storm of controversy.</p>
+
+<p>“After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating
+gun artist, one Dirzed, into her own service. This Dirzed was spoken
+of as a generally respected member of something called the Society of
+Assassins, and that’ll give you an idea of what things are like on
+that sector, and why I don’t want to send anybody who might develop
+trigger-finger cramp at the wrong moment. She and Dirzed left the home
+of the gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for
+Dalla’s apartment, about a hundred miles away. That’s the last that’s
+been heard of either of them.</p>
+
+<p>“This attempt on Dalla’s life occurred while the pre-mortem revels
+were still going on. She lived in a six-room apartment, with three
+servants, on one of the upper floors of a three-thousand-foot
+tower—Akor-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable
+interval between units—and while she was at this feast, a package was
+delivered at the apartment, ostensibly from the Reincarnation
+Institute and made up to look as though it contained record tapes. One
+of the servants accepted it from a service employee of the apartments.
+The next morning, a little before noon, Dr. Harnosh of Hosh called her
+on the visiphone and got no answer; he then called the apartment
+manager, who entered the apartment. He found all three of the servants
+dead, from a lethal-gas bomb which had exploded when one of them had
+opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the
+apartment, the night before.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless as he ran
+Tortha Karf’s narrative through the intricate semantic and
+psychological processes of the First Level mentality. The fact that
+Hadron Dalla had been a former wife of his had been relegated to one
+corner of his consciousness and contained there; it was not a fact
+that would, at the moment, contribute to the problem or to his
+treatment of it.</p>
+
+<p>“The package was delivered while she was at this suicide party,” he
+considered. “It must, therefore, have been sent by somebody who either
+did not know she would be out of the apartment, or who did not expect
+it to function until after her return. On the other hand, if her
+disappearance was due to hostile action, it was the work of somebody
+who knew she was at the feast and did not want her to reach her
+apartment again. This would seem to exclude the sender of the package
+bomb.”</p>
+
+<p>Tortha Karf nodded. He had reached that conclusion, himself.</p>
+
+<p>“Thus,” Verkan Vall continued, “if her disappearance was the work of
+an enemy, she must have two enemies, each working in ignorance of the
+other’s plans.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think she did to provoke such enmity?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, of course, it just might be that Dalla’s normally complicated
+love-life had got a little more complicated than usual and
+short-circuited on her,” Verkan Vall said, out of the fullness of
+personal knowledge, “but I doubt that, at the moment. I would think
+that this affair has political implications.”</p>
+
+<p>“So?” Tortha Karf had not thought of politics as an explanation. He
+waited for Verkan Vall to elaborate.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you see, chief?” the special assistant asked. “We find a belief
+in reincarnation on many time-lines, as a religious doctrine, but
+these people accept it as a scientific fact. Such acceptance would
+carry much more conviction; it would influence a people’s entire
+thinking. We see it reflected in their disregard for death—suicide as
+a social function, this Society of Assassins, and the like. It would
+naturally color their political thinking, because politics is nothing
+but common action to secure more favorable living conditions, and to
+these people, the term ‘living conditions’ includes not only the
+present life, but also an indefinite number of future lives as well. I
+find this title, ‘Independent’ Institute, suggestive. Independent of
+what? Possibly of partisan affiliation.”</p>
+
+<p>“But wouldn’t these people be grateful to her for her new discoveries,
+which would enable them to plan their future reincarnations more
+intelligently?” Tortha Karf asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, chief!” Verkan Vall reproached. “You know better than that! How
+many times have our people got in trouble on other time-lines because
+they divulged some useful scientific fact that conflicted with the
+locally revered nonsense? You show me ten men who cherish some
+religious doctrine or political ideology, and I’ll show you nine men
+whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which
+contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such
+evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. For instance, on
+the Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, where I was just working,
+there is a political sect, the Communists, who, in the territory under
+their control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established facts
+of genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit the
+world-picture demanded by their political doctrines. And on the same
+sector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sections
+successfully, to outlaw the teaching of evolution by natural
+selection.”</p>
+
+<p>Tortha Karf nodded. “I remember some stories my grandfather told me,
+about his narrow escapes from an organization called the Holy
+Inquisition, when he was a paratime trader on the Fourth Level, about
+four hundred years ago. I believe that thing’s still operating, on the
+Europo-American Sector, under the name of the NKVD. So you think Dalla
+may have proven something that conflicted with local reincarnation
+theories, and somebody who had a vested interest in maintaining those
+theories is trying to stop her?”</p>
+
+<p>“You spoke of a controversy over the communication alleged to have
+originated with this voluntarily discarnated nobleman. That would
+suggest a difference of opinion on the manner of nature of
+reincarnation or the discarnate state. This difference may mark the
+dividing line between the different political parties. Now, to get to
+this Darsh place, do I have to go to Venus, as Dalla did?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. The Outtime Trading Corporation has transposition facilities at
+Ravvanan, on the Nile, which is spatially co-existent with the city of
+Ghamma on the Akor-Neb Sector, where Zortan Brend is. You transpose
+through there, and Zortan Brend will furnish you transportation to
+Darsh. It’ll take you about two days, here, getting your hypno-mech
+indoctrinations and having your skin pigmented, and your hair turned
+black. I’ll notify Zortan Brend at once that you’re coming through.
+Is there anything special you’ll want?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, I’ll want an abstract of the reports Dalla sent back to Rhogom
+Foundation. It’s likely that there is some clue among them as to whom
+her discoveries may have antagonized. I’m going to be a Venusian
+<i>zerfa</i>-planter, a friend of her father’s; I’ll want full hypno-mech
+indoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I’ll want to
+familiarize myself with Akor-Neb weapons and combat techniques. I
+think that will be all, chief.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The last of the tall city units of Ghamma were sliding out of sight as
+the ship passed over them—shaft-like buildings that rose two or three
+thousand feet above the ground in clumps of three or four or six, one
+at each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Each
+of these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five miles
+square; no unit was much more or less than twenty miles from its
+nearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden-brown of
+ripening grain, crisscrossed with the threads of irrigation canals and
+dotted here and there with sturdy farm-village buildings and tall,
+stack-like granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at the
+fifty-thousand-foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats darted
+back and forth on different levels, depending upon speed and
+direction. Far ahead, to the northeast, was the shimmer of the Red Sea
+and the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall—the Lord Virzal of Verkan, temporarily—stood at the
+glass front of the observation deck, looking down. He was a different
+Verkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in the
+latter’s office, two days before. The First Level cosmeticists had
+worked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a soft
+chocolate-brown, now; his hair was jet-black, and so were his eyes.
+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.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that he was looking down upon one of the minor provincial
+cities of a very respectably advanced civilization. A civilization
+which built its cities vertically, since it had learned to counteract
+gravitation. A civilization which still depended upon natural cereals
+for food, but one which had learned to make the most efficient use of
+its soil. The network of dams and irrigation canals which he saw was
+as good as anything on his own paratime level. The wide dispersal of
+buildings, he knew, was a heritage of a series of disastrous atomic
+wars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come to
+love the wide inter-vistas of open country and forest, and had
+continued to scatter their buildings, even after the necessity had
+passed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been reared
+by a people who had banished nationalism and, with it, the threat of
+total war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities of
+the Khiftan civilization, only a few thousand para-years distant.</p>
+
+<p>Three men came out of the lounge behind him and joined him. 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. Unlike Verkan
+Vall and Zortan Brend, who wore shoulder holsters under their short
+tunics, the Assassins openly displayed pistols and knives on their
+belts.</p>
+
+<p>“We heard that you were coming two days ago, Lord Virzal,” Zortan
+Brend said. “We delayed the take-off of this ship, so that you could
+travel to Darsh as inconspicuously as possible. I also booked a suite
+for you at the Solar Hotel, at Darsh. And these are your
+Assassins—Olirzon, and Marnik.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them.</p>
+
+<p>“Virzal of Verkan,” he identified himself. “I am satisfied to intrust
+myself to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll do our best for you, Lord Virzal,” the older of the pair,
+Olirzon, said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued: “Understand,
+Lord Virzal, I only ask for information useful in serving and
+protecting you. But is this of the Lady Dallona a political matter?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not from our side,” Verkan Vall told him. “The Lady Dallona is a
+scientist, entirely nonpolitical. The Honorable Brarnend is a business
+man; he doesn’t meddle with politics as long as the politicians leave
+him alone. And I’m a planter on Venus; I have enough troubles, with
+the natives, and the weather, and blue-rot in the <i>zerfa</i> plants, and
+poison roaches, and javelin bugs, without getting into politics. But
+psychic science is inextricably mixed with politics, and the Lady
+Dallona’s work had evidently tended to discredit the theory of
+Statistical Reincarnation.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Virzal?” Olirzon
+grinned. “In the last six months, she’s knocked Statistical
+Reincarnation to splinters.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’m not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don’t know much
+about Terran politics,” Verkan Vall replied. “I know that the
+Statisticalists favor complete socialization and political control of
+the whole economy, because they want everybody to have the same
+opportunities in every reincarnation. And the Volitionalists believe
+that everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favor
+continuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth and
+private profit under a system of free competition. And that’s about
+all I do know. Naturally, as a land-owner and the holder of a title of
+nobility, I’m a Volitionalist in politics, but the socialization
+issue isn’t important on Venus. There is still too much unseated land
+there, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialism
+attractive to anybody.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that’s about it,” Zortan Brend told him. “I’m not enough of a
+psychicist to know what the Lady Dallona’s been doing, but she’s
+knocked the theoretical basis from under Statistical Reincarnation,
+and that’s the basis, in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we’ll
+find that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whatever
+happened to her.”</p>
+
+<p>Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, then
+addressed Verkan Vall:</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Virzal, I know none of the personalities involved in this
+matter, and I speak without wishing to give offense, but is it not
+possible that the Lady Dallona and the Assassin Dirzed may have gone
+somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and he has many
+qualities which women find attractive, and he is by no means
+indifferent to the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Virzal—”</p>
+
+<p>“I understand all too perfectly, Marnik,” Verkan Vall replied, out of
+the fullness of experience. “The Lady Dallona has had affairs with a
+number of men, myself among them. But under the circumstances, I find
+that explanation unthinkable.”</p>
+
+<p>Marnik looked at him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where
+an attractive man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that
+explanation was never unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p>“The Lady Dallona is a scientist,” Verkan Vall elaborated. “She is not
+above diverting herself with love affairs, but that’s all they are—a
+not too important form of diversion. And, if you recall, she had just
+participated in a most significant experiment: you can be sure that
+she had other things on her mind at the time than pleasure jaunts with
+good-looking Assassins.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The ship was passing around the Caucasus Mountains, with the Caspian
+Sea in sight ahead, when several of the crew appeared on the
+observation deck and began preparing the shielding to protect the deck
+from gunfire. Zortan Brend inquired of the petty officer in charge of
+the work as to the necessity.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ve been getting reports of trouble at Darsh, sir,” the man said.
+“Newscast bulletins every couple of minutes: rioting in different
+parts of the city. Started yesterday afternoon, when a couple of
+Statisticalist members of the Executive Council resigned and went over
+to the Volitionalists. Lord Nirzav of Shonna, the only nobleman of any
+importance in the Statisticalist Party, was one of them; he was shot
+immediately afterward, while leaving the Council Chambers, along with
+a couple of Assassins who were with him. Some people in an airboat
+sprayed them with a machine rifle as they came out onto the landing
+stage.”</p>
+
+<p>The two Assassins exclaimed in horrified anger over this.</p>
+
+<p>“That wasn’t the work of members of the Society of Assassins!” Olirzon
+declared. “Even after he’d resigned, the Lord Nirzav was still immune
+till he left the Government Building. There’s too blasted much illegal
+assassination going on!”</p>
+
+<p>“What happened next?” Verkan Vall wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>“About what you’d expect, sir. The Volitionalists weren’t going to
+take that quietly. In the past eighteen hours, four prominent
+Statisticalists were forcibly discarnated, and there was even a fight
+in Mirzark of Bashad’s house, when Volitionalist Assassins broke in;
+three of them and four of Mirzark’s Assassins were discarnated.”</p>
+
+<p>“You know, something is going to have to be done about that, too,”
+Olirzon said to Marnik. “It’s getting to a point where these political
+faction fights are being carried on entirely between members of the
+Society. In Ghamma alone, last year, thirty or forty of our members
+were discarnated that way.”</p>
+
+<p>“Plug in a newscast visiplate, Karnil,” Zortan Brend told the petty
+officer. “Let’s see what’s going on in Darsh now.”</p>
+
+<p>In Darsh, it seemed, an uneasy peace was being established. Verkan
+Vall watched heavily-armed airboats and light combat ships patrolling
+among the high towers of the city. He saw a couple of minor riots
+being broken up by the blue-uniformed Constabulary, with considerable
+shooting and a ruthless disregard for who might get shot. It wasn’t
+exactly the sort of policing that would have been tolerated in the
+First Level Civil Order Section, but it seemed to suit Akor-Neb
+conditions. And he listened to a series of angry recriminations and
+contradictory statements by different politicians, all of whom blamed
+the disorders on their opponents. The Volitionalists spoke of the
+Statisticalists as “insane criminals” and “underminers of social
+stability,” and the Statisticalists called the Volitionalists
+“reactionary criminals” and “enemies of social progress.” Politicians,
+he had observed, differed little in their vocabularies from one
+time-line to another.</p>
+
+<p>This kept up all the while the ship was passing over the Caspian Sea;
+as they were turning up the Volga valley, one of the ship’s officers
+came down from the control deck, above.</p>
+
+<p>“We’re coming into Darsh, now,” he said, and as Verkan Vall turned
+from the visiplate to the forward windows, he could see the white and
+pastel-tinted towers of the city rising above the hardwood forests
+that covered the whole Volga basin on this sector. “Your luggage has
+been put into the airboat, Lord Virzal and Honorable Assassins, and
+it’s ready for launching whenever you are.” The officer glanced at his
+watch. “We dock at Commercial Center in twenty minutes; we’ll be
+passing the Solar Hotel in ten.”</p>
+
+<p>They all rose, and Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders
+with Zortan Brend.</p>
+
+<p>“Good luck, Lord Virzal,” the latter said. “I hope you find the Lady
+Dallona safe and carnate. If you need help, I’ll be at Mercantile
+House for the next day or so; if you get back to Ghamma before I do,
+you know who to ask for there.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A number of assassins loitered in the hallways and offices of the
+Independent Institute of Reincarnation Research when Verkan Vall,
+accompanied by Marnik, called there that afternoon. Some of them
+carried submachine-guns or sleep-gas projectors, and they were
+stopping people and questioning them. Marnik needed only to give them
+a quick gesture and the words, “Assassins’ Truce,” and he and his
+client were allowed to pass. They entered a lifter tube and floated up
+to the office of Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, with whom Verkan Vall had made
+an appointment.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry, Lord Virzal,” the director of the Institute told him, “but
+I have no idea what has befallen the Lady Dallona, or even if she is
+still carnate. I am quite worried; I admired her extremely, both as an
+individual and as a scientist. I do hope she hasn’t been discarnated;
+that would be a serious blow to science. It is fortunate that she
+accomplished as much as she did, while she was with us.”</p>
+
+<p>“You think she is no longer carnate, then?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid so. The political effects of her discoveries—” Harnosh of
+Hosh shrugged sadly. “She was devoted, to a rare degree, to her work.
