"Ping!"

The sound was sharp, quick, metallic.

And final.

There was no reversing it. No taking it back or praying it hadn't happened. Thirty-two years of life, hard-packed with training, just at the peak of career--and "ping!" The end.

Of course there were a few swift impressions that went with it, but very swift. The air thudded out instead of screaming. He remembered a futile motion to grab for oxygen. There was an axe in his head. A stake crushed through his ribs.

Even if he had reached the oxygen mask it wouldn't have been enough. For this he needed his suit, but who had twenty minutes when life was a matter of seconds? The axe in his head was his arteries trying to explode. The stake through his chest was instant asphyxiation. To sum it all up, the last thing Steve Germaine remembered was the meteor...

That is, the meteor was the last thing he remembered that made any sense. There were things much more vaguely remembered. An endless nightmare of drifting ... a dreamless, frozen waiting ... unable to move, buried in a tomb of time...

In the distant heart of darkness was a lonely star. It made a spiked cross of light on a circle as though seen out of focus through an imperfect lens. As the seeming eons passed, the star drew nearer and was brighter.

Sometimes there was blinding light everywhere with shadows and shapes moving through it--and at times the sensation of sound. Voices, the clink of steel instruments, the high whine of generators or the arcing of high-tension electricity.

At other times, the gulfs of blackness again ... a peace of eternal silence. But after ages the star would reappear, and each time it would stay longer. Finally, an awareness grew that he would awaken, that he would one day open his eyes and learn the mystery of the star...

His first conscious sensation was that of heaviness. An invisible hand pressed him down against the bed. He tried to raise his arm, but it was made of lead. Either it had gone to sleep and was numb or he was under many Gs of acceleration. But where was the metal-transmitted roar of rocket engines? Ionic drive had no thrust like this. Was he on board a ship at all?

He opened his eyes and the star smote him blindingly. He rested several minutes, then experimentally lifted his eyelids again. The star gradually resolved itself into a broad, open window and a view of clear blue sky. At the same moment he heard the long-trilling song of a bird. Earth! He was back home again!

He tried to sit up, but the invisible hand shoved him back. Frustrated, he lay there in a large rustic bed and stared at the ceiling. A vague panic stirred in him and he fought it stubbornly by willing himself to reason--to pick up all the pieces and fit them together and then make a judgment. It had always been his tactic before, whether running a team play or facing the unknown. It had to work now.

Just prior to the meteor impact, he'd been trying to contact the Cape, Jodrell Bank, the Canary Islands, Johannisberg, Woomera, Hawaii--anybody. At his tremendous distance from home a one-way transmission required an elapsed time of 31 minutes. As his speed increased and the time between contacts stretched out, a sense of vast isolation came with it--a burden of loneliness never before experienced by the human psyche. Lesser men might have cracked up by now, but that's why he was here in spite of his extra big frame and his quarter-back weight.

He was the only astronaut engineer whose physical stamina could pass the "window" test of the centrifuge--the window of physiological survival that said he could take the slingshot maneuver past Jupiter. He was on his way to Saturn and was trying to tell them he had it made.

Suddenly the bulkheads had "pinged" open showing a frosting of stars through foot-wide holes. He had blacked out--as if someone had snapped a switch. Therefore, if he had been half a billion miles from home in a ruptured ship, there simply was no logical explanation for his present situation. Here he was in a king-size bed looking at blue sky through an open window and listening to the song of birds. Maybe he was dead and this was Heaven?

But why in Heaven should they make beamed ceilings out of rough-hewn logs? Or for that matter, if he were dead, why would he be all tied up to an intricate array of medical gadgets? He had a tube through his nose. A fairly recognizable intravenous setup ran a line to his left arm. In addition, there were anodes attached to his head and chest, very similar to the hookups he had experienced during space-medical telemetry testing. That he was under some kind of intensive care was both obvious and logical--as far as logic went. But he shouldn't be here at all. He should be a frozen corpse drifting away into Infinity at about 85,000 miles per hour.

This wasn't Cape Kennedy. It wasn't a rescue ship. It was more like a summer lodge in the mountains of the American West. In fact he heard a familiar rustling outside that sounded like waves on a pebbly beach--ripples against dock pilings and the hulls of boats. A lake! He could even smell it in the air.

Steve knew that his own stubborn nature was going to give him trouble in a situation like this. Years of team competition in high-school and college athletics had built in some habits he'd never be rid of--such as knowing he could win any game if he used his head. With logic, that is; by figuring all the factors and matching wits against the odds. But just now he was bugged by not having all of those factors.

