“Hay, my turn’s supposed to be next,” protested Ace. “Of course. But no one is going to use it again today. Tomorrow morning. Bring Catty, Hodge, if she wants to come, but please don’t say anything to anyone else till weve made further demonstrations, otherwise we’ll be besieged by fellows wanting to take short jaunts into popular years.” I had little inclination to discuss what had happened with anyone, even Catty. Not that I shared Midbin’s theory of nothing material having taken place; I knew I’d not seen Barbara for sixty seconds and I was convinced her account of them was accurate. What confused me was the shock to my preconceptions involved in her proof. If time and space, matter and energy were the same, as fog and ice and water are the same, then I—the physical I at least—and Catty, the world and the universe must be, as Enfandin had insisted, mere illusion. In that sense Midbin had been right. I went furtively to the workshop next day without telling Catty, as though we were all engaged in some dark necromancy, some sacrilegious rite. Apparently I was the only one who had spent an anxious night; Mr Haggerwells looked proud, Barbara looked satisfied, Ace cocky, and even Midbin, for no understandable reason, benign. “All here?” inquired Ace. “I’m eager as a fox in a hen-house. Three minutes in 1885. Why 1885? I don’t know; a year when nothing much happened, I suppose. Ready, Barbara?” He returned to report he had found the barn well occupied by both cattle and fowl, and been scared stiff of discovery when the dogs set up a furious barking. “That pretty well settles the question of corporeal presence,” I remarked. “Not at all,” said Mr Haggerwells unexpectedly. “Dogs are notoriously psychic.” “Ah,” cried Ace, bringing his hands from behind his back; “look at this. I could hardly have picked it up with psychic feelers.” “This” was a newlaid egg, sixty-seven years old. Or was it? Trips in time are confusing that way. Barbara was upset, more than I thought warranted. “Oh, Ace, how could you be so foolish? We darent be anything but spectators, as unseen as possible.” “Why? Ive a notion to court my grandmother and wind up as my own grandfather.” “Don’t be stupid. The faintest indication of our presence, the slightest impingement on the past, may change the whole course of events. We have no way of knowing what actions have no consequences—if there can be any. Goodness knows what your idiocy with the egg has done. It’s absolutely essential not to betray ourselves in any way. Please remember this in future.” “You mean, ‘Remember this in past,’ don’t you?” “Ace, this isnt a joke.” “It isn’t a wake either. I can’t see the harm in bringing back tangible proof. Loss of one egg isnt going to send the prices up for 1885 and cause retroactive inflation. Youre making a mountain out of a molehill—or an omelette out of a single egg.” She shrugged helplessly. “Oliver, I hope you won’t be so foolish.”