He looked up from the floor. "Well?" "So I'm a thinking man and an educated man. And what happens? I'm sapped. I'm shanghaied. I'm walking down Confederate Place to my old fraternity house at 1:00 in the morning. I've just had a row with my girl. I'm heading for the fraternity house to see who'll go down to Herman's and get good and drunk with me. And somebody clobbers me. The next thing I remember I'm sitting in a steel chair in a steel room without any windows. Just like this one. There's a man standing there. A man with watery, myopic eyes under bushy brows and his hair parted in the middle. He's Doctor Borley, of the University of Louisville Chemistry Department. There's another man with him. A little fellow with thick glasses and a crew cut and eyes like the slits between closed Venetian blinds. He's Doctor Schink, of the Psychology Department. They're talking about me." "Umn hmn. Now you're beginning to sound normal. Doctors Borley and Schink are our agents in 1954. Do you know where you were?" "I told you. In some sort of steel room without win--" The man made an impatient gesture with his hand. "No, I mean _where_. You were in a steel chamber in the Daynolds Metals Plant. It stood on this spot in 1954. Two people knew--know--about that room." "Doctor Borley and Doctor Schink?" "I'm glad you've calmed down. Now we can talk." Jay wasn't quite ready to calm down. "You stand there in that Roman outfit and talk about being calm. To me. To me, Jay Welch, a history major who took his AB from the University of Louisville in 1950. Jay Welch, average guy, who got into an average argument with the girl he pinned in 1950 and went for a walk to drown his sorrows and wound up one hundred years from where--when--he started. I--" "Then you admit you've come through Time?" "I may as well." Ilaria cursed quietly. "But you're not an average guy. You have a working knowledge of chemistry and biology and physics and history and a few arts and sociology and psychology and geopolitics and literature and the English language as spoken in AD 1954. You hope to be successful as a writer. You're Public Relations Consultant with Duo-Point, one of the biggest corporations in your nation in 1954." "Yes," Jay Welch said. "And I make good money. Even better than a bus driver or a steam-fitter. So?" "So here you are. 1954's representative to 2054." Ilaria was only a man. He could not keep the flourish and the Hollywood grandeur out of his voice. "Yes! And what happens tomorrow when I don't show up for work? What happens in a few days when people find out I've disappeared? What happens when they find out Julie was the last person I was with? What--" "You're getting yourself worked up again, Jay Welch. Don't you think we have thought of those things? We've brought you across one hundred years, Jay Welch." "Yes," Jay said quietly, flatly. "Yes." Then just as flatly, just as quietly he said, "Why?"