+I am sure that nothing but her discarnation could have taken her away
+from us, at this time, with so many important experiments still
+uncompleted.”</p>
+
+<p>Marnik nodded to Verkan Vall, as much as to say: “You were right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I intend acting upon the assumption that she is still carnate
+and in need of help, until I am positive to the contrary,” Verkan Vall
+said. “And in the latter case, I intend finding out who discarnated
+her, and send him to apologize for it in person. People don’t forcibly
+discarnate my friends with impunity.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sound attitude,” Dr. Harnosh commented. “There’s certainly no
+positive evidence that she isn’t still carnate. I’ll gladly give you
+all the assistance I can, if you’ll only tell me what you want.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, in the first place,” Verkan Vall began, “just what sort of work
+was she doing?” He already knew the answer to that, from the reports
+she had sent back to the First Level, but he wanted to hear Dr.
+Harnosh’s version. “And what, exactly, are the political effects you
+mentioned? Understand, Dr. Harnosh, I am really quite ignorant of any
+scientific subject unrelated to <i>zerfa</i> culture, and equally so of
+Terran politics. Politics, on Venus, is mainly a question of who gets
+how much graft out of what.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harnosh smiled; evidently he had heard about Venusian politics.
+“Ah, yes, of course. But you are familiar with the main differences
+between Statistical and Volitional reincarnation theories?”</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_03.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="500" height="513" /></p>
+
+<p>“In a general way. The Volitionalists hold that the discarnate
+individuality is fully conscious, and is capable of something
+analogous to sense-perception, and is also capable of exercising
+choice in the matter of reincarnation vehicles, and can reincarnate or
+remain in the discarnate state as it chooses. They also believe that
+discarnate individualities can communicate with one another, and with
+at least some carnate individualities, by telepathy,” he said. “The
+Statisticalists deny all this; their opinion is that the discarnate
+individuality is in a more or less somnambulistic state, that it is
+drawn by a process akin to tropism to the nearest available
+reincarnation vehicle, and that it must reincarnate in and only in
+that vehicle. They are labeled Statisticalists because they believe
+that the process of reincarnation is purely at random, or governed by
+unknown and uncontrollable causes, and is unpredictable except as to
+aggregates.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s a fairly good generalized summary,” Dr. Harnosh of Hosh
+grudged, unwilling to give a mere layman too much credit. He dipped a
+spoon into a tobacco humidor, dusted the tobacco lightly with dried
+<i>zerfa</i>, and rammed it into his pipe. “You must understand that our
+modern Statisticalists are the intellectual heirs of those ancient
+materialistic thinkers who denied the possibility of any discarnate
+existence, or of any extraphysical mind, or even of extrasensory
+perception. Since all these things have been demonstrated to be facts,
+the materialistic dogma has been broadened to include them, but always
+strictly within the frame of materialism.</p>
+
+<p>“We have proven, for instance, that the human individuality can exist
+in a discarnate state, and that it reincarnates into the body of an
+infant, shortly after birth. But the Statisticalists cannot accept the
+idea of discarnate consciousness, since they conceive of consciousness
+purely as a function of the physical brain. So they postulate an
+unconscious discarnate personality, or, as you put it, one in a
+somnambulistic state. They have to concede memory to this discarnate
+personality, since it was by recovery of memories of previous
+reincarnations that discarnate existence and reincarnation were proven
+to be facts. So they picture the discarnate individuality as a
+material object, or physical event, of negligible but actual mass, in
+which an indefinite number of memories can be stored as electronic
+charges. And they picture it as being drawn irresistibly to the body
+of the nearest non-incarnated infant. Curiously enough, the
+reincarnation vehicle chosen is almost always of the same sex as the
+vehicle of the previous reincarnation, the exceptions being cases of
+persons who had a previous history of psychological sex-inversion.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harnosh remembered the unlighted pipe in his hand, thrust it into
+his mouth, and lit it. For a moment, he sat with it jutting out of his
+black beard, until it was drawing to his satisfaction. “This belief in
+immediate reincarnation leads the Statisticalists, when they fight
+duels or perform voluntary discarnation, to do so in the neighborhood
+of maternity hospitals,” he added. “I know, personally, of one
+reincarnation memory-recall, in which the subject, a Statisticalist,
+voluntarily discarnated by lethal-gas inhaler in a private room at one
+of our local maternity hospitals, and reincarnated twenty years later
+in the city of Jeddul, three thousand miles away.” The square black
+beard jiggled as the scientist laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, as to the political implications of these contradictory
+theories: Since the Statisticalists believe that they will reincarnate
+entirely at random, their aim is to create an utterly classless social
+and economic order, in which, theoretically, each individuality will
+reincarnate into a condition of equality with everybody else. Their
+political program, therefore, is one of complete socialization of all
+means of production and distribution, abolition of hereditary titles
+and inherited wealth—eventually, all private wealth—and total
+government control of all economic, social and cultural activities. Of
+course,” Dr. Harnosh apologized, “politics isn’t my subject; I
+wouldn’t presume to judge how that would function in practice.”</p>
+
+<p>“I would,” Verkan Vall said shortly, thinking of all the different
+time-lines on which he had seen systems like that in operation. “You
+wouldn’t like it, doctor. And the Volitionalists?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, since they believe that they are able to choose the
+circumstances of their next reincarnations for themselves, they are
+the party of the <i>status quo</i>. Naturally, almost all the nobles,
+almost all the wealthy trading and manufacturing families, and almost
+all professional people, are Volitionalists; most of the workers and
+peasants are Statisticalists. Or, at least, they were, for the most
+part, before we began announcing the results of the Lady Dallona’s
+experimental work.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah; now we come to it,” Verkan Vall said as the story clarified.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. In somewhat oversimplified form, the situation is rather like
+this,” Dr. Harnosh of Hosh said. “The Lady Dallona introduced a number
+of refinements and some outright innovations into our technique of
+recovering memories of past reincarnations. Previously, it was
+necessary to keep the subject in an hypnotic trance, during which he
+or she would narrate what was remembered of past reincarnations, and
+this would be recorded. On emerging from the trance, the subject would
+remember nothing; the tape-recording would be all that would be left.
+But the Lady Dallona devised a technique by which these memories would
+remain in what might be called the fore part of the subject’s
+subconscious mind, so that they could be brought to the level of
+consciousness at will. More, she was able to recover memories of past
+discarnate existences, something we had never been able to do
+heretofore.” Dr. Harnosh shook his head. “And to think, when I first
+met her, I thought that she was just another sensation-seeking young
+lady of wealth, and was almost about to refuse her enrollment!”</p>
+
+<p>He wasn’t the only one whom little Dalla had surprised, Verkan Vall
+thought. At least, he had been pleasantly surprised.</p>
+
+<p>“You see, this entirely disproves the Statistical Theory of
+Reincarnation. For example, we got a fine set of memory-recalls from
+one subject, for four previous reincarnations and four
+inter-carnations. In the first of these, the subject had been a peasant
+on the estate of a wealthy noble. Unlike most of his fellows, who
+reincarnated into other peasant families almost immediately after
+discarnation, this man waited for fifty years in the discarnate state
+for an opportunity to reincarnate as the son of an over-servant. In
+his next reincarnation, he was the son of a technician, and received a
+technical education; he became a physics researcher. For his next
+reincarnation, he chose the son of a nobleman by a concubine as his
+vehicle; in his present reincarnation, he is a member of a wealthy
+manufacturing family, and married into a family of the nobility. In
+five reincarnations, he has climbed from the lowest to the
+next-to-highest rung of the social ladder. Few individuals of the
+class from whence he began this ascent possess so much persistence or
+determination. Then, of course, there was the case of Lord Garnon of
+Roxor.”</p>
+
+<p>He went on to describe the last experiment in which Hadron Dalla had
+participated.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that all sounds pretty conclusive,” Verkan Vall commented. “I
+take it the leaders of the Volitionalist Party here are pleased with
+the result of the Lady Dallona’s work?”</p>
+
+<p>“Pleased? My dear Lord Virzal, they’re fairly bursting with glee over
+it!” Harnosh of Hosh declared. “As I pointed out, the Statisticalist
+program of socialization is based entirely on the proposition that no
+one can choose the circumstances of his next reincarnation, and that’s
+been demonstrated to be utter nonsense. Until the Lady Dallona’s
+discoveries were announced, they were the dominant party, controlling
+a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the Executive Council.
+Only the Constitution kept them from enacting their entire
+socialization program long ago, and they were about to legislate
+constitutional changes which would remove that barrier. They had
+expected to be able to do so after the forthcoming general elections.
+But now, social inequality has become desirable: it gives people
+something to look forward to in the next reincarnation. Instead of
+wanting to abolish wealth and privilege and nobility, the proletariat
+want to reincarnate into them.” Harnosh of Hosh laughed happily. “So
+you can see how furious the Statisticalist Party organization is!”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s a catch to this, somewhere,” Marnik the Assassin, speaking
+for the first time, declared. “They can’t all reincarnate as princes,
+there aren’t enough vacancies to go ’round. And no noble is going to
+reincarnate as a tractor driver to make room for a tractor driver who
+wants to reincarnate as a noble.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s correct,” Dr. Harnosh replied. “There is a catch to it; a
+catch most people would never admit, even to themselves. Very few
+individuals possess the will power, the intelligence or the capacity
+for mental effort displayed by the subject of the case I just quoted.
+The average man’s interests are almost entirely on the physical side;
+he actually finds mental effort painful, and makes as little of it as
+possible. And that is the only sort of effort a discarnate
+individuality can exert. So, unable to endure the fifty or so years
+needed to make a really good reincarnation, he reincarnates in a year
+or so, out of pure boredom, into the first vehicle he can find,
+usually one nobody else wants.” Dr. Harnosh dug out the heel of his
+pipe and blew through the stem. “But nobody will admit his own mental
+inferiority, even to himself. Now, every machine operator and field
+hand on the planet thinks he can reincarnate as a prince or a
+millionaire. Politics isn’t my subject, but I’m willing to bet that
+since Statistical Reincarnation is an exploded psychic theory,
+Statisticalist Socialism has been caught in the blast area and
+destroyed along with it.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Olirzon was in the drawing room of the hotel suite when they returned,
+sitting on the middle of his spinal column in a reclining chair,
+smoking a pipe, dressing the edge of his knife with a pocket-hone, and
+gazing lecherously at a young woman in the visiplate. She was an
+extremely well-designed young woman, in a rather fragmentary costume,
+and she was heaving her bosom at the invisible audience in anger,
+sorrow, scorn, entreaty, and numerous other emotions.</p>
+
+<p>“... this revolting crime,” she was declaiming, in a husky contralto,
+as Verkan Vall and Marnik entered, “foul even for the criminal beasts
+who conceived and perpetrated it!” She pointed an accusing finger.
