Kimball dropped his cigarette and watched it fall regretfully toward the distant, almost invisible city. "Not many of those left--I'll be glad to get out of here myself." He lit another. In the brief match-flare, Jina's graceful, wheeling figure became visible like some angelic dream. "Why don't you go back now, Ken? I've already built a gate back to our own time. The Varese don't use much radioactive material, so I had to go back for supplies. You could go through just as simply." "Yes," said Jina's voice from the blackness. "Why not, Ken?" "This guy Atel seems to be after your pelt, and you're no match for him in his own environment," Johnny Kimball added. "It isn't as if the Varese needed you. I know the technical aspects of the situation, and I can hold my end up. But you could leave any time." "Why are you staying?" "Two reasons. First, I'm not inhuman, and I got handled roughly by the beasts. I'd like to see them smashed. Second, I can't market my time-coil--you can imagine what chaos it'd cause in our world!--but the Varese have promised me this anti-gravity-pack, and that's worth a lot." He waited for an answer, but Andreson didn't see any sense in making one. After a moment his friend sighed. "Well, got to get aloft." The glowing cigarette arced upwards dimming gradually. Wings pulsed softly past Andreson's cheek. "Why _are_ you staying?" Jina whispered. He tried to answer, but the moment's hesitation was fatal. The girl arrowed downward, a slim, lovely shadow in the artificial dusk. Her sweet, chiming voice drifted back tauntingly. "Explain to the beasts!" For a moment Andreson hung motionless in his harness, keenly aware that he was perhaps the loneliest man since Adam. The city looked like a tinsel toy below him, and all around him was darkness and silence; the nearest human being was the only one within millenia of him, and among the Varese he had just one friend--_maybe_. Out of the murk a voice called mockingly. "What are you dreaming, Earthman? Or should we say--plotting?" Andreson recognized the voice for Atel's, but could not place its direction. "I'm on my way to join my friend at the apex of the dome," he said shortly. "I'm not plotting anything, except getting home as soon as possible." "Oh? That's odd." The Varan's voice roughened, then regained its first silkiness with obvious effort. "I passed Jina on the way up. I thought you two might have been having a talk." "Suppose we were?" Andreson demanded. "What's that to you?" The voice was closer now, and its tone was cold and hard. Andreson rested his fingers lightly on the levitator controls, still looking about him in the blackness.