Mining Companies

Many huge operations exist solely
to wrest mineral wealth from unin-
habited timelines. Most mining leases
granted by Infinity are for otherwise-
worthless worlds, many of which are
uninhabitable without artificial aid.
the security leak. Measures can range from dirty tricks
intended to discredit the subject or change his percep-
tions, to commando raids aimed at eliminating all the
witnesses and destroying all hard evidence. But where
Centrum might kill, Infinity prefers to make the witness
vanish. He is kidnapped . . . and taken to Coventry.
Coventry is a Quantum 3 alternate in which human-
ity didn’t develop. It has one important and useful pecu-
liarity: unassisted conveyors can’t enter or leave it – and
neither can world-jumpers. And nobody knows why.
This means the only access to Coventry is by projector-
assisted conveyor from Homeline.
The I-Cops use Coventry to isolate people who Know
Too Much: outtimers who stumbled onto a Homeline
operation; Homeliners who broke regulations; scien-
tists abducted from other timelines because the Patrol
feared they were too close to developing parachronic
technology; and even disgruntled ex-employees of
Infinity! The population also includes some voluntary
settlers, rescued from crosstime disasters.
All sorts of adventures are possible on Coventry . . .
including a rescue attempt from within Infinity, by
employees who are morally opposed to the whole
concept. The world itself is a pastoral TL4, with TL8
medicine.