+“This murder of the beautiful Lady Dallona of Hadron!”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall stopped short, considering the possibility of something
+having been discovered lately of which he was ignorant. Olirzon must
+have guessed his thought; he grinned reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>“Think nothing of it, Lord Virzal,” he said, waving his knife at the
+visiplate. “Just political propaganda; strictly for the sparrows. Nice
+propagandist, though.”</p>
+
+<p>“And now,” the woman with the magnificent natural resources lowered
+her voice reverently, “we bring you the last image of the Lady
+Dallona, and of Dirzed, her faithful Assassin, taken just before they
+vanished, never to be seen again.”</p>
+
+<p>The plate darkened, and there were strains of slow, dirgelike music;
+then it lighted again, presenting a view of a broad hallway, thronged
+with men and women in bright varicolored costumes. In the foreground,
+wearing a tight skirt of deep blue and a short red jacket, was Hadron
+Dalla, just as she had looked in the solidographs taken in Dhergabar
+after her alteration by the First Level cosmeticians to conform to the
+appearance of the Malayoid Akor-Neb people. She was holding the arm of
+a man who wore the black tunic and red badge of an Assassin, a
+handsome specimen of the Akor-Neb race. Trust little Dalla for that,
+Verkan Vall thought. The figures were moving with exaggerated
+slowness, as though a very fleeting picture were being stretched out
+as far as possible. Having already memorized his former wife’s changed
+appearance, Verkan Vall concentrated on the man beside her until the
+picture faded.</p>
+
+<p>“All right, Olirzon; what did you get?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, first of all, at Assassins’ Hall,” Olirzon said, rolling up his
+left sleeve, holding his bare forearm to the light, and shaving a few
+fine hairs from it to test the edge of his knife. “Of course, they
+never tell one Assassin anything about the client of another Assassin;
+that’s standard practice. But I was in the Lodge Secretary’s office,
+where nobody but Assassins are ever admitted. They have a big panel in
+there, with the names of all the Lodge members on it in light-letters;
+that’s standard in all Lodges. If an Assassin is unattached and free
+to accept a client, his name’s in white light. If he has a client, the
+light’s changed to blue, and the name of the client goes up under his.
+If his whereabouts are unknown, the light’s changed to amber. If he is
+discarnated, his name’s removed entirely, unless the circumstances of
+his discarnation are such as to constitute an injury to the Society.
+In that case, the name’s in red light until he’s been properly
+avenged, or, as we say, till his blood’s been mopped up. Well, the
+name of Dirzed is up in blue light, with the name of Dallona of Hadron
+under it. I found out that the light had been amber for two days after
+the disappearance, and then had been changed back to blue. Get it,
+Lord Virzal?”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. “I think so. I’d been considering that as a
+possibility from the first. Then what?”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I was about and around for a couple of hours, buying drinks for
+people—unattached Assassins, Constabulary detectives, political
+workers, newscast people. You owe me fifteen System Monetary Units for
+that, Lord Virzal. What I got, when it’s all sorted out—I taped it in
+detail, as soon as I got back—reduces to this: The Volitionalists are
+moving mountains to find out who was the spy at Garnon of Roxor’s
+discarnation feast, but are doing nothing but nothing at all to find
+the Lady Dallona or Dirzed. The Statisticalists are making all sorts
+of secret efforts to find out what happened to her. The Constabulary
+blame the Statistos for the package bomb: they’re interested in that
+because of the discarnation of the three servants by an illegal weapon
+of indiscriminate effect. They claim that the disappearance of Dirzed
+and the Lady Dallona was a publicity hoax. The Volitionalists are
+preparing a line of publicity to deny this.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. “That ties in with what you learned at Assassins’
+Hall,” he said. “They’re hiding out somewhere. Is there any chance of
+reaching Dirzed through the Society of Assassins?”</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon shook his head. “If you’re right—and that’s the way it looks
+to me, too—he’s probably just called in and notified the Society that
+he’s still carnate and so is the Lady Dallona, and called off any
+search the Society might be making for him.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I’ve got to find the Lady Dallona as soon as I can. Well, if I
+can’t reach her, maybe I can get her to send word to me,” Verkan Vall
+said. “That’s going to take some doing, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you find out, Lord Virzal?” Olirzon asked. He had a piece of
+soft leather, now, and was polishing his blade lovingly.</p>
+
+<p>“The Reincarnation Research people don’t know anything,” Verkan Vall
+replied. “Dr. Harnosh of Hosh thinks she’s discarnate. I did find out
+that the experimental work she’s done, so far, has absolutely
+disproved the theory of Statistical Reincarnation. The Volitionalists’
+theory is solidly established.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, what do you think, Olirzon?” Marnik added. “They have a case on
+record of a man who worked up from field hand to millionaire in five
+reincarnations. Deliberately, that is.” He went on to repeat what
+Harnosh of Hosh had said; he must have possessed an almost eidetic
+memory, for he gave the bearded psychicist’s words verbatim, and threw
+in the gestures and voice-inflections.</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon grinned. “You know, there’s a chance for the easy-money boys,”
+he considered. “‘You, too, can Reincarnate as a millionaire! Let Dr.
+Nirzutz of Futzbutz Help You! Only 49.98 System Monetary Units for the
+Secret, Infallible, Autosuggestive Formula.’ And would it sell!” He
+put away the hone and the bit of leather and slipped his knife back
+into its sheath. “If I weren’t a respectable Assassin, I’d give it a
+try, myself.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall looked at his watch. “We’d better get something to eat,”
+he said. “We’ll go down to the main dining room; the Martian Room, I
+think they call it. I’ve got to think of some way to let the Lady
+Dallona know I’m looking for her.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Martian Room, fifteen stories down, was a big place, occupying
+almost half of the floor space of one corner tower. It had been fitted
+to resemble one of the ruined buildings of the ancient and vanished
+race of Mars who were the ancestors of Terran humanity. One whole side
+of the room was a gigantic cine-solidograph screen, on which the
+gullied desolation of a Martian landscape was projected; in the course
+of about two hours, the scene changed from sunrise through daylight
+and night to sunrise again.</p>
+
+<p>It was high noon when they entered and found a table; by the time they
+had finished their dinner, the night was ending and the first glow of
+dawn was tinting the distant hills. They sat for a while, watching the
+light grow stronger, then got up and left the table.</p>
+
+<p>There were five men at a table near them; they had come in before the
+stars had grown dim, and the waiters were just bringing their first
+dishes. Two were Assassins, and the other three were of a breed Verkan
+Vall had learned to recognize on any time-line—the arrogant,
+cocksure, ambitious, leftist politician, who knows what is best for
+everybody better than anybody else does, and who is convinced that he
+is inescapably right and that whoever differs with him is not only an
+ignoramus but a venal scoundrel as well. 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.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course it is; the whole thing is a fraud,” the monkish young man
+was saying angrily. “But we can’t prove it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Sirzob, here, can prove anything, if you give him time,” the
+beefy one laughed. “The trouble is, there isn’t too much time. We know
+that that communication was a fake, prearranged by the Volitionalists,
+with Dr. Harnosh and this Dallona of Hadron as their tools. They fed
+the whole thing to that idiot boy hypnotically, in advance, and then,
+on a signal, he began typing out this spurious communication. And
+then, of course, Dallona and this Assassin of hers ran off somewhere
+together, so that we’d be blamed with discarnating or abducting them,
+and so that they wouldn’t be made to testify about the communication
+on a lie detector.”</p>
+
+<p>A sudden happy smile touched Verkan Vall’s eyes. He caught each of his
+Assassins by an arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Marnik, cover my back,” he ordered. “Olirzon, cover everybody at the
+table. Come on!”</p>
+
+<p>Then he stepped forward, halting between the chairs of the young man
+and the man with the gray hair and facing the beefy man in the light
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p>“You!” he barked. “I mean YOU.”</p>
+
+<p>The beefy man stopped laughing and stared at him; then sprang to his
+feet. His hand, streaking toward his left armpit, stopped and dropped
+to his side as Olirzon aimed a pistol at him. The others sat
+motionless.</p>
+
+<p>“You,” Verkan Vall continued, “are a complete, deliberate, malicious,
+and unmitigated liar. The Lady Dallona of Hadron is a scientist of
+integrity, incapable of falsifying her experimental work. What’s more,
+her father is one of my best friends; in his name, and in hers, I
+demand a full retraction of the slanderous statements you have just
+made.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know who I am?” the beefy one shouted.</p>
+
+<p>“I know <i>what</i> you are,” Verkan Vall shouted back. Like most ancient
+languages, the Akor-Neb speech included an elaborate,
+delicately-shaded, and utterly vile vocabulary of abuse; Verkan Vall
+culled from it judiciously and at length. “And if I don’t make myself
+understood verbally, we’ll go down to the object level,” he added,
+snatching a bowl of soup from in front of the monkish-looking young
+man and throwing it across the table.</p>
+
+<p>The soup was a dark brown, almost black. It contained bits of meat,
+and mushrooms, and slices of hard-boiled egg, and yellow Martian rock
+lichen. It produced, on the light tunic, a most spectacular effect.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, Verkan Vall was afraid the fellow would have an
+apoplectic stroke, or an epileptic fit. Mastering himself, however, he
+bowed jerkily.</p>
+
+<p>“Marnark of Bashad,” he identified himself. “When and where can my
+friends consult yours?”</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Virzal of Verkan,” the paratimer bowed back. “Your friends can
+negotiate with mine here and now. I am represented by these
+Gentlemen-Assassins.”</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t submit my friends to the indignity of negotiating with them,”
+Marnark retorted. “I insist that you be represented by persons of your
+own quality and mine.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you do?” Olirzon broke in. “Well, is your objection personal to
+me, or to Assassins as a class? In the first case, I’ll remember to
+make a private project of you, as soon as I’m through with my present
+employment; if it’s the latter, I’ll report your attitude to the
+Society. I’ll see what Klarnood, our President-General, thinks of your
+views.”</p>
+
+<p>A crowd had begun to accumulate around the table. Some of them were
+persons in evening dress, some were Assassins on the hotel payroll,
+and some were unattached Assassins.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you won’t have far to look for him,” one of the latter said,
+pushing through the crowd to the table.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man of middle age, inclined to stoutness; he made Verkan Vall
+think of a chocolate figure of Tortha Karf. The red badge on his
+breast was surrounded with gold lace, and, instead of black wings and
+a silver bullet, it bore silver wings and a golden dagger. He bowed
+contemptuously at Marnark of Bashad.</p>
+
+<p>“Klarnood, President-General of the Society of Assassins,” he
+announced. “Marnark of Bashad, did I hear you say that you considered
+members of the Society as unworthy to negotiate an affair of honor
+with your friends, on behalf of this nobleman who has been courteous
+enough to accept your challenge?” he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Marnark of Bashad’s arrogance suffered considerable evaporation-loss.
+His tone became almost servile.</p>
+
+<p>“Not at all, Honorable Assassin-President,” he protested. “But as I
+was going to ask these gentlemen to represent me, I thought it would
+be more fitting for the other gentleman to be represented by personal
+friends, also. In that way—”</p>
+
+<p>“Sorry, Marnark,” the gray-haired man at the table said. “I can’t
+second you; I have a quarrel with the Lord Virzal, too.” He rose and
+bowed. “Sirzob of Abo. Inasmuch as the Honorable Marnark is a guest at
+my table, an affront to him is an affront to me. In my quality as his
+host, I must demand satisfaction from you, Lord Virzal.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, gladly, Honorable Sirzob,” Verkan Vall replied. This was getting
+better and better every moment. “Of course, your friend, the Honorable
+Marnark, enjoys priority of challenge; I’ll take care of you as soon
+as I have, shall we say, satisfied, him.”</p>
+
+<p>The earnest and rather consecrated-looking young man rose also, bowing
+to Verkan Vall.</p>
+
+<p>“Yirzol of Narva. I, too, have a quarrel with you, Lord Virzal; I
+cannot submit to the indignity of having my food snatched from in
+front of me, as you just did. I also demand satisfaction.”</p>
+
+<p>“And quite rightly, Honorable Yirzol,” Verkan Vall approved. “It looks
+like such good soup, too,” he sorrowed, inspecting the front of
+Marnark’s tunic. “My seconds will negotiate with yours immediately;
+your satisfaction, of course, must come after that of Honorable
+Sirzob.”</p>
+
+<p>“If I may intrude,” Klarnood put in smoothly, “may I suggest that as
+the Lord Virzal is represented by his Assassins, yours can represent
+all three of you at the same time. I will gladly offer my own good
+offices as impartial supervisor.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall turned and bowed as to royalty. “An honor,
+Assassin-President: I am sure no one could act in that capacity more
+satisfactorily.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, when would it be most convenient to arrange the details?”
+Klarnood inquired. “I am completely at your disposal, gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, here and now, while we’re all together,” Verkan Vall replied.</p>
+
+<p>“I object to that!” Marnark of Bashad vociferated. “We can’t make
+arrangements here; why, all these hotel people, from the manager down,
+are nothing but tipsters for the newscast services!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Verkan Vall demanded. “You knew that
+when you slandered the Lady Dallona in their hearing.”</p>
+
+<p>“The Lord Virzal of Verkan is correct,” Klarnood ruled. “And the
+offenses for which you have challenged him were also committed in
+public. By all means, let’s discuss the arrangements now.” He turned
+to Verkan Vall. “As the challenged party, you have the choice of
+weapons; your opponents, then, have the right to name the conditions
+under which they are to be used.”</p>
+
+<p>Marnark of Bashad raised another outcry over that. The assault upon
+him by the Lord Virzal of Verkan was deliberately provocative, and
+therefore tantamount to a challenge; he, himself, had the right to
+name the weapons. Klarnood upheld him.</p>
+
+<p>“Do the other gentlemen make the same claim?” Verkan Vall wanted to
+know.</p>
+
+<p>“If they do, I won’t allow it,” Klarnood replied. “You deliberately
+provoked Honorable Marnark, but the offenses of provoking him at
+Honorable Sirzob’s table, and of throwing Honorable Yirzol’s soup at
+him, were not given with intent to provoke. These gentlemen have a
+right to challenge, but not to consider themselves provoked.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I choose knives, then,” Marnark hastened to say.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall smiled thinly. He had learned knife-play among the
+greatest masters of that art in all paratime, the Third Level Khanga
+pirates of the Caribbean Islands.</p>
+
+<p>“And we fight barefoot, stripped to the waist, and without any
+parrying weapon in the left hand,” Verkan Vall stipulated.</p>
+
+<p>The beefy Marnark fairly licked his chops in anticipation. He
+outweighed Verkan Vall by forty pounds; he saw an easy victory ahead.