There was just no use trying to reason out the causes of his rescue, at least not now. He was alive and apparently in friendly, competent hands. The only other mystery--that concerning the extreme sensation of weight--could probably be chalked up to a cardio-vascular reaction to months in space under only about an ounce and a half of acceleration pressure. He was simply convalescent. It was at least some relief to tidy up the world around him to this extent. A few items fit into a natural order, after all, and so he finally relaxed into a prolonged period of sleep.

During the next period of wakefulness, much of the medical equipment was gone except for the intravenous tube. Just as he was reasoning that this was a sign of improvement, he heard low-volume piped-in music: "Drink to me only with thine eyes..." It was like a G.I. homecoming.

Surprised at his unsuspected softness, he fought back a self-pitying lump in his throat. For two years during his training for Project Neptune he had hardened himself to the idea that he might never come back. Not that he was the suicidal type--far from it. But the gamble had seemed justified in view of the priceless data he would be able to furnish science by means of a manned, directly observed mission. And then again, there was that irresistible challenge of fighting the odds. However, when he passed the orbit of Mars at an exponentially increasing velocity and climbed toward regions of the Einstein equations that were as yet only theory to Man, he subconsciously renounced the planet where his flesh and spirit had been born.

Out there in the unbelievable emptiness beyond the asteroid belt, every ghost of his past came to sit with him in a silent mockery. Even his heredity, the memory of his father and grandfather and tall tales of his lineage before that. He knew that a long tradition of seafaring and adventure was in his blood, and even in his own brief life he had seen many horizons. But would he ever see them again?

In wakeful waiting, drifting like a castaway through a greater "ocean" than a dozen grand-dads would ever have imagined, he was tortured by memories which became the more painful as he receded into the Abyss. He remembered white gulls gliding over the wide blue bay of Mazatlan, the distant smoke funnel of a tramp ship in the tropical straits of La Paz, colored sails in the sunset off Waikiki ... the blinding whiteness of eternal snow mantling the Andean cordillera, and towering Illimani across the blue expanse of Titicaca.

But there was also San Fernando Valley in the early morning, the smell of fresh coffee, and the fresher smell of a blond, brown-eyed girl--Madge Hagan, his fiancée. He had a persistent feeling he would never see these things again. Far, far beyond Earth the unwinking stars were like the raven, saying "Nevermore!" And yet--the music was playing and he heard waves lapping under the dock.

Suddenly he was sharply aware of a presence in the room! He had traversed vast distances and come through an impossible gamut of survival. It was painfully vital now to look once more upon a human face. With his eyes still closed, he listened carefully. Housekeeping sounds ... dusting, the adjustment of the window curtains, and the straightening of the covers on his bed. The presence was close to him now. He heard its breathing. It was there beside him, looking at his face.

Steve Germaine opened his eyes abruptly to see a dwarfish, warty-skinned, frog-faced creature with bulging chameleon eyes.

He shouted, momentarily out of control. The shock was too far from what he had expected, and the implications were something his mind couldn't take. His cry was a prolonged, hoarse shriek of anguish. There was a moment of red haze and imbalance. Being dumped suddenly into this unreality was a thunderbolt. The alien creature scuttled out of the room. While Germaine struggled and sweated, trying to get up on his elbows, another kind of creature rushed into his field of vision and sat on the bed, clutching him closely in soft compassion as though he were a child.

"Na nu!" this creature seemed to say. "U est untipt fra shok. Soro estoi o, no sta i prezens!"

She was the most magnificent female that Germaine had ever seen in his life. His first impression was that of an angel with long, dark coppery hair and unbelievably wide amber eyes. Almost matching his own exceptional height, she was a gracious, golden-tanned amazon in a loose-flowing blue robe of some synthetic fabric that felt like a kitten's fur. In the center of her forehead was what appeared to be a dark red ruby.

He babbled something at her, not even knowing what he said. Suddenly she appeared to blush slightly as though aware of a grave error. "I'm sorry. I should speak to you the old way--" She bit her lip as though she had said too much. To distract him, she smiled beautifully and gently touched a finger to his lips. "I should have been here. Don't try to ask questions now. Everything is all right. Here--I'll give you an unstim--I mean, a sedative..."

