Henry Beam Piper

Time Crime illustrated Henry Beam Piper

This short novel by H. Beam Piper was originally published in two parts in Astounding Science Fiction, February and March of 1955, and also appeared in the 1981 collection Paratime. In the world in which Time Crime takes place, human society has developed the technology to move laterally between parallel universes. The heroes of this story, Verken Vall and his wife Hadron Dalla, are ready to embark on a long-overdue vacation when the Paratime Police send them both to investigate rumors of slavery in the Esaron Sector. Like many of Piper's stories, this is a police procedural, set in the world of the future.