The haze flickered uncertainly. Barlow's last doubt was removed. He must know how Laurine was faring. But before he could get started, the violet haze and the talking image had returned. "Hello," it greeted cheerfully. "I'm glad you waited. I've made it at last. Inconvenient--that time-lash." "Yes," Barlow agreed uncertainly. He stared at the newcomer. The fellow appeared to be an ordinary human being. The violet haze had vanished and in the poor light Barlow couldn't see him very clearly, but it seemed that he was rather tall, strongly built, not too good-looking, and dressed in loose, comfortably fitting clothes. At the moment the newcomer was staring in the direction Laurine had fled. "Too bad I frightened her," he said with a shake of his head. "She's a cute little trick." Barlow frowned at the familiarity. "Who are you?" "Valnar one-oh-oh-three-oh-seven-one-oh-oh--" "I didn't ask for your telephone number," snapped Barlow. "What's your name?" "That's it," said the newcomer. "You see, I'm from--well, from the future. I was experimenting with time, and discovered a few of the natural laws that I could control. I constructed this traveler"--He tapped a plaque strapped to his chest. "--and since then I've just been wandering around ... trying to get back home." "Lost?" asked Barlow more friendly. Valnar hesitated. "Well, not exactly. I'm always able to find out where I am, but I can't find my own time. Right now, for instance, figuring from the Birth of Christ as many of the people I've met do, I should be in the year 1974. Is that right?" "Nineteen seventy-three," Barlow corrected. The man named Valnar seemed shocked. "Another error," he murmured. "If I don't do better than that, I'm going to find myself out in space, freezing to death." "I thought you said you were time-traveling," Barlow questioned. "Certainly," said Valnar. "But traveling in time requires considerable knowledge of astronomy. Both the Earth and the Sun move in space. If I were to travel twenty-four hours into the future, without moving in space, I'd find myself out in the void. But luckily the earth seems to exert an attraction which compensates for numerous errors, though it upsets my calculations concerning the time." "What time are you from?" "1974." "That's next year! That means there are two of you in the world now--that is impossible!" "No," Valnar disagreed impatiently. "I told you this wasn't my time--maybe I should say, space-time continuum. Time is like a tree with a lot of branches--too damn many of them. In my own time, we calculate that dimension from the Year of the Subsidence. I slid down my branch of that space-time continuum, and now I can't find it again. My people are the descendants of an Atlantean colony established in what you call Florida, but evidently that colony had few chances for survival--perhaps only one. That would make it a single small branch and difficult to find--which it is," he concluded feelingly.