She busied herself in the room, gracefully fetching him medicine and water. He was unable to take his eyes from her. Moments before, the world had almost tipped. That alien thing he had seen was something his mind hadn't been prepared for. Nor was he quite prepared for this gorgeous woman, either, but she was by far the lesser of two evils if he were going to be plagued by puzzles. That magnificent goddess had to belong to a world that was very real! The waves of uncertainty subsided gradually as he watched her. As she finally leaned over him and supported his head, offering him the medicated water, in a rose-tinted plastic cup, a man entered the room.

"Anne!" The voice was deep, controlled, commanding. "I'd suggest you get some clothes on!"

She set the cup on a night stand and straightened up, adjusting her robe about her. "He was delirious," she explained. "The first thing he saw was the alphid. I had to reassure him."

"I'm sure you accomplished that. Now let me handle this."

The woman tossed her hair over her shoulders. She gave Germaine a quick little smile of reassurance and then exited the room--but those great amber eyes of hers lingered. They hinted of a mystery that Germaine's addled brain wasn't able to cope with now.

The man, apparently her husband, picked up the cup from the night stand and gave Steve the rest of the sedative. He was also exceptionally tall, perhaps exceeding Germaine's own six feet three by a half inch or so. He was lean but powerfully built and apparently about thirty-five or thirty-eight at the most. He wore a wrap-around smoking jacket of what seemed to be white pongee embroidered with gold and silver threads. His gray eyes penetrated under forward-jutting, thin-plucked eyebrows.

"I am Vincent Cardwell," he said. "You are in my keeping. You will sleep for now. Later, you'll be strong enough to ask questions--and to answer a few..."

Fair enough. Germaine had been drained by his emotional experience. He was still very weak. It would actually be difficult to talk just now, and he could feel the soothing effect of the sedative. There was no reason for asking more. There was time. There was life, after all. And a goddess in the bargain.

As his mysterious host stood watchfully over him a heavy sleep descended upon him and his tired mind settled into vague and distant dreams. A star in a circle of light. Somewhere behind this montage drifted the bulging eyes of the alphid. What it was or what it signified, Vincent Cardwell would tell him later.

But: "na nu ... u est untipt ... ?!" Later ... later...

His periods of wakefulness increased in frequency and duration. He had to conclude that a one in a million chance had saved him from the meteoroid collision. Since no one could have rescued him, he must have repaired the ship, himself, and completed his mission. The meteor impact had caused amnesia, and he was just now recovering from it.

But where could he have landed on Earth without Government coverage, security-guarded debriefings, and a busload of reporters and photographers? He could not have reached Earth without going through a complex series of ballistic maneuvers back into orbit, from which a space shuttle would have picked him up. And the shuttle would have had world-wide surveillance during re-entry tracking. Where had he been and what had he seen? And where was he now? Actually, he had a duty to find out and to report back to Cape Kennedy. Maybe there was a telephone somewhere, or a radio transceiver. At least even a newspaper or a magazine...

These were the normal channels of reasoning he forced himself into, but they were shadowed by two unanswerable questions: why the continued sensation of heaviness?--and what the devil was that alphid creature? Nothing like that existed on the face of the Earth.

On the other hand, he kept trying to reject the wild fantasy of being on some other planet. These people were earth humans. In addition to some foreign language they also spoke English and even played old-fashioned earth music over their intercom. Rough-hewn ceiling beams and a lodge by a lake...

But there was a bug-eyed monster.

At times he tried to get up out of bed. Either he was too heavy or he was too weak. He succeeded once in getting to his feet, but it reminded him of one of his former weight-lifting contests. He soon collapsed onto his bed again. He lay there sweating and panting and insisting that there would be no panic. He still had his brains and if he had to he'd crawl out of here on his hands and knees.

Where the devil was Cardwell? And where was that incredible woman of his? Something was going on between those two that was connected with his being here--something a bit too cat-and-mouse. Come to think of it, if things were normal they would have put him in touch with his base immediately or explained why not. But not one word had been mentioned about his fully publicized space mission. No civilized person on the face of the Earth could help knowing about it. Actually, Vincent Cardwell had acted as if he were floating a dangerous enterprise and he didn't want Anne to make waves.

Maybe he'd been kidnapped?

Well, he could play cats and mice, too. The game-play of the situation might keep him from going batty. Suddenly a valid idea came to him. The stars! That was it! He would wait for night and then take a look at the constellations. That would at least tell him what part of the world he was in.

