.

Ned's dark hair was wildly awry. His gaunt, young face held befuddled
terror. He gasped in the thin atmosphere. "I've gone nuts," he
pronounced with a curious calm. "Stark--starin'--nuts...."

* * * * *

Loy's box, with its recorded English words and its sonic detectors,
could translate for its master, too. As the man spoke, Loy read the
illuminated symbols in his own language, flashed on a frosted crystal
plate before him. Thus he knew what Ned Vince was saying.

Loy Chuk pressed more keys, and the box reproduced his answer: "No, Ned,
not nuts. Not a bit of it! There are just a lot of things that you've
got to get used to, that's all. You drowned about a million years ago. I
discovered your body. I brought you back to life. We have science that
can do that. I'm Loy Chuk...."

* * * * *

It took only a moment for the box to tell the full story in clear, bold,
friendly terms. Thus Loy sought, with calm, human logic, to make his
charge feel at home. Probably, though, he was a fool, to suppose that he
could succeed, thus.

Vince started to mutter, struggling desperately to reason it out. "A
prairie dog," he said. "Speaking to me. One million years. Evolution.
The scientists say that people grew up from fishes in the sea. Prairie
dogs are smart. So maybe super-prairie-dogs could come from them. A lot
easier than men from fish...."

It was all sound logic. Even Ned Vince knew that. Still, his mind, tuned
to ordinary, simple things, couldn't quite realize all the vast things
that had happened to himself, and to the world. The scope of it all was
too staggeringly big. One million years. God!...

Ned Vince made a last effort to control himself. His knuckles tightened
on the edge of the vat. "I don't know what you've been talking about,"
he grated wildly. "But I want to get out of here! I want to go back
where I came from! Do you understand--whoever, or whatever you are?"

Loy Chuk pressed more keys. "But you can't go back to the Twentieth
Century," said the box. "Nor is there any better place for you to be
now, than Kar-Rah. You are the only man left on Earth. Those men that
exist in other star systems are not really your kind anymore, though
their forefathers originated on this planet. They have gone far beyond
you in evolution. To them you would be only a senseless curiosity. You
are much better off with my people--our minds are much more like yours.