+Verkan Vall’s own confidence increased at these signs of his
+opponent’s assurance.</p>
+
+<p>“And as for Honorable Sirzob and Honorable Yirzol, I chose pistols,”
+he added.</p>
+
+<p>Sirzob and Yirzol held a hasty whispered conference.</p>
+
+<p>“Speaking both for Honorable Yirzol and for myself,” Sirzob announced,
+“we stipulate that the distance shall be twenty meters, that the
+pistols shall be fully loaded, and that fire shall be at will after
+the command.”</p>
+
+<p>“Twenty rounds, fire at will, at twenty meters!” Olirzon hooted. “You
+must think our principal’s as bad a shot as you are!”</p>
+
+<p>The four Assassins stepped aside and held a long discussion about
+something, with considerable argument and gesticulation. Klarnood,
+observing Verkan Vall’s impatience, leaned close to him and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>“This is highly irregular; we must pretend ignorance and be patient.
+They’re laying bets on the outcome. You must do your best, Lord
+Virzal; you don’t want your supporters to lose money.”</p>
+
+<p>He said it quite seriously, as though the outcome were otherwise a
+matter of indifference to Verkan Vall.</p>
+
+<p>Marnark wanted to discuss time and place, and proposed that all three
+duels be fought at dawn, on the fourth landing stage of Darsh Central
+Hospital; that was closest to the maternity wards, and statistics
+showed that most births occurred just before that hour.</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly not,” Verkan Vall vetoed. “We’ll fight here and now; I
+don’t propose going a couple of hundred miles to meet you at any such
+unholy hour. We’ll fight in the nearest hallway that provides twenty
+meters’ shooting distance.”</p>
+
+<p>Marnark, Sirzob and Yirzol all clamored in protest. Verkan Vall
+shouted them down, drawing on his hypnotically acquired knowledge of
+Akor-Neb duelling customs. “The code explicitly states that
+satisfaction shall be rendered as promptly as possible, and I insist
+on a literal interpretation. I’m not going to inconvenience myself and
+Assassin-President Klarnood and these four Gentlemen-Assassins just to
+humor Statisticalist superstitions.”</p>
+
+<p>The manager of the hotel, drawn to the Martian Room by the uproar,
+offered a hallway connecting the kitchens with the refrigerator rooms;
+it was fifty meters long by five in width, was well-lighted and
+soundproof, and had a bay in which the seconds and other could stand
+during the firing.</p>
+
+<p>They repaired thither in a body, Klarnood gathering up several hotel
+servants on the way through the kitchen. Verkan Vall stripped to the
+waist, pulled off his ankle boots, and examined Olirzon’s knife. Its
+tapering eight-inch blade was double-edged at the point, and its
+handle was covered with black velvet to afford a good grip, and wound
+with gold wire. He nodded approvingly, gripped it with his index
+finger crooked around the cross-guard, and advanced to meet Marnark of
+Bashad.</p>
+
+<p>As he had expected, the burly politician was depending upon his
+greater brawn to overpower his antagonist. He advanced with a sidling,
+spread-legged gait, his knife hand against his right hip and his left
+hand extended in front. Verkan Vall nodded with pleased satisfaction;
+a wrist-grabber. Then he blinked. Why, the fellow was actually holding
+his knife reversed, his little finger to the guard and his thumb on
+the pommel!</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall went briskly to meet him, made a feint at his knife hand
+with his own left, and then side-stepped quickly to the right. As
+Marnark’s left hand grabbed at his right wrist, his left hand brushed
+against it and closed into a fist, with Marnark’s left thumb inside of
+it, He gave a quick downward twist with his wrist, pulling Marnark off
+balance.</p>
+
+<p>Caught by surprise, Marnark stumbled, his knife flailing wildly away
+from Verkan Vall. As he stumbled forward, Verkan Vall pivoted on his
+left heel and drove the point of his knife into the back of Marnark’s
+neck, twisting it as he jerked it free. At the same time, he released
+Marnark’s thumb. The politician continued his stumble and fell forward
+on his face, blood spurting from his neck. He gave a twitch or so, and
+was still.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall stooped and wiped the knife on the dead man’s
+clothes—another Khanga pirate gesture—and then returned it to
+Olirzon.</p>
+
+<p>“Nice weapon, Olirzon,” he said. “It fitted my hand as though I’d been
+born holding it.”</p>
+
+<p>“You used it as though you had, Lord Virzal,” the Assassin replied.
+“Only eight seconds from the time you closed with him.”</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="460" /></p>
+
+<p>The function of the hotel servants whom Klarnood had gathered up now
+became apparent; they advanced, took the body of Marnark by the
+heels, and dragged it out of the way. The others watched this removal
+with mixed emotions. The two remaining principals were impassive and
+frozen-faced. Their two Assassins, who had probably bet heavily on
+Marnark, were chagrined. And Klarnood was looking at Verkan Vall with
+a considerable accretion of respect. Verkan Vall pulled on his boots
+and resumed his clothing.</p>
+
+<p>There followed some argument about the pistols; it was finally decided
+that each combatant should use his own shoulder-holster weapon. All
+three were nearly enough alike—small weapons, rather heavier than
+they looked, firing a tiny ten-grain bullet at ten thousand
+foot-seconds. On impact, such a bullet would almost disintegrate; a
+man hit anywhere in the body with one would be killed instantly, his
+nervous system paralyzed and his heart stopped by internal pressure.
+Each of the pistols carried twenty rounds in the magazine.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall and Sirzob of Abo took their places, their pistols lowered
+at their sides, facing each other across a measured twenty meters.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you ready, gentlemen?” Klarnood asked. “You will not raise your
+pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at will after it.
+Ready. <i>Fire!</i>”</p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="458" /></p>
+
+<p>Both pistols swung up to level. Verkan Vall found Sirzob’s head in his
+sights and squeezed; the pistol kicked back in his hand, and he saw a
+lance of blue flame jump from the muzzle of Sirzob’s. Both weapons
+barked together, and with the double report came the whip-cracking
+sound of Sirzob’s bullet passing Verkan Vall’s head. Then Sirzob’s
+face altered its appearance unpleasantly, and he pitched forward.
+Verkan Vall thumbed on his safety and stood motionless, while the
+servants advanced, took Sirzob’s body by the heels, and dragged it
+over beside Marnark’s.</p>
+
+<p>“All right; Honorable Yirzol, you’re next,” Verkan Vall called out.</p>
+
+<p>“The Lord Virzal has fired one shot,” one of the opposing seconds
+objected, “and Honorable Yirzol has a full magazine. The Lord Virzal
+should put in another magazine.”</p>
+
+<p>“I grant him the advantage; let’s get on with it,” Verkan Vall said.</p>
+
+<p>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. But he was
+beginning to suspect that he had made a fool of himself by getting
+into this affair, he had work in his present reincarnation which he
+wanted to finish, and his political party would suffer loss, both of
+his services and of prestige.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you ready, gentlemen?” Klarnood intoned ritualistically. “You
+will not raise your pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at
+will after it. Ready, <i>Fire!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall shot Yirzol of Narva through the head before the latter
+had his pistol half raised. Yirzol fell forward on the splash of blood
+Sirzob had made, and the servants came forward and dragged his body
+over with the others. It reminded Verkan Vail of some sort of
+industrial assembly-line operation. He replaced the two expended
+rounds in his magazine with fresh ones and slid the pistol back into
+its holster. The two Assassins whose principals had been so
+expeditiously massacred were beginning to count up their losses and
+pay off the winners.</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood, the President-General of the Society of Assassins, came
+over, hooking fingers and clapping shoulders with Verkan Vall.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Virzal, I’ve seen quite a few duels, but nothing quite like
+that,” he said. “You should have been an Assassin!”</p>
+
+<p>That was a considerable compliment. Verkan Vall thanked him modestly.</p>
+
+<p>“I’d like to talk to you privately,” the Assassin-President continued.
+“I think it’ll be worth your while if we have a few words together.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. “My suite is on the fifteenth floor above; will
+that be all right?” He waited until the losers had finished settling
+their bets, then motioned to his own pair of Assassins.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As they emerged into the Martian Room again, the manager was waiting;
+he looked as though he were about to demand that Verkan Vall vacate
+his suite. However, when he saw the arm of the President-General of
+the Society of Assassins draped amicably over his guest’s shoulder, he
+came forward bowing and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“Larnorm, I want you to put five of your best Assassins to guarding
+the approaches to the Lord Virzal’s suite,” Klarnood told him. “I’ll
+send five more from Assassins’ Hall to replace them at their ordinary
+duties. And I’ll hold you responsible with your carnate existence for
+the Lord Virzal’s safety in this hotel. Understand?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, Honorable Assassin-President; you may trust me. The Lord
+Virzal will be perfectly safe.”</p>
+
+<p>In Verkan Vall’s suite, above, Klarnood sat down and got out his pipe,
+filling it with tobacco lightly mixed with <i>zerfa</i>. To his surprise,
+he saw his host light a plain tobacco cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you use <i>zerfa</i>?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Very little,” Verkan Vall replied. “I grow it. If you’d see the bums
+who hang around our drying sheds, on Venus, cadging rejected leaves
+and smoking themselves into a stupor, you’d be frugal in using it,
+too.”</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood nodded. “You know, most men would want a pipe of fifty
+percent, or a straight <i>zerfa</i> cigarette, after what you’ve been
+through,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“I’d need something like that, to deaden my conscience, if I had one
+to deaden,” Verkan Vall said. “As it is, I feel like a murderer of
+babes. That overgrown fool, Marnark, handled his knife like a
+cow-butcher. The young fellow couldn’t handle a pistol at all. I
+suppose the old fellow, Sirzob, was a fair shot, but dropping him
+wasn’t any great feat of arms, either.”</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood looked at him curiously for a moment. “You know,” he said, at
+length, “I believe you actually mean that. Well, until he met you,
+Marnark of Bashad was rated as the best knife-fighter in Darsh. Sirzob
+had ten dueling victories to his credit, and young Yirzol four.” He
+puffed slowly on his pipe. “I like you, Lord Virzal; a great Assassin
+was lost when you decided to reincarnate as a Venusian land-owner. I’d
+hate to see you discarnated without proper warning. I take it you’re
+ignorant of the intricacies of Terran politics?”</p>
+
+<p>“To a large extent, yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, do you know who those three men were?” When Verkan Vall shook
+his head, Klarnood continued: “Marnark was the son and right-hand
+associate of old Mirzark of Bashad, the Statisticalist Party leader.
+Sirzob of Abo was their propaganda director. And Yirzol of Narva was
+their leading socio-economic theorist, and their candidate for
+Executive Chairman. In six minutes, with one knife thrust and two
+shots, you did the Statisticalist Party an injury second only to that
+done them by the young lady in whose name you were fighting. In two
+weeks, there will be a planet-wide general election. As it stands, the
+Statisticalists have a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the
+Executive Council. As a result of your work and the Lady Dallona’s,
+they’ll lose that majority, and more, when the votes are tallied.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is that another reason why you like me?” Verkan Vall asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Unofficially, yes. As President-General of the Society of Assassins,
+I must be nonpolitical. The Society is rigidly so; if we let ourselves
+become involved, as an organization, in politics, we could control the
+System Government inside of five years, and we’d be wiped out of
+existence in fifty years by the very forces we sought to control,”
+Klarnood said. “But personally, I would like to see the Statisticalist
+Party destroyed. If they succeed in their program of socialization,
+the Society would be finished. A socialist state is, in its final
+development, an absolute, total, state; no total state can tolerate
+extra-legal and para-governmental organizations. So we have adopted
+the policy of giving a little inconspicuous aid, here and there, to
+people who are dangerous to the Statisticalists. The Lady Dallona of
+Hadron, and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, are such persons. You appear to be
+another. That’s why I ordered that fellow, Larnorm, to make sure you
+were safe in his hotel.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where is the Lady Dallona?” Verkan Vall asked. “From your use of the
+present tense, I assume you believe her to be still carnate.”</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood looked at Verkan Vall keenly. “That’s a pretty blunt
+question, Lord Virzal,” he said. “I wish I knew a little more about
+you. When you and your Assassins started inquiring about the Lady
+Dallona, I tried to check up on you. I found out that you had come to
+Darsh from Ghamma on a ship of the family of Zorda, accompanied by
+Brarnend of Zorda himself. And that’s all I could find out. You claim
+to be a Venusian planter, and you might be. Any Terran who can handle
+weapons as you can would have come to my notice long ago. But you have
+no more ascertainable history than if you’d stepped out of another
+dimension.”</p>
+
+<p>That was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. In fact, it <i>was</i>
+the truth. Verkan Vall laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, confidentially,” he said, “I’m from the Arcturus System. I
+followed the Lady Dallona here from our home planet, and when I have
+rescued her from among you Solarians, I shall, according to our
+customs, receive her hand in marriage. As she is the daughter of the
+Emperor of Arcturus, that’ll be quite a good thing for me.”</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood chuckled. “You know, you’d only have to tell me that about
+three or four times and I’d start believing it,” he said. “And Dr.