Armed with this piece of strategy, he dozed and waited. And waited ... Sometimes the bright blue of daylight outside was replaced by an orange-red gloom as though a storm were brewing over a sunset or dawn, but he still failed to awaken during the darkness of night. At other times he would wake up to find a tray of food beside him, but this would always be in the daytime. It was fairly normal homespun eating fare. Meat and vegetables, with coffee or milk. But he could never quite define the vegetables. For example, what should have been potatoes were more like pale purple turnips. And sometimes there was brightly colored fruit in the salads having an exotic tang he couldn't classify. But he was developing an insatiable appetite and he rejected none of it.

Time went on and still no night. One day, however, he discovered a third mystery, in fact the biggest one of all. The orange-red cast was in the sky again, but this time it wasn't as dark or threatening as before. If this were a dawn or a sunset, there was something very strange about it. There was no feeling here that this was a day's ending or beginning. It was still bright daylight. The burnt orange cast intruded into the blue of a warm afternoon as though a forest fire were in progress nearby.

He crawled to the window and looked out. In the sky to the east--or what should have been east--he saw a small orange-red sun and what had to be a colorful sunrise, after all. Something pricked up his instinct when he saw that diminutive ember of a sun. It was--alien! Also, its meager light could not account for the brightness of the day. Moreover, to make matters much more confusing, the predominant shadows from the house and nearby trees established a strong natural light source behind the house, in opposition to the haunting dull glow of the sunrise. It could only mean that a second and brighter sun was shining 'down on the land from a position high in the West!

His big frame prickled with a sudden burst of cold sweat. He could almost feel the gears and pinions of his sanity creaking, trying to find a bearing on reality. The feeble suggestion emerged that this had to be a bad dream, but his stubborn logic and aggressive mentality was forced to reject such a dodge. He was alive and awake, and what he was seeing was real.

But everything had to have a cause. How could it all fit together? Just one way--the answer had leapt into his mind almost at once, but it was a struggle to accept it. The only possible location capable of offering such an astronomical combination would be a planet in the trinary system of Alpha Centauri!

So now nothing fit! Nothing at all. He struggled to his feet, momentarily unaware of the physical effort it cost him. He staggered back to his bed and collapsed there. Gleaming with perspiration, he stared wildly at the ceiling. Mean distance from Earth, about 4.3 light years, or 25 trillion miles--25 thousand billions of long, empty miles, a meaningless distance across the biggest "ocean" ever traversed by Man!

Alpha Centauri was made up of Alpha I, a G-type yellow-white sun like Sol, and Alpha II, a larger K5 type that would fit the description of that sunrise star. It appeared small because it was probably a few billion miles away. The two revolved about each other at some unknown fulcrum point, in a period of 80 years. And two suns would explain the absence of normal night, at least seasonally. Probably the former infernal gloom he had observed was the light of Alpha II alone--a temporary "midnight" sun.

The third star of the trinary system was an M-type dwarf, Proxima Centauri, but it probably wouldn't be visible here in the most favorable night sky. Only one more proof remained: Beta Centauri. It, too, should probably be visible in the day or evening sky. Maybe it was behind the house on the Western horizon.

But he knew he didn't have to look. By now he was sure it was there. Almost spasmodically he clutched at his damp face and realized for the first time that he was wearing a full, heavy beard. What in God's name had happened to him? He had to think, had to pull this raging delirium into plausible reality or collapse into babbling idiocy.

Let's see now. If the meteor collision had left the ionic drive in full thrust, driven by the reactor, it would have built up his velocity indefinitely--except for limitations imposed by the Einstein equation. Even at near light speed it would have taken him five or six years to get here. How could he have lived?

Had advanced people from the Alpha system rescued him? But--these were Americans, or English people. The latter idea didn't quite work, either, because no British accent. Not even an Aussie twang. Everything also clashed with that warty-skinned creature, the alphid. This had to be another world.

It was well he had accustomed his mind to the thought of death, of no return to Earth. This severance was now as complete as death itself. He might as well be living in another incarnation. Certainly now he would never see home again--or would he?

He had to find out!

He struggled to get up again, but suddenly the accumulated effect of his exertions struck him like a tidal wave. He reeled and fell to the floor, nauseated. Blackness swirled in upon him, and far away was the gleaming star. He knew it now ... Alpha II, looming near in the binary sunlit sky of a far, far planet ... a vast planet with heavier gravitation.

The white gulls on the bay at Mazatlan were of Ultima Thule, and the brown eyes and soft lips of the girl in San Fernando Valley might turn to dust before he ever saw home again--if ever...

"It will take months to explain it all to you," said Cardwell. "For the time being, I suggest you concentrate merely on adjusting yourself to our rustic environment here at Lake Catherine."

