"Everything we want, of course," Jill said. "There'll be no more reason to conceal our activities--and we'll have _time_. As much time as we need. Thirty or fifty years perhaps. Scientific centers and automatic factories will be set up in the past, and eventually the factories will be turning out weapons superior to anything the Overgovernment has. And then the weapons will come to the present--to _this_ present, Dowland. Within a year from now, Terra will have become a heavily armed world--overnight. There'll be no more talk then of forcing us to remain under Overgovernment rule. Or of making Terra another Open Planet...." Theoretically, Dowland could see that such a plan might work. With the time to do it in, and the resources of a world at the Freeholders' disposal ... and there would be nothing to keep them from taking back spaceships and mining the asteroids. For a moment, while Jill Trelawney was talking, she had made it sound almost plausible. Only for a moment. She was, of course, telling the truth as she knew it. They were up to something very dangerous--and very illegal--here, whatever it was, and they'd spread the time-travel idea around among the lesser members of the group to help keep the real purpose concealed. He said, "Just how far back in time are they planning to go, Miss Trelawney?" "Six hundred thousand years. The period is regarded as particularly suitable for what is being planned." Six hundred thousand years. Nothing half-hearted about the Freeholders, Dowland thought sardonically, even as to the size of the lies they put out. "When you waved me in here this evening," he said, "I had the impression you were expecting someone else. Was I right?" "Yes. But I wasn't waving you in, Dowland. I was attempting to wave you off. If you'd been the man I thought it was, you would have realized it.... Have you considered my suggestion?" "About selling out to the Freeholders?" "If you wish to call it that." "Miss Trelawney," Dowland said amiably, "if I did sell out, would you admire me for it?" Her cheeks flushed. "No. You'd be despicable, of course." Dowland nodded. "That's one thing we agree on. Now, just who was this man you were expecting, and just why were you expecting him?" The girl's lips twisted reluctantly for a moment; then words broke out again. "Carter is to send a man to the ranch with some pieces of equipment. The equipment either was unloaded at Columbia spaceport this afternoon, or will be, early tomorrow morning. I thought you were the messenger. Strange grid-cars don't come through this area more than once every few weeks. If you'd been the man, you would already have attempted to call our house communicator by the time I saw you...." "To make sure the coast was clear before coming in with odd-looking equipment."