+Harnosh of Hosh would believe it the first time; he’s been talking to
+himself ever since the Lady Dallona started her experimental work
+here. Lord Virzal, I’m going to take a chance on you. The Lady Dallona
+is still carnate, or was four days ago, and the same for Dirzed. They
+both went into hiding after the discarnation feast of Garnon of Roxor,
+to escape the enmity of the Statisticalists. Two days after they
+disappeared, Dirzed called Assassins’ Hall and reported this, but told
+us nothing more. I suppose, in about three or four days, I could
+re-establish contact with him. We want the public to think that the
+Statisticalists made away with the Lady Dallona, at least until the
+election’s over.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall nodded. “I was pretty sure that was the situation,” he
+said. “It may be that they will get in touch with me; if they don’t,
+I’ll need your help in reaching them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why do you think the Lady Dallona will try to reach you?”</p>
+
+<p>“She needs all the help she can get. She knows she can get plenty from
+me. Why do you think I interrupted my search for her, and risked my
+carnate existence, to fight those people over a matter of verbalisms
+and political propaganda?” Verkan Vall went to the newscast visiplate
+and snapped it on. “We’ll see if I’m getting results, yet.”</p>
+
+<p>The plate lighted, and a handsome young man in a gold-laced green suit
+was speaking out of it:</p>
+
+<p>“... where he is heavily guarded by Assassins. However, in an
+exclusive interview with representatives of this service, the Assassin
+Hirzif, one of the two who seconded the men the Lord Virzal fought,
+said that in his opinion all of the three were so outclassed as to
+have had no chance whatever, and that he had already refused an offer
+of ten thousand System Monetary Units to discarnate the Lord Virzal
+for the Statisticalist Party. ‘When I want to discarnate,’ Hirzif the
+Assassin said, ‘I’ll invite in my friends and do it properly; until I
+do, I wouldn’t go up against the Lord Virzal of Verkan for ten million
+S.M.U.’”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall snapped off the visiplate. “See what I mean?” he asked. “I
+fought those politicians just for the advertising. If Dallona and
+Dirzed are anywhere near a visiplate, they’ll know how to reach me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hirzif shouldn’t have talked about refusing that retainer,” Klarnood
+frowned. “That isn’t good Assassin ethics. Why, yes, Lord Virzal; that
+was cleverly planned. It ought to get results. But I wish you’d get
+the Lady Dallona out of Darsh, and preferably off Terra, as soon as
+you can. We’ve benefited by this, so far, but I shouldn’t like to see
+things go much further. A real civil war could develop out of this
+situation, and I don’t want that. Call on me for help; I’ll give you a
+code word to use at Assassins’ Hall.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A real civil war was developing even as Klarnood spoke; by mid-morning
+of the next day, the fighting that had been partially suppressed by
+the Constabulary had broken out anew. The Assassins employed by the
+Solar Hotel—heavily re-enforced during the night—had fought a
+pitched battle with Statisticalist partisans on the landing stage
+above Verkan Vall’s suite, and now several Constabulary airboats were
+patrolling around the building. The rule on Constabulary interference
+seemed to be that while individuals had an unquestionable right to
+shoot out their differences among themselves, any fighting likely to
+endanger nonparticipants was taboo.</p>
+
+<p>Just how successful in enforcing this rule the Constabulary were was
+open to some doubt. Ever since arising, Verkan Vall had heard the
+crash of small arms and the hammering of automatic weapons in other
+parts of the towering city unit. There hadn’t been a civil war on the
+Akor-Neb Sector for over five centuries, he knew, but then, Hadron
+Dalla, Doctor of Psychic Science, and intertemporal trouble-carrier
+extraordinary, had only been on this sector for a little under a year.
+If anything, he was surprised that the explosion had taken so long to
+occur.</p>
+
+<p>One of the servants furnished to him by the hotel management
+approached him in the drawing room, holding a four-inch-square wafer
+of white plastic.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Virzal, there is a masked Assassin in the hallway who brought
+this under Assassins’ Truce,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall took the wafer and pared off three of the four edges,
+which showed black where they had been fused. Unfolding it, he found,
+as he had expected, that the pyrographed message within was in the
+alphabet and language of the First Paratime Level:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Vall, darling:</p>
+
+<p>Am I glad you got here; this time I really <i>am</i> in the
+middle, but good! The Assassin, Dirzed, who brings this, is
+in my service. You can trust him implicitly; he’s about the
+only person in Darsh you can trust. He’ll bring you to where
+I am.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">Dalla</p>
+
+<p>P.S. I hope you’re not still angry about that musician. I
+told you, at the time, that he was just helping me with an
+experiment in telepathy.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">D. </p></div>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall grinned at the postscript. That had been twenty years ago,
+when he’d been eighty and she’d been seventy. He supposed she’d expect
+him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably
+wouldn’t last any longer than it had, the other time; he recalled a
+Fourth Level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly
+wouldn’t be boring, though.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell the Assassin to come in,” he directed. Then he tossed the
+message down on a table. Outside of himself, nobody in Darsh could
+read it but the woman who had sent it; if, as he thought highly
+probable, the Statisticalists had spies among the hotel staff, it
+might serve to reduce some cryptanalyst to gibbering insanity.</p>
+
+<p>The Assassin entered, drawing off a cowl-like mask. He was the man
+whose arm Dalla had been holding in the visiplate picture; Verkan Vall
+even recognized the extremely ornate pistol and knife on his belt.</p>
+
+<p>“Dirzed the Assassin,” he named himself. “If you wish, we can
+visiphone Assassins’ Hall for verification of my identity.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Virzal of Verkan. And my Assassins, Marnik and Olirzon.” They
+all hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with the newcomer. “That
+won’t be needed,” Verkan Vall told Dirzed. “I know you from seeing you
+with the Lady Dallona, on the visiplate; you’re ‘Dirzed, her faithful
+Assassin.’”</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed’s face, normally the color of a good walnut gunstock, turned
+almost black. He used shockingly bad language.</p>
+
+<p>“And that’s why I have to wear this abomination,” he finished,
+displaying the mask. “The Lady Dallona and I can’t show our faces
+anywhere; if we did, every Statisticalist and his six-year-old brat
+would know us, and we’d be fighting off an army of them in five
+minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where’s the Lady Dallona, now?”</p>
+
+<p>“In hiding, Lord Virzal, at a private dwelling dome in the forest;
+she’s most anxious to see you. I’m to take you to her, and I would
+strongly advise that you bring your Assassins along. There are other
+people at this dome, and they are not personally loyal to the Lady
+Dallona. I’ve no reason to suspect them of secret enmity, but their
+friendship is based entirely on political expediency.”</p>
+
+<p>“And political expediency is subject to change without notice,” Verkan
+Vall finished for him. “Have you an airboat?”</p>
+
+<p>“On the landing stage below. Shall we go now, Lord Virzal?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.” Verkan Vall made a two-handed gesture to his Assassins, as
+though gripping a submachine-gun; they nodded, went into another room,
+and returned carrying light automatic weapons in their hands and
+pouches of spare drums slung over their shoulders. “And may I suggest,
+Dirzed, that one of my Assassins drives the airboat? I want you on the
+back seat with me, to explain the situation as we go.”</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed’s teeth flashed white against his brown skin as he gave Verkan
+Vall a quick smile.</p>
+
+<p>“By all means, Lord Virzal; I would much rather be distrusted than to
+find that my client’s friends were not discreet.”</p>
+
+<p>There were a couple of hotel Assassins guarding Dirzed’s airboat, on
+the landing stage. Marnik climbed in under the controls, with Olirzon
+beside him; Verkan Vall and Dirzed entered the rear seat. Dirzed gave
+Marnik the co-ordinate reference for their destination.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, what sort of a place is this, where we’re going?” Verkan Vall
+asked. “And who’s there whom we may or may not trust?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it’s a dome house belonging to the family of Starpha; they own
+a five-mile radius around it, oak and beech forest and underbrush,
+stocked with deer and boar. A hunting lodge. Prince Jirzyn of Starpha,
+Lord Girzon of Roxor, and a few other top-level Volitionalists, know
+that the Lady Dallona’s hiding there. They’re keeping her out of sight
+till after the election, for propaganda purposes. We’ve been hiding
+there since immediately after the discarnation feast of the Lord
+Garnon of Roxor.”</p>
+
+<p>“What happened, after the feast?” Verkan Vall wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you know how the Lady Dallona and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh had this
+telepathic-sensitive there, in a trance and drugged with a
+<i>zerfa</i>-derivative alkaloid the Lady Dallona had developed. I was Lord
+Garnon’s Assassin; I discarnated him, myself. Why, I hadn’t even put
+my pistol away before he was in control of this sensitive, in a room
+five stories above the banquet hall; he began communicating at once.
+We had visiplates to show us what was going on.</p>
+
+<p>“Right away, Nirzav of Shonna, one of the Statisticalist leaders who
+was a personal friend of Lord Garnon’s in spite of his politics,
+renounced Statisticalism and went over to the Volitionalists, on the
+strength of this communication. Prince Jirzyn, and Lord Girzon, the
+new family-head of Roxor, decided that there would be trouble in the
+next few days, so they advised the Lady Dallona to come to this
+hunting lodge for safety. She and I came here in her airboat, directly
+from the feast. A good thing we did, too; if we’d gone to her
+apartment, we’d have walked in before that lethal gas had time to
+clear.</p>
+
+<p>“There are four Assassins of the family of Starpha, and six
+menservants, and an upper-servant named Tarnod, the gamekeeper. The
+Starpha Assassins and I have been keeping the rest under observation.
+I left one of the Starpha Assassins guarding the Lady Dallona when I
+came for you, under brotherly oath to protect her in my name till I
+returned.”</p>
+
+<p>The airboat was skimming rapidly above the treetops, toward the
+northern part of the city.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s known about that package bomb?” Verkan Vall asked. “Who sent
+it?”</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed shrugged. “The Statisticalists, of course. The wrapper was
+stolen from the Reincarnation Research Institute; so was the case. The
+Constabulary are working on it.” Dirzed shrugged again.</p>
+
+<p>The dome, about a hundred and fifty feet in width and some fifty in
+height, stood among the trees ahead. It was almost invisible from any
+distance; the concrete dome was of mottled green and gray concrete,
+trees grew so close as to brush it with their branches, and the little
+pavilion on the flattened top was roofed with translucent green
+plastic. As the airboat came in, a couple of men in Assassins’ garb
+emerged from the pavilion to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>“Marnik, stay at the controls,” Verkan Vall directed. “I’ll send
+Olirzon up for you if I want you. If there’s any trouble, take off for
+Assassins’ Hall and give the code word, then come back with twice as
+many men as you think you’ll need.”</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed raised his eyebrows over this. “I hadn’t known the
+Assassin-President had given you a code word, Lord Virzal,” he
+commented. “That doesn’t happen very often.”</p>
+
+<p>“The Assassin-President has honored me with his friendship,” Verkan
+Vall replied noncommittally, as he, Dirzed and Olirzon climbed out of
+the airboat. Marnik was holding it an unobtrusive inch or so above the
+flat top of the dome, away from the edge of the pavilion roof.</p>
+
+<p>The two Assassins greeted him, and a man in upper-servants’ garb and
+wearing a hunting knife and a long hunting pistol approached.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Virzal of Verkan? Welcome to Starpha Dome. The Lady Dallona
+awaits you below.”</p>
+
+<p>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. 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. Even now, the
+design had been retained by those who wished to live apart from the
+towering city units, to preserve the natural appearance of the
+landscape. The Starpha hunting lodge was typical of such domes. Under
+it was a circular well, eighty feet in depth and fifty in width, with
+a fountain and a shallow circular pool at the bottom. The storerooms,
+kitchens and servants’ quarters were at the top, the living quarters
+at the bottom, in segments of a wide circle around the well, back of
+balconies.</p>
+
+<p>“Tarnod, the gamekeeper,” Dirzed performed the introductions. “And
+Erarno and Kirzol, Assassins.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Tarnod
+accompanied them to the lifter tubes—two percent positive gravitation
+for descent and two percent negative for ascent—and they all floated
+down the former, like air-filled balloons, to the bottom level.</p>
+
+<p>“The Lady Dallona is in the gun room,” Tarnod informed Verkan Vall,
+making as though to guide him.</p>
+
+<p>“Thanks, Tarnod; we know the way,” Dirzed told him shortly, turning
+his back on the upper-servant and walking toward a closed door on the
+other side of the fountain. Verkan Vall and Olirzon followed; for a
+moment, Tarnod stood looking after them, then he followed the other
+two Assassins into the ascent tube.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t relish that fellow,” Dirzed explained. “The family of Starpha
+use him for work they couldn’t hire an Assassin to do at any price.