They sat on the veranda of the two-storied log house overlooking a panorama that would have done credit to the Canadian Northwest--except for two faint clues that marked this for another world. Alpha II was gone for the moment, and the Sol-like warmth of Alpha I created a very normal-seeming day. But in the east was a small daylight star, Beta Centauri, and in the west was the far, pale disc of a planet called Cronos. According to Cardwell, Cronos was a vast blob of semi-radiant gases twice the size of Jupiter. As proof of his claim that the Alpha Centauri complex was probably the most unique planetary system in the galaxy, Cronos tagged along after Alpha I at what astronomers called a "Lagrange Point" in synchronous orbit with its parent body. And as if that were only for starters, Cardwell had mentioned certain lifeless outer planets of Alpha I that unpredictably did a "figure eight" on occasion and switched into orbits around Alpha II. In fact, both suns often indulged in a "swapping" of their farthest spheres, with consequent subtle effects on the inner systems of life-bearing worlds. There was much more--too much to tell all at once. Too much to even comprehend.

On the other hand, the view of this "home" planet of Thulone was reassuringly Earth-like as seen from the lodge. Surrounding a wide, deep lake were rugged, cliff-scarred mountains, richly forested and capped by eternal snows. Distant cumulus clouds piled majestically into a limitless blue sky, and to the south a developing rain squall shrouded misty ranges beyond the near horizon. Here was evidence of a young and vigorous geology, a riotous biological revolution in its prime.

"We'll have you out of that wheelchair," Cardwell continued, "as soon as I can get into Center and bring you a set of robo-frames."

"Robo-frames?"

"Yes, for robot. They are motorized hydraulic braces to help you get around under this heavy gravitation. From all appearances, though, you may not be needing them permanently."

"Permanently! Are you kidding?"

"Most earthmen, such as those attached to the garrison and the diplomatic services here, must wear them permanently--unless they become cross-overs..." Cardwell gave him a slow, cautious smile. "Cross-overs are those who adapt--who have the native build to acquire full strength like the rest of us. We Thulonians were born here, the result of generations of selective colonization."

Germaine stared as if suddenly turned to stone. "Generations!?"

Cardwell studied him intently. "That was a deliberate slip. You've got to know eventually, the sooner the better. Now get a grip on yourself and I'll tell you what year this is. According to the old Gregorian calendar of your own time, this is 2471 A.D. You have been in suspended animation for almost five hundred years..."

It was too much even for Germaine's highly trained nervous system. There were no words. He closed his eyes, knowing that he had turned white as a sheet. His lips seemed to parch in a matter of seconds. A gorge of bile was in his throat.

His physical relocation to this incredible remoteness from Earth had been shock enough, and he was still struggling to adjust to it--but a transition of half a thousand years through time! His mind boggled. He neither tried to hold on to reason nor did he fret himself into hysteria. His usual stubborn habit of struggling for continuity and order was dormant. He simply went numb.

Cardwell began to tell the story then, slowly and carefully, while Germaine stared out at the lake, at last grasping feebly for balance at the signposts of Nature's timelessness: the whitecaps, the low-flying lake terns, a distant sailboat, and the forested slopes of the mountains. To all intents and purposes, this was in truth another incarnation. All his earthly connections, allegiances and patterns of evaluation were gone. He recalled in bitter irony the "space-jockey gag" he had been prevented from pulling at the last minute before entering the gantry lift back at Cape Kennedy. The Press had loved him for it. He had tried to take along his credit cards!

But the cheers and laughter then was now a far, lost echo, gone beyond reckoning. It wasn't very funny from where he was sitting, not here in the system of Alpha Centauri five hundred years later. Even his personal friends, and sweet Madge Hagan--all were buried in long-forgotten graves. The brave balance of military power, the global contest of ideologies and the brooding menace of Asia--all were gone into history along with the fall of Rome.

Apathetically, he accepted the amazing explanation of his survival. It was the only path to reason that was left. His was the rarest case in history--a final triumph of cryogenics, even though it had been a freak accident. Having gone almost instantly into deep freeze when the bulkheads of his ship ruptured, the cells of his body had remained intact. While he had hurtled onward through time and emptiness, World War III had tumbled the ramparts of civilization. Surviving technologists had finally achieved true interstellar flight and arrived here on Thulone. For years they had conducted frenzied research toward a solution of the radiation contamination of Earth's atmosphere. Finally, the magnetic laser was invented, which was later called the tractor beam, or "mag" beam. Armed with this, the survivors returned to Earth and spent over three generations in the epic task of cleansing Earth of its poisons.

