ould begin. No local labor would ever be employed
on such temples; the masons and woodworkers would be strangers, come
from afar and speaking a strange tongue, and when the temple was
completed, they would never be seen to leave it. Men would say that
they had been put to death by the priest and buried under the altar to
preserve the secrets of the god. And there would always be an idol to
preserve the secrets of the god. And there would always be an idol of
Yat-Zar, obviously of heavenly origin, since its workmanship was
beyond the powers of any local craftsman. The priests of such a temple
would be exempt, by divine decree, from the rule of yearly travel.

Nobody, of course, would have the least idea that there was a uranium
mine in operation under it, shipping ore to another time-line. The
Hulgun people knew nothing about uranium, and neither did they as much
as dream that there were other time-lines. The secret of paratime
transposition belonged exclusively to the First Level civilization
which had discovered it, and it was a secret that was guarded well.

* * * * *

Stranor Sleth, dropping to the bottom of the antigrav shaft, cast a
hasty and instinctive glance to the right, where the freight conveyers
were. One was gone, taking its cargo over hundreds of thousands of
para-years to the First Level. Another had just returned, empty, and a
third was receiving its cargo from the robot mining machines far back
under the mountain. Two young men and a girl, in First Level costumes,
sat at a bank of instruments and visor-screens, handling the whole
operation, and six or seven armed guards, having inspected the
newly-arrived conveyer and finding that it had picked up nothing
inimical en route, were relaxing and lighting cigarettes. Three of
them, Stranor Sleth noticed, wore the green uniforms of the Paratime
Police.

"When did those fellows get in?" he asked the people at the control
desk, nodding toward the green-clad newcomers.

"About ten minutes ago, on the passenger conveyer," the girl told him.
"The Big Boy's here. Brannad Klav. And a Paratime Police officer.
They're in your office."

"Uh huh; I was expecting that," Stranor Sleth nodded. Then he turned
down the corridor to the left.

Two men were waiting for him, in his office. One was short and stocky,
with an angry, impatient face--Brannad Klav, Transtemporal's vice
president in charge of operations. The other was tall and sle