+I’ve been here often, when I was with the Lord Garnon; I’ve always
+thought he had something on Prince Jirzyn.”</p>
+
+<p>He knocked sharply on the closed door with the butt of his pistol. In
+a moment, it slid open, and a young Assassin with a narrow mustache
+and a tuft of chin beard looked out.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, Dirzed.” He stepped outside. “The Lady Dallona is within; I
+return her to your care.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall entered, followed by Dirzed and Olirzon. The big room was
+fitted with reclining chairs and couches and low tables; its walls
+were hung with the heads of deer and boar and wolves, and with racks
+holding rifles and hunting pistols and fowling pieces. It was filled
+with the soft glow of indirect cold light. At the far side of the
+room, a young woman was seated at a desk, speaking softly into a sound
+transcriber. As they entered, she snapped it off and rose.</p>
+
+<p>Hadron Dalla wore the same costume Verkan Vall had seen on the
+visiplate: he recognized her instantly. It took her a second or two to
+perceive Verkan Vall under the brown skin and black hair of the Lord
+Virzal of Verkan. Then her face lighted with a happy smile.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Va-a-a-ll!” she whooped, running across the room and tossing
+herself into his not particularly reluctant arms. After all, it had
+been twenty years—“I didn’t know you, at first!”</p>
+
+<p>“You mean, in these clothes?” he asked, seeing that she had forgotten,
+for the moment, the presence of the two Assassins. She had even
+called him by his First Level name, but that was unimportant—the
+Akor-Neb affectionate diminutive was formed by omitting the -<i>irz</i>- or
+-<i>arn</i>-. “Well, they’re not exactly what I generally wear on the
+plantation.” He kissed her again, then turned to his companions. “Your
+pardon, Gentlemen-Assassins; it’s been something over a year since
+we’ve seen each other.”</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon was smiling at the affectionate reunion; Dirzed wore a look of
+amused resignation, as though he might have expected something like
+this to happen. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat down on a couch near the
+desk.</p>
+
+<p>“That was really sweet of you, Vall, fighting those men for talking
+about me,” she began. “You took an awful chance, though. But if you
+hadn’t, I’d never have known you were in Darsh—Oh-oh! That was why
+you did it, wasn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I had to do something. Everybody either didn’t know or weren’t
+saying where you were. I assumed, from the circumstances, that you
+were hiding somewhere. Tell me, Dalla; do you really have scientific
+proof of reincarnation? I mean, as an established fact?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes; these people on this sector have had that for over ten
+centuries. They have hypnotic techniques for getting back into a part
+of the subconscious mind that we’ve never been able to reach. And
+after I found out how they did it, I was able to adapt some of our
+hypno-epistemological techniques to it, and—”</p>
+
+<p>“All right; that’s what I wanted to know,” he cut her off. “We’re
+getting out of here, right away.”</p>
+
+<p>“But where?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ghamma, in an airboat I have outside, and then back to the First
+Level. Unless there’s a paratime-transposition conveyor somewhere
+nearer.”</p>
+
+<p>“But why, Vall? I’m not ready to go back; I have a lot of work to do
+here, yet. They’re getting ready to set up a series of
+control-experiments at the Institute, and then, I’m in the middle of
+an experiment, a two-hundred-subject memory-recall experiment. See, I
+distributed two hundred sets of equipment for my new
+technique—injection-ampoules of this <i>zerfa</i>-derivative drug, and
+sound records of the hypnotic suggestion formula, which can be played
+on an ordinary reproducer. It’s just a crude variant of our hypno-mech
+process, except that instead of implanting information in the
+subconscious mind, to be brought at will to the level of
+consciousness, it works the other way, and draws into conscious
+knowledge information already in the subconscious mind. The way these
+people have always done has been to put the subject in an hypnotic
+trance and then record verbal statements made in the trance-state;
+when the subject comes out of the trance, the record is all there is,
+because the memories of past reincarnations have never been in the
+conscious mind. But with my process, the subject can consciously
+remember everything about his last reincarnation, and as many
+reincarnations before that as he wishes to. I haven’t heard from any
+of the people who received these auto-recall kits, and I really
+must—”</p>
+
+
+
+<p>“Dalla, I don’t want to have to pull Paratime Police authority on you,
+but, so help me, if you don’t come back voluntarily with me, I will.
+Security of the secret of paratime transposition.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my eye!” Dalla exclaimed. “Don’t give me that, Vall!”</p>
+
+<p>“Look, Dalla. Suppose you get discarnated here,” Verkan Vall said.
+“You say reincarnation is a scientific fact. Well, you’d reincarnate
+on this sector, and then you’d take a memory-recall, under hypnosis.
+And when you did, the paratime secret wouldn’t be a secret any more.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” Dalla’s hand went to her mouth in consternation. Like every
+paratimer, she was conditioned to shrink with all her being from the
+mere thought of revealing to any out-time dweller the secret ability
+of her race to pass to other time-lines, or even the existence of
+alternate lines of probability. “And if I took one of the
+old-fashioned trance-recalls, I’d blat out everything; I wouldn’t be
+able to keep a thing back. And I even know the principles of
+transposition!” She looked at him, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>“When I get back, I’m going to put a recommendation through department
+channels that this whole sector be declared out of bounds for all
+paratime transposition, until you people at Rhogom Foundation work
+out the problem of discarnate return to the First Level,” he told her.
+“Now, have you any notes or anything you want to take back with you?”</p>
+
+<p>She rose. “Yes; just what’s on the desk. Find me something to put the
+tape spools and notebooks in, while I’m getting them in order.”</p>
+
+<p>He secured a large game bag from under a rack of fowling pieces, and
+held it while she sorted the material rapidly, stuffing spools of
+record tape and notebooks into it. They had barely begun when the door
+slid open and Olirzon, who had gone outside, sprang into the room, his
+pistol drawn, swearing vilely.</p>
+
+<p>“They’ve double-crossed us!” he cried. “The servants of Starpha have
+turned on us.” He holstered his pistol and snatched up his
+submachine-gun, taking cover behind the edge of the door and letting
+go with a burst in the direction of the lifter tubes. “Got that one!”
+he grunted.</p>
+
+<p>“What happened, Olirzon?” Verkan Vall asked, dropping the game bag on
+the table and hurrying across the room.</p>
+
+<p>“I went up to see how Marnik was making out. As I came out of the
+lifter tube, one of the obscenities took a shot at me with a hunting
+pistol. He missed me; I didn’t miss him. Then a couple more of them
+were coming up, with fowling pieces; I shot one of them before they
+could fire, and jumped into the descent tube and came down heels over
+ears. I don’t know what’s happened to Marnik.” He fired another burst,
+and swore. “Missed him!”</p>
+
+<p>“Assassins’ Truce! Assassins’ Truce!” a voice howled out of the
+descent tube. “Hold your fire, we want to parley.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who is it?” Dirzed shouted, over Olirzon’s shoulder. “You, Sarnax?
+Come on out; we won’t shoot.”</p>
+
+<p>The young Assassin with the mustache and chin beard emerged from the
+descent tube, his weapons sheathed and his clasped hands extended in
+front of him in a peculiarly ecclesiastical-looking manner. Dirzed and
+Olirzon stepped out of the gun room, followed by Verkan Vall and
+Hadron Dalla. Olirzon had left his submachine-gun behind. They met the
+other Assassin by the rim of the fountain pool.</p>
+
+<p>“Lady Dallona of Hadron,” the Starpha Assassin began. “I and my
+colleagues, in the employ of the family of Starpha, have received
+orders from our clients to withdraw our protection from you, and to
+discarnate you, and all with you who undertake to protect or support
+you.” That much sounded like a recitation of some established formula;
+then his voice became more conversational. “I and my colleagues,
+Erarno and Kirzol and Harnif, offer our apologies for the barbarity of
+the servants of the family of Starpha, in attacking without
+declaration of cessation of friendship. Was anybody hurt or
+discarnated?”</p>
+
+<p>“None of us,” Olirzon said. “How about Marnik?”</p>
+
+<p>“He was warned before hostilities were begun against him,” Sarnax
+replied. “We will allow five minutes until—”</p>
+
+<p>Olirzon, who had been looking up the well, suddenly sprang at Dalla,
+knocking her flat, and at the same time jerking out his pistol. Before
+he could raise it, a shot banged from above and he fell on his face.
+Dirzed, Verkan Vall, and Sarnax, all drew their pistols, but whoever
+had fired the shot had vanished. There was an outburst of shouting
+above.</p>
+
+<p>“Get to cover,” Sarnax told the others. “We’ll let you know when we’re
+ready to attack; we’ll have to deal with whoever fired that shot,
+first.” He looked at the dead body on the floor, exclaimed angrily,
+and hurried to the ascent tube, springing upward.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall replaced the small pistol in his shoulder holster and took
+Olirzon’s belt, with his knife and heavier pistol.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, there you see,” Dirzed said, as they went back to the gun room.
+“So much for political expediency.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think I understand why your picture and the Lady Dallona’s were
+exhibited so widely,” Verkan Vall said. “Now, anybody would recognize
+your bodies, and blame the Statisticalists for discarnating you.”</p>
+
+<p>“That thought had occurred to me, Lord Virzal,” Dirzed said. “I
+suppose our bodies will be atrociously but not unidentifiably
+mutilated, to further enrage the public,” he added placidly. “If I get
+out of this carnate, I’m going to pay somebody off for it.”</p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes, there was more shouting of: “Assassins’ Truce!”
+from the descent tube. The two Assassins, Erarno and Kirzol, emerged,
+dragging the gamekeeper, Tarnod, between them. The upper-servant’s
+face was bloody, and his jaw seemed to be broken. Sarnax followed,
+carrying a long hunting pistol in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Here he is!” he announced. “He fired during Assassins’ Truce; he’s
+subject to Assassins’ Justice!”</p>
+
+<p>He nodded to the others. They threw the gamekeeper forward on the
+floor, and Sarnax shot him through the head, then tossed the pistol
+down beside him. “Any more of these people who violate the decencies
+will be treated similarly,” he promised.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, Sarnax,” Dirzed spoke up. “But we lost an Assassin:
+discarnating this lackey won’t equalize that. We think you should
+retire one of your number.”</p>
+
+<p>“That at least, Dirzed; wait a moment.”</p>
+
+<p>The three Assassins conferred at some length. Then Sarnax hooked
+fingers and clapped shoulders with his companions.</p>
+
+<p>“See you in the next reincarnation, brothers,” he told them, walking
+toward the gun-room door, where Verkan Vall, Dalla and Dirzed stood.
+“I’m joining you people. You had two Assassins when the parley began,
+you’ll have two when the shooting starts.”</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall looked at Dirzed in some surprise. Hadron Dalla’s Assassin
+nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s entitled to do that, Lord Virzal; the Assassins’ code provides
+for such changes of allegiance.”</p>
+
+<p>“Welcome, Sarnax,” Verkan Vall said, hooking fingers with him. “I hope
+we’ll all be together when this is over.”</p>
+
+<p>“We will be,” Sarnax assured him cheerfully. “Discarnate. We won’t get
+out of this in the body, Lord Virzal.”</p>
+
+<p>A submachine-gun hammered from above, the bullets lashing the fountain
+pool; the water actually steamed, so great was their velocity.</p>
+
+<p>“All right!” a voice called down. “Assassins’ Truce is over!”</p>
+
+<p>Another burst of automatic fire smashed out the lights at the bottom
+of the ascent tube. Dirzed and Dalla struggled across the room,
+pushing a heavy steel cabinet between them; Verkan Vall, who was
+holding Olirzon’s submachine-gun, moved aside to allow them to drop it
+on edge in the open doorway, then wedged the door half-shut against
+it. Sarnax came over, bringing rifles, hunting pistols, and
+ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the situation, up there?” Verkan Vall asked him. “What force
+have they, and why did they turn against us?”</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Virzal!” Dirzed objected, scandalized. “You have no right to ask
+Sarnax to betray confidences!”</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax spat against the door. “In the face of Jirzyn of Starpha!” he
+said. “And in the face of his <i>zortan</i> mother, and of his father,
+whoever he was! Dirzed, do not talk foolishly; one does not speak of
+betraying betrayers.” He turned to Verkan Vall. “They have three
+menservants of the family of Starpha; your Assassin, Olirzon,
+discarnated the other three. There is one of Prince Jirzyn’s poor
+relations, named Girzad. There are three other men, Volitionalist
+precinct workers, who came with Girzad, and four Assassins, the three
+who were here, and one who came with Girzad. Eleven, against the three
+of us.”</p>
+
+<p>“The four of us, Sarnax,” Dalla corrected. She had buckled on a
+hunting pistol, and had a light deer rifle under her arm.</p>
+
+<p>Something moved at the bottom of the descent tube. Verkan Vall gave it
+a short burst, though it was probably only a dummy, dropped to draw
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>“The four of us, Lady Dallona,” Sarnax agreed. “As to your other
+Assassin, the one who stayed in the airboat, I don’t know how he
+fared. You see, about twenty minutes ago, this Girzad arrived in an
+airboat, with an Assassin and these three Volitionalist workers.
