Odin grinned back at him. Then, without another word, he took up the expensive rifle and let it slip overboard. The ammunition that cost him so much trouble and pain as he lugged it all the way to Opal followed after. He watched the copper shells as they gleamed like a school of minnows and plunged out of sight. "There, Gunnar. I have nothing left to fight with but my hands." "Good-riddance to that thing," Gunnar smiled. "I will make you a blade that will slice through an anvil." The motor coughed, sputtered--and began to purr. The boat churned a wide arc in the water as Gunnar turned it and headed toward the Tower, which now loomed far ahead like a beacon. CHAPTER 5 As the boat sped over the water, leaving a churning wake behind it, Jack Odin remembered that first sea-voyage he had made on the seas of Opal. It was June-time then, and Maya had been with him. Perhaps they had thought that June would last forever. Perhaps they had thought that all of life would go by at five miles per hour. Remembering that slow, wonderful trip--almost like a voyage in a dream--he sighed as he held on to the skipping boat. They were now going well over sixty. Gunnar seemed to sense his thoughts. "Wolden has ordered speed and more speed, my friend," he called over the roar of the motor. "The governors are all gone from the old machines. The smiths are turning out newer and faster ones all the time. Sometimes I think even the hands of the clocks are going faster." Odin muttered a curse. What he had loved about this world was its leisure. What he had hated about his own world above was its constantly increasing speed. Like a squirrel caught in a cage, his world had gone faster and faster until reality had vanished into a mad blur of turning wheels and running feet. Oh, well, he thought, a man is like a pup. Contented enough until life takes him by the scruff of the neck and shakes him up and proves to him that things change and a pup's world changes and he had better accustom himself to new standards or be shaken up again. So they sped on through the low waves while the Tower loomed nearer and taller before them. Gunnar was guiding with one hand while he talked into a little square box of gleaming metal. He turned his head, and the boat careened into a trough that set it to shaking. "I have contacted Wolden and Ato," he called cheerfully. "They are meeting us at the dock. Not the old dock--it is still under water. The new one is farther up the street." * * * * *