There were parts of the historical account where Cardwell appeared to become wary, as though carefully selecting his words, but the gist of the story was that civilization flourished during the ensuing four centuries as though it were entering the promised Millennium. Mars and Venus were colonized, as well as Thulone. Cardwell operated a fleet of interplanetary mining freighters that plied between the planets of the double Alpha system. During one such journey, Germaine's punctured ship had been spotted. With its accumulated "small" speed of C-009 (nine thousandths the speed of light, or 7 million miles per hour), it was fairly easy for Cardwell's freighter to overtake it and latch on to it with a mag beam.

The story went on. How Cardwell had hired a top medical team to revive Germaine, slowly and carefully, with a temporary artificial heart, transfusions, and special baths and injections. His real heart had only been slowed so that it could take over gradually. Finally, Cardwell had brought him here to his place in the Gilbert Mountains, three hundred kilometers from Center--the major city of Thulone.

"What I thought you needed," said Cardwell, "was an environment as close to the one you knew as possible, so that psychological factors related to your awakening might be easier to handle..."

Germaine didn't feel much like talking just now, but a question persisted: "I suppose by now I've become some sort of interstellar freak celebrity."

Cardwell looked at him sharply. "Nobody on the outside knows a thing about you. I've kept it a secret. The medicos who revived you are with us. They won't talk."

"Won't talk? Why not?" Germaine's heavy brows lowered questioningly. "What kind of games are we playing here, Cardwell? What do you mean, the medicos are 'with' us? Who is us?"

"I said it would take months to explain it to you. For now I suggest that you relax." Cardwell's long, aquiline jaws clamped shut. He indicated that this leg of the indoctrination was at an end.

In that moment the dwarfish alphid appeared with a tray of coffee, bread and an assortment of fruit, dips and spreads. It placed its burden on the long, low table between the two men, rolled its great chameleon eyes toward Steve in reptilian surveillance, and then shuffled away on its webbed, five-toed feet. Cardwell took the opportunity to change the subject.

"The alphids," he explained, "are imports from the fourth planet, which we call Alpha Minor. Their level of intelligence is just enough to make them perfect as domestics and factory workers. This is a very important economic factor with us. Each colonist represents a large investment. He has to be free to deliver his full capabilities here. Only a minimum of time can be devoted to the menial tasks, and these creatures relieve us of those."

"Sounds like ancient Greece--a society of slaves and masters. But they called it a 'golden age.' Is that what you have here?"

Cardwell had a cold way of smiling that Steve wasn't sure he liked very much-and that was the way he smiled now. He gave the impression of toying with people. "Not quite," he answered after a careful pause. "We have many problems yet to be resolved."

"And going into that, I suppose, is another no-no..."

Cardwell frowned. "No-no?"

"I mean I seem to be striking out on a number of subjects around here. And most of them are political..."

Cardwell gazed at him sternly. "My first words to you were that you were in my keeping ... You will be informed of various matters in due course, but that must be at my sole discretion."

Germaine had a built-in "tilt" sign somewhere in his people department, and now it jangled the bell for him--apparently the first time it had worked in 500 years. "Cardwell, do you mean I'm your prisoner?" he asked, without much hesitation.

"That will depend on you," was Cardwell's equally prompt reply.

Steve was in no condition to get up and punch the man in the nose, but he flatly rejected the idea of anybody holding him prisoner. However, when the other side had him outpointed his rulebook called for time out and strategy. "Yes," he finally answered, bleakly. "I'm afraid it will..." He returned Cardwell's powerful gaze as steadily as possible, though he felt far from up to par.

Cardwell smiled in grim appreciation. He raised his coffee and sipped it. "You have a remarkable resiliency," he said. "Also, your adaptive capacity is excellent. You've accepted your transplantation into the future with a minimum of emotion..."

It hadn't been all that easy. He knew that this whole thing would hit him much harder later when he had a chance to sort it all out. But aloud he said, "No use crying about it--it's done."

"I appreciate level-headedness in a man. You know, Germaine, I think you and I are going to get along together."

"Doing what?" Steve picked up his coffee and tasted it.

"That, too, is a long story--perhaps what you might call a no-no."