+Erarno and I were at the top of the dome when he came in. He told us
+that he had orders from Prince Jirzyn to discarnate the Lady Dallona
+and Dirzed at once. Tarnod, the gamekeeper”—Sarnax spat ceremoniously
+against the door again—“told him you were here, and that Marnik was
+one of your men. He was going to shoot Marnik at once, but Erarno and
+I and his Assassin stopped him. We warned Marnik about the change in
+the situation, according to the code, expecting Marnik to go down here
+and join you. Instead, he lifted the airboat, zoomed over Girzad’s
+boat, and let go a rocket blast, setting Girzad’s boat on fire. Well,
+that was a hostile act, so we all fired after him. We must have hit
+something, because the boat went down, trailing smoke, about ten miles
+away. Girzad got another airboat out of the hangar and he and his
+Assassin started after your man. About that time, your Assassin,
+Olirzon—happy reincarnation to him—came up, and the Starpha servants
+fired at him, and he fired back and discarnated two of them, and then
+jumped down the descent tube. One of the servants jumped after him; I
+found his body at the bottom when I came down to warn you formally.
+You know what happened after that.”</p>
+
+<p>“But why did Prince Jirzyn order our discarnation?” Dalla wanted to
+know. “Was it to blame the Statisticalists with it?”</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax, about to answer, broke off suddenly and began firing at the
+opening of the ascent tube with a hunting pistol.</p>
+
+<p>“I got him,” he said, in a pleased tone. “That was Erarno; he was
+always playing tricks with the tubes, climbing down against negative
+gravity and up against positive gravity. His body will float up to the
+top—Why, Lady Dallona, that was only part of it. You didn’t hear
+about the big scandal, on the newscast, then?”</p>
+
+<p>“We didn’t have it on. What scandal?”</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax laughed. “Oh, the very father and family-head of all scandals!
+You ought to know about it, because you started it; that’s why Prince
+Jirzyn wants you out of the body—You devised a process by which
+people could give themselves memory-recalls of previous
+reincarnations, didn’t you? And distributed apparatus to do it with?
+And gave one set to young Tarnov, the son of Lord Tirzov of Fastor?”</p>
+
+<p>Dalla nodded. Sarnax continued:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, last evening, Tarnov of Fastor used his recall outfit, and what
+do you think? It seems that thirty years ago, in his last
+reincarnation, he was Jirzid of Starpha, Jirzyn’s older brother.
+Jirzid was betrothed to the Lady Annitra of Zabna. Well, his younger
+brother was carrying on a clandestine affair with the Lady Annitra,
+and he also wanted the title of Prince and family-head of Starpha. So
+he bribed this fellow Tarnod, whom I had the pleasure of discarnating,
+and who was an underservant here at the hunting lodge. Between them,
+they shot Jirzid during a boar hunt. An accident, of course. So Jirzyn
+married the Lady Annitra, and when old Prince Jarnid, his father,
+discarnated a year later, he succeeded to the title. And immediately,
+Tarnod was made head gamekeeper here.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did I tell you, Lord Virzal? I knew that son of a <i>zortan</i> had
+something on Jirzyn of Starpha!” Dirzed exclaimed. “A nice family,
+this of Starpha!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that’s not the end of it,” Sarnax continued. “This morning,
+Tarnov of Fastor, late Jirzid of Starpha, went before the High Court
+of Estates and entered suit to change his name to Jirzid of Starpha
+and laid claim to the title of Starpha family-head. The case has just
+been entered, so there’s been no hearing, but there’s the blazes of an
+argument among all the nobles about it—some are claiming that the
+individuality doesn’t change from one reincarnation to the next, and
+others claiming that property and titles should pass along the line of
+physical descent, no matter what individuality has reincarnated into
+what body. They’re the ones who want the Lady Dallona discarnated and
+her discoveries suppressed. And there’s talk about revising the entire
+system of estate-ownership and estate-inheritance. Oh, it’s an utter
+obscenity of a business!”</p>
+
+<p>“This,” Verkan Vall told Dalla, “is something we will not emphasize
+when we get home.” That was as close as he dared come to it, but she
+caught his meaning. The working of major changes in out-time social
+structures was not viewed with approval by the Paratime Commission on
+the First Level. “<i>If</i> we get home,” he added. Then an idea occurred
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Dirzed, Sarnax; this place must have been used by the leaders of the
+Volitionalists for top-level conferences. Is there a secret passage
+anywhere?”</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax shook his head. “Not from here. There is one, on the floor
+above, but they control it. And even if there were one down here, they
+would be guarding the outlet.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s what I was counting on. I’d hoped to simulate an escape that
+way, and then make a rush up the regular tubes.” Verkan Vall shrugged.
+“I suppose Marnik’s our only chance. I hope he got away safely.”</p>
+
+<p>“He was going for help? I was surprised that an Assassin would desert
+his client; I should have thought of that,” Sarnax said. “Well, even
+if he got down carnate, and if Girzad didn’t catch him, he’d still be
+afoot ten miles from the nearest city unit. That gives us a little
+chance—about one in a thousand.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is there any way they can get at us, except by those tubes?” Dalla
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“They could cut a hole in the floor, or burn one through,” Sarnax
+replied. “They have plenty of thermite. They could detonate a charge
+of explosives over our heads, or clear out of the dome and drop one
+down the well. They could use lethal gas or radio-dust, but their
+Assassins wouldn’t permit such illegal methods. Or they could shoot
+sleep-gas down at us, and then come down and cut our throats at their
+leisure.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll have to get out of this room, then,” Verkan Vall decided. “They
+know we’ve barricaded ourselves in here; this is where they’ll
+attack. So we’ll patrol the perimeter of the well; we’ll be out of
+danger from above if we keep close to the wall. And we’ll inspect all
+the rooms on this floor for evidence of cutting through from above.”</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax nodded. “That’s sense, Lord Virzal. How about the lifter
+tubes?”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll have to barricade them. Sarnax, you and Dirzed know the layout
+of this place better than the Lady Dallona or I; suppose you two check
+the rooms, while we cover the tubes and the well,” Verkan Vall
+directed. “Come on, now.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>They pushed the door wide-open and went out past the cabinet. Hugging
+the wall, they began a slow circuit of the well, Verkan Vall in the
+lead with the submachine-gun, then Sarnax and Dirzed, the former with
+a heavy boar-rifle and the latter with a hunting pistol in each hand,
+and Hadron Dalla brought up in the rear with her rifle. It was she who
+noticed a movement along the rim of the balcony above and snapped a
+shot at it; there was a crash above, and a shower of glass and plastic
+and metal fragments rattled on the pavement of the court. Somebody had
+been trying to lower a scanner or a visiplate-pickup, or something of
+the sort; the exact nature of the instrument was not evident from the
+wreckage Dalla’s bullet had made of it.</p>
+
+<p>The rooms Dirzed and Sarnax entered were all quiet; nobody seemed to
+be attempting to cut through the ceiling, fifteen feet above. They
+dragged furniture from a couple of rooms, blocking the openings of the
+lifter tubes, and continued around the well until they had reached the
+gun room again.</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed suggested that they move some of the weapons and ammunition
+stored there to Prince Jirzyn’s private apartment, halfway around to
+the lifter tubes, so that another place of refuge would be stocked
+with munitions in event of their being driven from the gun room.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving him on guard outside, Verkan Vall, Dalla and Sarnax entered
+the gun room and began gathering weapons and boxes of ammunition.
+Dalla finished packing her game bag with the recorded data and notes
+of her experiments. Verkan Vall selected four more of the heavy
+hunting pistols, more accurate than his shoulder-holster weapon or the
+dead Olirzon’s belt arm, and capable of either full or semi-automatic
+fire. Sarnax chose a couple more boar rifles. Dalla slung her bag of
+recorded notes, and another bag of ammunition, and secured another
+deer rifle. They carried this accumulation of munitions to the private
+apartments of Prince Jirzyn, dumping everything in the middle of the
+drawing room, except the bag of notes, from which Dalla refused to
+separate herself.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe we’d better put some stuff over in one of the rooms on the
+other side of the well,” Dirzed suggested. “They haven’t really begun
+to come after us; when they do, we’ll probably be attacked from two
+or three directions at once.”</p>
+
+<p>They returned to the gun room, casting anxious glances at the edge of
+the balcony above and at the barricade they had erected across the
+openings to the lifter tubes. Verkan Vall was not satisfied with this
+last; it looked to him as though they had provided a breastwork for
+somebody to fire on them from, more than anything else.</p>
+
+<p>He was about to step around the cabinet which partially blocked the
+gun-room door when he glanced up, and saw a six-foot circle on the
+ceiling turning slowly brown. There was a smell of scorched plastic.
+He grabbed Sarnax by the arm and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>“Thermite,” the Assassin whispered. “The ceiling’s got six inches of
+spaceship-insulation between it and the floor above; it’ll take them a
+few minutes to burn through it.” He stooped and pushed on the
+barricade, shoving it into the room. “Keep back; they’ll probably drop
+a grenade or so through, first, before they jump down. If we’re quick,
+we can get a couple of them.”</p>
+
+<p>Dirzed and Sarnax crouched, one at either side of the door, with
+weapons ready. Verkan Vall and Dalla had been ordered, rather
+peremptorily, to stay behind them; in a place of danger, an Assassin
+was obliged to shield his client. Verkan Vall, unable to see what was
+going on inside the room, kept his eyes and his gun muzzle on the
+barricade across the openings to the lifter tubes, the erection of
+which he was now regretting as a major tactical error.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the gun room, there was a sudden crash, as the circle of
+thermite burned through and a section of ceiling dropped out and hit
+the floor. Instantly, Dirzed flung himself back against Verkan Vall,
+and there was a tremendous explosion inside, followed by another and
+another. A second or so passed, then Dirzed, leaning around the corner
+of the door, began firing rapidly into the room. From the other side
+of the door, Sarnax began blazing away with his rifle. Verkan Vall
+kept his position, covering the lifter tubes.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, from behind the barricade, a blue-white gun flash leaped
+into being, and a pistol banged. He sprayed the opening between a
+couch and a section of bookcase from whence it had come, releasing his
+trigger as the gun rose with the recoil, squeezing and releasing and
+squeezing again. Then he jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, the other place; hurry!” he ordered.</p>
+
+<p>Sarnax swore in exasperation. “Help me with her, Dirzed!” he implored.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall turned his head, to see the two Assassins drag Dalla to
+her feet and hustle her away from the gun room; she was quite
+senseless, and they had to drag her between them. Verkan Vall gave a
+quick glance into the gun room; two of the Starpha servants and a man
+in rather flashy civil dress were lying on the floor, where they had
+been shot as they had jumped down from above. He saw a movement at the
+edge of the irregular, smoking, hole in the ceiling, and gave it a
+short burst, then fired another at the exit from the descent tube.
