"No security clearance. This is private work." Dolan frowned. Private work, money no object, very secret--there were implications to this offer which he did not like. On the other hand-- His eye strayed to the young woman who sat quietly beside the man, silently exercising her specialty. The plastic surgeons of her era had done a beautiful and nearly perfect job on her body; but bone-deep, in ways an observant man could sense, she was still not a twentieth century woman. In a city full of women who made a profession of being young and handsome, she too was young and handsome, but different. Dolan was an observant man, and a curious one. He looked back at Brown. "If you could just give me some idea--" he said tentatively. "The equipment, as I have said, is very intricate, and we are not technicians. We prefer that you make your own diagnosis." Dolan pursed his lips uncertainly. He glanced again at the girl. "OK," he said at last, "I'll look at it. I can't promise anything." He punched a button on the desk intercom. "Betty, I'm going out to look at a job with Mr. Brown and Miss--uh--" he glanced at the girl. "Jones," the gray-haired man said. "Miss Jones." "Oh, yes, excuse me." Dolan smiled at the girl and drew a brief quirk of the lips in response. "--with Mr. Brown and Miss Jones," he continued. "Be back some time this afternoon." "OK," he said to his clients. "Let's go see this intricate and delicate problem." * * * * * For reasons compatible with the profession of gun running and the nature of time travel, the time translator had been located outside of urban limits--the city was to be rather systematically bombed in the near future--on a secluded and stable granite dike, within the shell of a frame cottage. Dolan observed all this without comment. They were met outside the cottage by a man about Dolan's age. "This is my colleague, Mr. Smith," Brown introduced him. Mr. Smith offered his hand. As he turned to lead them inside, Dolan noticed that the light summer jacket Smith wore did not drape well over the right hip pocket. He filed this fact also for future reference. "And here," Brown said, "is the machine we wish repaired." In the center of the room was an orderly jumble of shiny black geometric solids, laced together with wires and bars of silver, the whole mounted on a polished ebony platform. It was handsome, in a bizarre sort of way; but certainly it did not look like any electronic gear Dolan had ever seen, and he had seen almost all there was, at one time or another. He studied it carefully, turning it this way and that in his mind, trying to find some familiar feature to grasp it by. There was none. "Well," he asked skeptically, "what is it? What does it do?"