"They are," I admitted. "She seemed hard, the first time I saw her, when I answered her ad, but she could have been just acting businesslike. I mean she had a lot of people to pick from and she had to be impersonal and make certain she had the right one. The next time--I hope you don't know about that--it was really my fault for breaking into her room. I really had a lot of admiration for the way she handled the situation." "Go on," Carr encouraged me. "And I can't complain about the deal she gave me. Sure, she came out ahead on the money I bet and invested for her. But I did all right myself--I was richer than I'd ever been in my life--and she gave that money to me before I even did anything to earn it!" "Besides which," somebody else said, "she offered you half of the profits on the Dynapack." * * * * * I looked around at the faces for signs of hostility. I saw none. That was surprising. I'd come from the past to steal something from them and they weren't at all angry. Well, no, it wasn't really stealing. I wouldn't be depriving them of the Dynapack. It just would have been invented before it was supposed to be. "She did," I said. "Though I wouldn't call that part of it philanthropy. She needed me for the data and I needed her to manufacture the things." "And she was a very beautiful woman," Blundell added. I squirmed a bit. "Yes." "Mr. Weldon, we know a good deal about her from notes that have come down to us among her private papers. She had a safety deposit box under a false name. I won't tell you the name; it was not discovered until many years later, and we will not voluntarily meddle with the past." I sat up and listened sharply. "So that's how you knew who I was and what I'd be wearing and what I came for! You even knew when and where I'd arrive!" "Correct," Blundell said. "What else do you know?" "That you suspected her of being responsible for the deaths of many old people by starvation. Your suspicion was justified, except that her father had caused all those that occurred before 1947, when she took over after his own death. All but two people were sent into the past. Roberts was curious about the future, of course, but he did not want to waste a victim on a trip that would probably be fruitless. In the past, you understand, he knew precisely what he was after. The future was completely unknown territory." "But she took the chance," I said. "If you can call deliberate murder taking a chance, yes. One man arrived in 2094, over fifty years ago. The other was yourself. The first one, as you know, died of malnutrition when he was brought back to your era." "And what happened to me?" I asked, jittering. "You will not die. We intend to make sure of that. All the other victims--I presume you're interested in their errands?" "I think I know, but I'd like to find out just the same."