+Then he took to his heels and followed the Assassins and Hadron Dalla
+into Prince Jirzyn’s apartment.</p>
+
+<p>As he ran through the open door, the Assassins were letting Dalla down
+into a chair; they instantly threw themselves into the work of
+barricading the doorway so as to provide cover and at the same time
+allow them to fire out into the central well.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="469" /></p>
+<p>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. The bullet had hit the game bag at her
+side; it was full of spools of metal tape, in metal cases, and notes
+in written form, pyrographed upon sheets of plastic ring fastened into
+metal binders. Because of their extreme velocity, Akor-Neb bullets
+were sure killers when they struck animal tissue, but for the same
+reason, they had very poor penetration on hard objects. The
+alloy-steel tape, and the steel spools and spool cases, and the
+notebook binders, had been enough to shatter the little bullet into
+splinters of magnesium-nickel alloy, and the stout leather back of the
+game bag had stopped all of these. But the impact, even distributed as
+it had been through the contents of the bag, had been enough to knock
+the girl unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>He found a bottle of some sort of brandy and a glass on a serving
+table nearby and poured her a drink, holding it to her lips. She
+spluttered over the first mouthful, then took the glass from him and
+sipped the rest.</p>
+
+<p>“What happened?” she asked. “I thought those bullets were sure death.”</p>
+
+<p>“Your notes. The bullet hit the bag. Are you all right, now?”</p>
+
+<p>She finished the brandy. “I think so.” She put a hand into the game
+bag and brought out a snarled and tangled mess of steel tape. “Oh,
+<i>blast</i>! That stuff was important; all the records on the preliminary
+auto-recall experiments.” She shrugged. “Well, it wouldn’t have been
+worth much more if I’d stopped that bullet, myself.” She slipped the
+strap over her shoulder and started to rise.</p>
+
+<p>As she did, a bedlam of firing broke out, both from the two Assassins
+at the door and from outside. They both hit the floor and crawled out
+of line of the partly-open door; Verkan Vall recovered his
+submachine-gun, which he had set down beside Dalla’s chair. Sarnax was
+firing with his rifle at some target in the direction of the lifter
+tubes; Dirzed lay slumped over the barricade, and one glance at his
+crumpled figure was enough to tell Verkan Vall that he was dead.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>“You fill magazines for us,” he told Dalla, then crawled to Dirzed’s
+place at the door. “What happened, Sarnax?”</p>
+
+<p>“They shoved over the barricade at the lifter tubes and came out into
+the well. I got a couple, they got Dirzed, and now they’re holed up in
+rooms all around the circle. They—Aah!” He fired three shots,
+quickly, around the edge of the door. “That stopped that.” The
+Assassin crouched to insert a fresh magazine into his rifle.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_06_01.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="600" height="348" class="figleft" /><img src="images/image_06_02.jpg" alt="Illustration" width="299" height="112" class="figleft" /></div>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall risked one eye around the corner of the doorway, and as he
+did, there was a red flash and a dull roar, unlike the blue flashes
+and sharp cracking reports of the pistols and rifles, from the doorway
+of the gun room. He wondered, for a split second, if it might be one
+of the fowling pieces he had seen there, and then something whizzed
+past his head and exploded with a soft <i>plop</i> behind him. Turning, he
+saw a pool of gray vapor beginning to spread in the middle of the
+room. Dalla must have got a breath of it, for she was slumped over the
+chair from which she had just risen.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping the submachine-gun and gulping a lungful of fresh air from
+outside, Verkan Vall rushed to her, caught her by the heels, and
+dragged her into Prince Jirzyn’s bedroom, beyond. Leaving her in the
+middle of the floor, he took another deep breath and returned to the
+drawing room, where Sarnax was already overcome by the sleep-gas.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the serving table from which he had got the brandy, and dragged
+it over to the bedroom door, overturning it and laying it across the
+doorway, its legs in the air. Like most Akor-Neb serving tables, it
+had a gravity-counteraction unit under it; he set this for double
+minus-gravitation and snapped it on. As it was now above the inverted
+table, the table did not rise, but a tendril, of sleep-gas, curling
+toward it, bent upward and drifted away from the doorway. Satisfied
+that he had made a temporary barrier against the sleep-gas, Verkan
+Vall secured Dalla’s hunting pistol and spare magazines and lay down
+at the bedroom door.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, there was silence outside. Then the besiegers evidently
+decided that the sleep-gas attack had been a success. An Assassin,
+wearing a gas mask and carrying a submachine-gun, appeared in the
+doorway, and behind him came a tall man in a tan tunic, similarly
+masked. They stepped into the room and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that he would be shooting over a two hundred percent negative
+gravitation-field, Verkan Vall aimed for the Assassin’s belt-buckle
+and squeezed. The bullet caught him in the throat. Evidently the
+bullet had not only been lifted in the negative gravitation, but
+lifted point-first and deflected upward. He held his front sight just
+above the other man’s knee, and hit him in the chest.</p>
+
+<p>As he fired, he saw a wisp of gas come sliding around the edge of the
+inverted table. There was silence outside, and for an instant, he was
+tempted to abandon his post and go to the bathroom, back of the
+bedroom, for wet towels to improvise a mask. Then, when he tried to
+crawl backward, he could not. There was an impression of distant
+shouting which turned to a roaring sound in his head. He tried to lift
+his pistol, but it slipped from his fingers.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When consciousness returned, he was lying on his back, and something
+cold and rubbery was pressing into his face. He raised his arms to
+fight off whatever it was, and opened his eyes, to find that he was
+staring directly at the red oval and winged bullet of the Society of
+Assassins. A hand caught his wrist as he reached for the small pistol
+under his arm. The pressure on his face eased.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s all right, Lord Virzal,” a voice came to him. “Assassins’
+Truce!”</p>
+
+<p>He nodded stupidly and repeated the words. “Assassins’ Truce; I won’t
+shoot. What happened?”</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat up and looked around. Prince Jirzyn’s bedchamber was full
+of Assassins. Dalla, recovering from her touch of sleep-gas, was
+sitting groggily in a chair, while five or six of them fussed around
+her, getting in each others’ way, handing her drinks, chaffing her
+wrists, holding damp cloths on her brow. That was standard procedure,
+when any group of males thought Dalla needed any help. Another
+Assassin, beside the bed, was putting away an oxygen-mask outfit, and
+the Assassin who had prevented Verkan Vall from drawing his pistol was
+his own follower, Marnik. And Klarnood, the Assassin-President, was
+sitting on the foot of the bed, smoking one of Prince Jirzyn’s
+monogrammed and crested cigarettes critically.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall looked at Marnik, and then at Klarnood, and back to
+Marnik.</p>
+
+<p>“You got through,” he said. “Good work, Marnik; I thought they’d
+downed you.”</p>
+
+<p>“They did; I had to crash-land in the woods. I went about a mile on
+foot, and then I found a man and woman and two children, hiding in one
+of these little log rain shelters. They had an airboat, a good one. It
+seemed that rioting had broken out in the city unit where they lived,
+and they’d taken to the woods till things quieted down again. I
+offered them Assassins’ protection if they’d take me to Assassins’
+Hall, and they did.”</p>
+
+<p>“By luck, I was in when Marnik arrived,” Klarnood took over. “We
+brought three boatloads of men, and came here at once. Just as we got
+here, two boatloads of Starpha dependents arrived; they tried to give
+us an argument, and we discarnated the lot of them. Then we came down
+here, crying Assassins’ Truce. One of the Starpha Assassins, Kirzol,
+was still carnate; he told us what had been going on.” The
+President-General’s face-became grim. “You know, I take a rather poor
+view of Prince Jirzyn’s procedure in this matter, not to mention that
+of his underlings. I’ll have to speak to him about this. Now, how
+about you and the Lady Dallona? What do you intend doing?”</p>
+
+<p>“We’re getting out of here,” Verkan Vall said. “I’d like air transport
+and protection as far as Ghamma, to the establishment of the family of
+Zorda. Brarnend of Zorda has a private space yacht; he’ll get us to
+Venus.”</p>
+
+<p>Klarnood gave a sigh of obvious relief. “I’ll have you and the Lady
+Dallona airborne and off for Ghamma as soon as you wish,” he promised.
+“I will, frankly, be delighted to see the last of both of you. The
+Lady Dallona has started a fire here at Darsh that won’t burn out in a
+half-century, and who knows what it may consume.” He was interrupted
+by a heaving shock that made the underground dome dwelling shake like
+a light airboat in turbulence. Even eighty feet under the ground, they
+could hear a continued crashing roar. It was an appreciable interval
+before the sound and the shock ceased.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, there was silence, and then an excited bedlam of
+shouting broke from the Assassins in the room: Klarnood’s face was
+frozen in horror.</p>
+
+<p>“That was a fission bomb!” he exclaimed. “The first one that has been
+exploded on this planet in hostility in a thousand years!” He turned
+to Verkan Vall. “If you feel well enough to walk, Lord Virzal, come
+with us. I must see what’s happened.”</p>
+
+<p>They hurried from the room and went streaming up the ascent tube to
+the top of the dome. About forty miles away, to the south, Verkan Vall
+saw the sinister thing that he had seen on so many other time-lines,
+in so many other paratime sectors—a great pillar of varicolored
+fire-shot smoke, rising to a mushroom head fifty thousand feet above.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that’s it,” Klarnood said sadly. “That is civil war.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I make a suggestion, Assassin-President?” Verkan Vall asked. “I
+understand that Assassins’ Truce is binding even upon non-Assassins;
+is that correct?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, not exactly; it’s generally kept by such non-Assassins as want
+to remain in their present reincarnations, though.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s what I meant. Well, suppose you declare a general, planet-wide
+Assassins’ Truce in this political war, and make the leaders of both
+parties responsible for keeping it. Publish lists of the top two or
+three thousand Statisticalists and Volitionalists, starting with
+Mirzark of Bashad and Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, and inform them that
+they will be assassinated, in order, if the fighting doesn’t cease.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” A smile grew on Klarnood’s face. “Lord Virzal, my thanks; a
+good suggestion. I’ll try it. And furthermore, I’ll withdraw all
+Assassin protection permanently from anybody involved in political
+activity, and forbid any Assassin to accept any retainer connected
+with political factionalism. It’s about time our members stopped
+discarnating each other in these political squabbles.” He pointed to
+the three airboats drawn up on the top of the dome; speedy black
+craft, bearing the red oval and winged bullet. “Take your choice, Lord
+Virzal. I’ll lend you a couple of my men, and you’ll be in Ghamma in
+three hours.” He hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with Verkan
+Vall, bent over Dalla’s hand. “I still like you, Lord Virzal, and I
+have seldom met a more charming lady than you, Lady Dallona. But I
+sincerely hope I never see either of you again.”</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The ship for Dhergabar was driving north and west; at seventy thousand
+feet, it was still daylight, but the world below was wrapping itself
+in darkness. In the big visiscreens, which served in lieu of the
+windows which could never have withstood the pressure and friction
+heat of the ship’s speed, the sun was sliding out of sight over the
+horizon to port. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat together, watching the
+blazing western sky—the sky of their own First Level time-line.</p>
+
+<p>“I blame myself terribly, Vall,” Dalla was saying. “And I didn’t mean
+any of them the least harm. All I was interested in was learning the
+facts. I know, that sounds like ‘I didn’t know it was loaded,’ but—”</p>
+
+<p>“It sounds to me like those Fourth Level Europo-American Sector
+physicists who are giving themselves guilt-complexes because they
+designed an atomic bomb,” Verkan Vall replied. “All you were
+interested in was learning the facts. Well, as a scientist, that’s all
+you’re supposed to be interested in. You don’t have to worry about any
+social or political implications. People have to learn to live with
+newly-discovered facts; if they don’t, they die of them.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, Vall; that sounds dreadfully irresponsible—”</p>
+
+<p>“Does it? You’re worrying about the results of your reincarnation
+memory-recall discoveries, the shootings and riotings and the bombing
+we saw.” He touched the pommel of Olirzon’s knife, which he still
+wore. “You’re no more guilty of that than the man who forged this
+blade is guilty of the death of Marnark of Bashad; if he’d never
+lived, I’d have killed Marnark with some other knife somebody else
+made. And what’s more, you can’t know the results of your discoveries.
+All you can see is a thin film of events on the surface of an
+immediate situation, so you can’t say whether the long-term results
+will be beneficial or calamitous.</p>
+
+<p>“Take this Fourth Level Europo-American atomic bomb, for example. I
+choose that because we both know that sector, but I could think of a
+hundred other examples in other paratime areas. Those people, because
+of deforestation, bad agricultural methods and general mismanagement,
+are eroding away their arable soil at an alarming rate. At the same
+time, they are breeding like rabbits. In other words, each successive
+generation has less and less food to divide among more and more
+people, and, for inherited traditional and superstitious reasons, they
+refuse to adopt any rational program of birth-control and
+population-limitation.</p>
+
+<p>“But, fortunately, they now have the atomic bomb, and they are
+developing radioactive poisons, weapons of mass-effect. 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.”</p>
+
+<p>“But how about my work on the Akor-Neb Sector?” Dalla asked. “It seems
+that my memory-recall technique is more explosive than any fission
+bomb. I’ve laid the train for a century-long reign of anarchy!”</p>
+
+<p>“I doubt that; I think Klarnood will take hold, now that he has
+committed himself to it. You know, in spite of his sanguinary
+profession, he’s the nearest thing to a real man of good will I’ve
+found on that sector. And here’s something else you haven’t
+considered. Our own First Level life expectancy is from four to five
+hundred years. That’s the main reason why we’ve accomplished as much
+as we have. We have, individually, time to accomplish things. On the
+Akor-Neb Sector, a scientist or artist or scholar or statesman will
+grow senile and die before he’s as old as either of us. But now, a
+young student of twenty or so can take one of your auto-recall
+treatments and immediately have available all the knowledge and
+experience gained in four or five previous lives. He can start where
+he left off in his last reincarnation. In other words, you’ve made
+those people time-binders, individually as well as racially. Isn’t
+that worth the temporary discarnation of a lot of ward-heelers and
+plug-uglies, or even a few decent types like Dirzed and Olirzon? If it
+isn’t, I don’t know what scales of values you’re using.”</p>
+
+<p>“Vall!” Dalla’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm. “I never thought of that!
+And you said, ‘temporary discarnation.’ That’s just what it is. Dirzed
+and Olirzon and the others aren’t dead; they’re just waiting,
+discarnate, between physical lives. You know, in the sacred writings
+of one of the Fourth Level peoples it is stated: ‘Death is the last
+enemy.’ By proving that death is just a cyclic condition of continued
+individual existence, these people have conquered their last enemy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Last enemy but one,” Verkan Vall corrected. “They still have one
+enemy to go, an enemy within themselves. Call it semantic confusion,
+or illogic, or incomprehension, or just plain stupidity. Like
+Klarnood, stymied by verbal objections to something labeled ‘political
+intervention.’ He’d never have consented to use the power of his
+Society if he hadn’t been shocked out of his inhibitions by that
+nuclear bomb. Or the Statisticalists, trying to create a classless
+order of society through a political program which would only result
+in universal servitude to an omnipotent government. Or the
+Volitionalist nobles, trying to preserve their hereditary feudal
+privileges, and now they can’t even agree on a definition of the term
+‘hereditary.’ Might they not recover all the silly prejudices of their
+past lives, along with the knowledge and wisdom?”</p>
+
+<p>“But ... I thought you said—” Dalla was puzzled, a little hurt.</p>
+
+<p>Verkan Vall’s arm squeezed around her waist, and he laughed
+comfortingly.</p>
+
+<p>“You see? Any sort of result is possible, good or bad. So don’t blame
+yourself in advance for something you can’t possibly estimate.” An
+idea occurred to him, and he straightened in the seat. “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.”</p>
+
+<p>“A hundred years: that would be Year Twenty-Two of the next
+millennium. It’s a date, Vall; we’ll do it.”</p>
+
+<p>They bent to light their cigarettes together at his lighter. When
+they raised their heads again and got the flame glare out of their
+eyes, the sky was purple-black, dusted with stars, and dead ahead,
+spilling up over the horizon, was a golden glow—the lights of
+Dhergabar and home.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+<p> </p>
+<hr class="full" />
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