Great Kings' War by Roland Green, John F. Carr Page B

long-past—or so he hoped. Dalla was as decorative as she was competent, and this had led to a few episodes that made her first companionate marriage to Verkan Vall rather hectic.
    Both had learned something. Dalla was now much less impulsive and more careful about the company she kept. Vall didn't wear his pride in his sense of duty so openly on his sleeve. They appeared to be settling into the kind of marriage a Chief of Paratime Police really needed. Either that, or no marriage at all—what Vall and Dalla had the first time around included the vices of both and the virtues of neither. Not to mention what a Chief's political enemies could do to exploit his personal problems!
    A few minutes passed in kissing Dalla, ordering dinner and consuming the first round of drinks and a large plate of appetizers. Dalla's gown was reasonably opaque and not too revealing otherwise, although it did show enough skin to tell Tortha that she'd had a deep-layer skin-dye to match her blond hair. Like Vall, her coloring would not attract attention on any Aryan-Transpacific time-line.
    Her gown also seemed remarkably precarious in its attachment, and Tortha found he couldn't keep his eyes off the solitary fastening that stood between her and disaster. He noticed he wasn't the only man in the room doing so either. Finally Dalla said in an expressionless voice. "Don't worry about it. I have a laboratory now, and test critical components of my gowns for resistance to fire, acid, mechanical stress and telekinesis."
    Verkan knocked over his glass in trying not to roar with laughter, and this seemed to call for more drinks. While the waiter was bringing them, Dalla unwrapped her package. It was an elegant leather-bound printed book, with a title on it that Tortha didn't know but an author he knew rather too well.
    " Gunpowder Theocracy , by Danthor Dras?"
    "It's his Styphon House: A Study of Techno-Theocracy in Action retitled," Dalla explained, with new material chronicling the arrival of Kalvan and his effect upon Styphon's House and the Five Great Kingdoms. The public edition will be out in a few days, but he sent one of the presentation copies to Vulthor Tarkon. For the Archives, not as a personal gift," she added, answering the unspoken question of both men. "I wouldn't have asked to borrow it otherwise."
    "Is it rewritten as well as retitled?" Verkan asked.
    "I had it computer-scanned and the answer is no. However, there's a new preface summarizing Kalvan's Time-Line up to the beginning of winter. He also promises a full-scale study of Kalvan's Time-Line, and an update on all the Styphon's House time-lines where Hos-Hostigos wound up under a ban, as a companion volume."
    "He'll do it, too," Verkan said.
    Tortha nodded absently, aware that he'd suddenly lost much of his appetite for dinner. The greatest living expert on Aryan-Transpacific culture did nothing by chance, or at least he hadn't in the last three centuries. If he was bringing out a new edition of his definitive study of Styphon's House at this point, there had to be a reason. He had a number of theories about what that reason might be, none of which made for pleasant dining.
    "Has Kalvan's Time-Line been receiving more public attention while I was in Sicily?" he asked.
    Both Verkan and Dalla said yes.
    "Kalvan's Time-Line has been proscribed as too dangerous for civilians and newsies since we can't offer them Paratime Police protection," she added. "But that hasn't stopped the newsies from interviewing the Kalvan Study Team members and their families."
    Tortha shook his head. "Then Danthor Dras has a fertile field for his speculations. Few of which will be kind of the Paratime Police..."
    Verkan added. "We don't need any more distractions with publicity hounds or day trippers. We're having a hard enough problems guarding the Dhergabar professors."
    "From themselves, mostly!" Dalla rejoined.
    They all laughed.
    After a pause for another round of drinks, Dalla continued, "The