Maybe not. Why was it _he_ hadn't succumbed to the time forces in which Neptune existed? He _should_ have. Others had. Those lost expeditions, they accounted for the language and civilization here on Neptune. Darrel lit another cigarette nervously, clumsily. Maybe it was because of the speed with which he had approached Neptune. He must have ripped through the--through the point of time transition with so great a velocity that neither he nor his ship were gripped by the opposing time flow. If he had come at a lesser rate of speed, the change might have been effected. Even as it was, the ship had almost been gripped. He threw the cigarette away and paced back and forth in front of the ship. If he could take Leyloon out there ... take her across the zone, very slowly, a crawling two or three thousand miles per hour ... it might work. Her entire metabolism system might be reversed. She might exist _properly_ in _his_ time. Blazing comets! On the other hand, it might kill her. Tear her apart or something. How many members of the old expeditions survived the transition was unknown. The outcome was impossible to foresee. It might kill her. Darrel fumbled for another cigarette. And yet, he had to do _something_! She was receding into her past every minute. Time was desperately short. The sun was setting--or was it rising?--and the night was coming on swiftly. The day was short on Neptune. Little more than half of an Earth day. He crumpled up the empty cigarette pack and threw it to the ground. Kidnapping! But it was the only way. It should be relatively simple. Neptunians were a systematic race. They slept at night. All of them. When night came, all activity ceased. He would be unmolested as he went through the city ... unless the girl raised a commotion. Darrel rubbed his jaw. It couldn't be avoided. When the night was black, he walked behind the beam of his torch over the crest of the hill and into the city. * * * * * Two hours later he came up to the ship from out of the dark, carrying a limp form across his shoulders. His face was pale. It had wrenched his soul to knock the girl out. He felt like a murderer. Creeping into the house that way in the dead of night, finding the bedroom, the quietly slumbering girl, then ... sock! It was the toughest thing he had ever done. He strapped Leyloon's unconscious body onto the bunk in the cabin, sealed the airlock, and dropped wearily into the bucket-seat before the maze of manual controls. Beads of sweat oozed from his skin. He wiped them away. The magnetic space-drive wooshed powerfully at an almost sub-audio level. Darrel glanced apprehensively at the girl. Her beauty and helplessness and the thought of what he might be doing to her, tore at him. "If I'm wrong, I'll make it up to you in hell!" he swore, and declined the trip-lever beneath his hand.