"Not us, fella!" he rapped. "I'm not such a keen student of this Time business, but I know when I'm behind the little black ball numbered eight. You got us here, you say? Okay--we've had a nice visit but we don't like the climate. So we'll be toddling off now. Send us back where we belong. And--" He jiggled the gun threateningly. "And get working on it before I make you look like a second-hand punch-board." "My dear aborigine!" laughed Harg softly. His tiny fingers sought and pressed one of his metal studs. A golden glow diffused about him, forming a radiant mesh of shimmering light about his body. "Certainly you do not think to harm _me_ with your elementary weapon of destruction? Now, come, before I am compelled to use force." "You," said Larry grimly, "asked for it!" And his finger tightened on the trigger. The automatic barked leaden death directly at Harg's breast. The little man of time yet-to-be smiled maddeningly. Before Larry's stupefied gaze, a flattened, shapeless blob of lead _splatted_ against the golden haze, fell dully to the ground! Again Larry fired. This time Harg moved slightly. The bullet glanced off the lustrous force-armor, ricocheted from the ochre web to fly screaming into the woods beyond. Larry flung his impotent weapon away. "Well, if that won't do it, maybe _this_--" And he stepped toward the smirking scientist, fists clenched. His arms touched the thin mist, then his heaving chest. And, strangely, his head was aswim with an overwhelming giddiness. His limbs were numb with a creeping impotence that suffused his body, dulled his senses. The gray sky above seemed to recede far, far into the distance. There was mocking laughter in his ears, darkness gathering before his eyes. The last sound he heard as he sank, weak and helpless, into the swirling haze of unconsciousness, was the cry of Sandra Day-- "_Larry!_" II First all was blackness, then in that blackness was a spot of light that grew larger and larger and ever larger until the world was filled with roaring light. And now the dim, fluttering sounds began to make sense, and a voice was saying, "I see the young man is awakening. Good. Now we will take a little trip through my laboratories." This was Larry Wilson's welcome to the incredible surroundings in which he found himself. He was lying on a small pallet. Or, rather, two small pallets which had been placed end to end to accommodate his six-foot frame. Above him was a silken coverlet, beneath his head a soft pillow cased in the same material. He moved an arm experimentally and discovered that his rough, English tweed business suit was missing, as were his heavy leather brogues. While he had been unconscious, someone had replaced his Twentieth Century garments with those of Harg's era.