"That," said Biggs dejectedly, "is just what we don't know! Ah, that sounds ridiculous to you, gentlemen? Believe me, if you knew space, as we who shuttle back and forth within it in our daily toil, you would recognize by merely glancing through the quartzite viewpanes that we are nowhere within the confines of man's studied universe! "Space is an ebon, eternal night, pricked by a myriad glowing sparks. The stars wheel in their courses. Comets scream through the infinitude. The planets, firmly shining in the reflected glory of their several suns are colored gems upon a velvet pall. But about us now we see nothing but a dull, endless gray. There are no cosmic clouds, no meteor mists, no stars; neither light nor dark. Only nothingness, complete and unresponsive to our best instruments!" "Huh!" broke in Hank. "Whazzat you say?" "Apparently," explained the young lieutenant, "our delicate instruments were broken during the explosion. That is the factor making more perilous our position. We are not able to orient ourselves, discover into what portion of the universe our moment of wild flight flung us. "I have studied and worked and thought on the problem, but to no avail. That is why, Mr. Cleaver, I undertook to find _you_." Cleaver looked at the youngster admiringly. "Smart feller!" he said. "Time-travel, huh? Alluz thought it could be made to work. Mighta tried it myself if it hadn't been I was so durn busy on them turnips--" "It was an accidental discovery, sir. I chanced upon it several months ago while inventing a new type of uranium speech condenser. It turned out to be a time-speech trap."[4] [Footnote 4: "The Madness of Lancelot Biggs," FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, April, 1940.--ED.] "Nevertheless," insisted Hank, "you done a good job. Findin' a way to transport your body across time. An' pickin' me up outa 1940, bringin' me here. Like to talk to you about that later. But right now--" He frowned severely. "You say them instruments o' your'n won't work?" "No, sir." "Not _a_-tall?" * * * * * Biggs swallowed with difficulty. "The truth is, Mr. Cleaver--" "Hank's good enough." "Well, Hank, the truth is--the instruments _do_ work! But they work so dad-blamed funny--" "Let's," suggested Horse-sense Hank mildly, "have a look." That was all the invitation the young lieutenant needed. Without so much as a backward glance at the rest of us, he led Hank to the control banks of the space freighter. They began to talk in undertones. Biggs pushed buttons and explained things. I heard snatches about, "tensor alleviators," "orbital velocity adjusters," and a bunch of terms even less comprehensible, and gave it up as a bad job. It was Hank's party. And his headache. I turned to my self-appointed guide, the radioman, Bert Donovan. "Do you understand what they're talking about?"