He tipped her head back, kissed the tears that had trickled down each cheek. "If they catch us, we'll probably both die. But at least we're ready for them." He was interrupted by a knock on the door. Through the front curtains he glimpsed a car in front of the house. A hasty look out the back revealed another one parked in the alley. "Quick, Abby, into the basement before they use a paralysis ray," he whispered. Aloud he shouted, "Just a moment!" to the person at the front door. With nervous fingers Nat unlocked a heavily reinforced door in the basement. He heard a crash upstairs as the front door was battered in. At almost the same instant he swung the door open and they stepped into the time machine. With movements they had practiced many times, he tripped the activating lever and the machine vanished, leaving the hiding place Nat had built around the machine after they had bought the house several years earlier. They weren't a moment too soon, for both felt the slight tingling of a paralysis ray. Their departure had occurred just at the split second when one of Bor's TIC men had pushed the firing stud. Even so, it clouded Nat's vision, slowed his reflexes. "Another second and they'd have had us, Abby," he said aloud, after he had returned to normal. She pressed her lips to his. "I hated to leave 1925, but we can start over again wherever you say," Abby whispered. * * * * * The surf crashed and boomed on the coral reef. Nat lay in the shade of a cocoanut palm, watching the white clouds scudding by overhead. Abby came walking down the beach towards him, tanned a deep brown from head to foot, dressed as the Polynesians had dressed before Captain Cook had discovered them. "You're every bit as beautiful as the women described in the old tales of the South Sea Islands," Nat said as she sat down beside him. "And you're as big a flatterer as any sailor who ever told those stories," she answered, although she was pleased by his admiration. She lay back, stretched her hands over her head with a happy look on her face. "I'm 30 years old and don't compare to our young neighbors on the other islands." Nat rolled over, putting an arm across her waist, kissed her tenderly. "I'm the luckiest man in the world," he whispered. She looked up, her blue eyes serious. "You don't regret giving up all you had in your own time?" "I didn't know what true happiness was," he answered firmly. "People in the 25th century are automatons, hemmed in by rules, regulations, regimented by necessity because there are so many billions on the planet." He kissed her again, as the warm trade winds ruffled her dark hair--and they forgot about time. But they didn't have real peace of mind. Fear of the TIC and the tenaciousness of Anton Bor was always present.