Here he fumbled under his robe and produced a small
object like a mechanical pencil, inserting the pointed end in a tiny
hole in the door and pressing on the other end. The door opened, then
swung shut behind him, and as it locked itself, the lights came on
within. Ghullam removed his miter and his false beard, tossing them
aside on a table, then undid his sash and peeled out of his robe. His
regalia discarded, he stood for a moment in loose trousers and a soft
white shirt, with a pistollike weapon in a shoulder holster under his
left arm--no longer Ghullam the high priest of Yat-Zar, but now
Stranor Sleth, resident agent on this time-line of the Fourth Level
Proto-Aryan Sector for the Transtemporal Mining Corporation. Then he
opened a door at the other side of the anteroom and went to the
antigrav shaft, stepping over the edge and floating downward.
* * * * *
There were temples of Yat-Zar on every time-line of the Proto-Aryan
Sector, for the worship of Yat-Zar was ancient among the Hulgun people
of that area of paratime, but there were only a few which had such
installations as this, and all of them were owned and operated by
Transtemporal Mining, which had the fissionable ores franchise for
this sector. During the ten elapsed centuries since Transtemporal had
begun operations on this sector, the process had become standardized.
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