"Because," explained the elder, "we have listened to it being spoken for many, many years. Over our visors we have both heard and watched you on your neighboring world." "Neighboring world?" "How came you here?" asked the old man. "What means of propulsion brought you hither?" That, at least, Dirk knew. He answered eagerly. "I came here through the medium of the greatest discovery ever made by man. The _teleport_, a machine invented by Robert Townsend. A perfect solution to the long puzzling problem of material transport through Space. It disassembles the atoms of any body placed in its transmitting chamber, and reconstructs that body at a destination selected by a setting of its dials. "Through circumstances not of my own choosing, I was a subject of that machine. I was forced into the transmitter by ... well, it does not matter whom ... and my body broadcast to this spot. Though I do not yet, sir, understand just where I am, or exactly how I reached here--" The old man shook his head regretfully. "I am sorry, my boy, to tell you the machine did not work as was planned. Its theory was sound; in one respect it performed as expected. It _did_ disassemble your atomic components, did reconstruct your body elsewhere. But it was to no far bourne your journey carried you. "_Your body still stands in exactly the spot it stood before the machine operated!_" * * * * * For a long, uncomprehending moment Dirk Morris gaped at his informant. At last his bedazement found words. "Oh, now, surely you can't expect me to believe--" "No," interrupted the graybeard gently, "not without visual evidence. Rima, my dear--?" He turned to the girl, who nodded and from the folds of her garment produced a shimmering crystal object; a mirror of some sort, or a lens. This she handed to Dirk. "If you will look through this--?" she suggested. Morris lifted the crystal to his eyes wonderingly ... then almost dropped it in his excitement! Beneath his feet still lay the lush greensward of an alien world, but through the curious crystal he gazed upon no panorama of soft, rolling hills and pleasant valleys. Before him lay the image of a scene he had but recently quitted: the execution dock of Graed Garroway's prison! A few feet to his right stood the metal chamber into which he had been thrust, the supposed "disintegration cell." Through the viewpane of this the Overlord was peering, a grim smirk of satisfaction on his lips. As Dirk watched, Garroway turned and gestured to the guardsman whose hand had depressed the activating switch. Dirk heard no words, but could easily read the movement of the Emperor's lips. "_Enough! It is done!_" With an instinct born of illogic, Dirk reached forth as if to grip the throat of the murderous Garroway. In doing so, the crystal left his eyes. Instantly the scene vanished. He looked once more upon distance-purpled hills softly limned in the splendor of two suns. The girl laughed softly.