H. Beam Piper wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best
known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and
a shorter series of Paratime alternate history tales. This short story
is the first of his Paratime tales. Verkan Vall is investigating the
death of Gavran Sarn, a First Level noble who was killed in an auto
accident on a Fourth Level timeline which might well have been our
own...