Anne Cardwell joined them. She wore a softly clinging garment that reminded Steve of a Hawaiian mumu, except that its burnt-orange coloration was alive with rippling variations of shading which changed with every move she made. Her soft, coppery hair was down in heavy braids, decorated by fresh-picked yellow flowers that looked like miniature columbines. For the first time he noticed that the ruby on her forehead was supported by a fine golden chain. As she smiled at him, those great amber eyes seemed to belong to yet another world.

"Well," she said, "how are you two getting along? Are all the mysteries being unraveled?"

"We will accomplish that in good time," Cardwell cut in quickly. He gave her a warning stare and she sat down silently in a chair next to Germaine, apparently embarrassed.

As if to escape his sharp surveillance, she turned to Steve and then suddenly reacted. She touched his brow. "Why, he's perspiring!" she exclaimed.

"Mr. Germaine is a stubborn man," commented Cardwell wryly. "All the while we've been out here he's been fighting the extra gravity, not wanting to admit how tired he is."

"But we'd better get him back to bed!" she protested.

"I'll be all right," Steve insisted. Actually, the sweat was from his reaction to being 500 years of time and over four light years of distance removed from a world called Earth.

"You know I've been thinking," suggested Cardwell, "that maybe we should transfer you to my mining ranch on Gamma I. The gravity is lighter there, and it would give you a chance to recover in stages."

"No," Steve retorted emphatically. "I'll make it here. Those robo-frames aren't for me. I've decided to be a cross-over..."

Cardwell studied him warily for a moment, then chuckled. "You're a very determined man, Germaine."

"So I've been told." Steve met his gaze head on.

It was time for subject changing...

They talked about the lake, the weather, and Cardwell's preferences for supper. Perhaps, Anne suggested, when "Mister Germaine" had his robo-frames he would feel strong enough to go for a ride on the lake. Anne had a favorite island where she said she liked to picnic.

Cardwell retorted angrily. "You know that island is out of bounds. You'll not get him into your vudu glade...!" He and Anne exchanged glances that were amazingly charged with emotion. Cardwell calmed himself, realizing he had said too much that was on a personal level. "Besides, there'll be no time for nonsense. For now he'd better put in all the hours he can on the sub-sike so that he can learn a few things, such as interstellar history, science--and also Unisol. That takes priority. I can't keep him out of contact with my crews forever."

The words were explained. Sub-sike was "subconscious psych-machine," a device for rapid hypnotic learning. Unisol meant "universal language of the Sol System."

"You didn't think we still spoke English after 500 years, did you?" said Cardwell. He explained that Unisol was something like a mixture of basic English and such old artificial languages as lingua franca and Esperanto.

Germaine studied his mysterious host and hostess carefully as he realized that more and more unanswered questions were piling up around him. "But you two speak English ... and what about 'drink to me only with thine eyes ... ?' I heard that coming over your intercom."

Cardwell gave him a faint, dry smile. "Just expensive props to ease your adaptation. We both siked the English after I located some rare mem-disks on the subject. But the hardest part was reconstructing an old model electric player for that music record I stole from the local history museum." When Germaine continued to stare at him doubtfully, he seemed to fight a subdued anger. "Germaine, you have a very suspicious nature. I've told you everything that I feel it's wise to tell you at the moment, and when the time comes I'll tell you more. You're an astronaut engineering type and you'll probably be able to learn our technology. Apparently you're also a man of action. How would you like to join my firm and learn the interplanetary mining business?

"I appreciate the hospitality," said Steve, "and I don't want to seem ungrateful--but you have to see my side, too."

"In other words, you still have questions..."

"Well--one in particular..."

"All right, but make it a simple one. What is it?"

"Will I ever have a chance to go back to Earth?"

Cardwell looked quickly at Anne as though this were the most complex and explosive question of all. She lowered her eyes. Somewhere in that subject also lay a major point of contention between them.

After a moment of palpable silence, Cardwell got to his feet. "I'll be able to give you a better answer to that question--in a couple of years..." He seemed grimly pleased with himself, but Anne wasn't pleased at all. She turned away from both of them and stared out toward her mysterious island on the lake.

"Don't let me rush you," retorted Steve, caustically

The landing signal changed everything abruptly.

In one moment Germaine was sitting on the long veranda of a rustic mountain lodge surrounded by a peaceful grandeur that was timeless. In the next moment he was catapulted visibly into the 25th century.

The chime-like signal tone emerged from a small speaker near the front door, and a rose-hued lens cap beside it blinked in cadence to the coded intelligence that it transmitted.

Cardwell turned tensely to Anne as though she had something to do with the local traffic. "Sta kan uno kalandato diau?" he asked swiftly in Unisol, forgetting his English for the moment.

She shook her head in some wonderment, but she considered Germaine. "No. There was no one scheduled to come here today." But then she showed new concern as the coded chime tone spelled out a special identity.

"That's a Government TPS!" Cardwell turned to the veranda railing and looked east, pointing. "There!"

As Germaine accurately guessed--Thulonian Patrol Ship--he saw it. His first impression was of an elliptical flying saucer with bustles. The skirt of the vessel looked like a swollen collision pad, but on second inspection it turned out to be metallic. Above this wide "tank" base were visible port holes and a number of protrusions, some of which were obviously microwave antennas. A few other protuberances could have been some kind of weaponry. In all, the TPS was about 100 feet long, 50 feet wide, and about 30 feet thick. It was silvery blue in color and bore on its smooth under hull a blazing insignia in which a stylized sun--for Sol--was prominent.

Germaine's second impression was more unforgettable: No wings, and a straight-line trajectory that ignored the high winds aloft. To his engineering mind this meant anti-gravitation, and power-beam propulsion. The ship was obviously riding a beam of remotely transmitted energy!

The patrol ship was at first a small "saucer" above the far crest of the mountains, but in a matter of moments it hovered in a stationary position above them, not 1500 feet over the lodge.

For the first time in Germaine's presence, Cardwell dropped all pretense. In fact he scowled threateningly. "I have to give them the clear to come down," he said to Anne--then pointed almost fiercely at Germaine. "Movalo i scuro!"

This latter was a command, with which Anne hastened to comply as Cardwell hurried into the house.

"We have to get you out of sight," she explained swiftly. "Fortunately the eaves here may have hidden you from their visi-skans ... " She operated controls on a back panel of his powered wheelchair, and suddenly he was in motion.

"What is this--a raid?" he asked.

"Even Vincent can never be sure these days," she answered.

Digesting that cryptic remark occupied him for several moments. "Even Vincent" implied unusual power or position for Vincent Cardwell. But--"these days" had many intriguing interpretations. And why was his own presence a matter of political peril? Why must he be gotten "out of sight?"

By this time she had him in a small elevator which had been entered via a camouflaged door in a hall closet. The lift door opened again and he was rolled out into a subterranean tunnel.

"What's all this?" he complained.

"It was all especially prepared for your coming here," she answered. "Trust me, Germaine--it's for your own good!"

"What makes me so special to you people? Because I'm a Rip Van Winkle or something?"

She obviously didn't understand the last part of his question. "I don't know," she finally answered. "Vincent doesn't tell his plans to anyone--certainly not to me. Whatever they are, no one will stop him. You are some vital key--he has spent a fortune on you."

The wheelchair now rolled into an underground suite of several rooms which were far from rustic. Futuristic design and ample facilities predominated, but it was apparent that these were maximum security living quarters.

Prepared for him!

He whirled the chair around to see Anne already in the doorway looking back. "Oh no you don't!" he shouted. "Not this game! Nobody is going to lock me away in a cell!" He tried to get to his feet, but the effort sent him crashing to the floor.

There was a glint of compassionate tears in Anne Cardwell's big amber eyes. "I'm so terribly sorry," she said, and the metal door slid back into place.

He crawled forward in a sweat and pounded on it, but not for long. Logic told him he was wasting precious energy. So he lay there on the yielding synthetic floor and panted while he cogitated fiercely.

Game-play, was it? A political game with him as the pawn. The only strategy he had at the present was to remain calm. If he kept his head on his shoulders he might make it work for him. It always had in the past. Only this game was much bigger and the stakes were higher.

After a while, he made it to his cot. He was too weak just now to use the gleaming sink and get a drink of water, or to explore the supply cabinets that lined the walls of the other room. Instead, he lay on his back and stared grimly at the glo-panels in the ceiling.

How remarkably similar that ceiling was to any one of the personnel and space-medical rooms at Cape Kennedy! He could go mad and fantasize that 500 years and a star jump were only a dream, that all these incredible things had never happened to him.

Now more than ever he was aware of the blood of his ancestors flowing in his veins--generations of seafaring men who had sailed tall ships beyond far horizons but who had always followed a homing instinct, no matter how many years it took to return to port.

Here he was beyond the farthest horizon of them all. Somehow, or by whatever means, this sailor would find his way home ... to Earth!

Cardwell had said, "in a couple of years."

He had meant, Thulonian years...