ings, and returned to Perfidion's
side. Dragging the armor-encumbered man over to the black rohorse and
slinging him over the saddle was no easy matter, but Mallory managed;
then he picked up Perfidion's helmet and spear and set the former on
the pommel and wedged the latter in one of the stirrups. Finally he
mounted Easy Money and, encephalopathing the black rohorse to follow,
set out down the highway away from the castle of Carbonek.

Make-believe castles could fool the hadbeens, but they couldn't fool a
professional. He spotted the phony towers of Perfidion's TSB rising
above the trees before he had proceeded half a mile. After raising the
"portcullis", he got the man down from the black rohorse, dragged him
inside, and propped him against the rec-hall bar. Then he got the
man's helmet and spear and laid them beside him. After considerable
reflection, he went into the control room, set the time-dial for June
10, 1964, the space-dial for a busy intersection in downtown Los
Angeles, and punched out H-O-T-D-O-G S-T-A-N-D on the lumillusion
panel. Satisfied, he went into the generator room and short-circuited
the automatic throw-out unit so that when rematerialization took
place, the generator would burn up. Finding a ball of heavy-duty
twine, he returned to the control room, tied one end to the master
switch, and began backing out of the TSB, unwinding the twine as he
went.

In the rec-hall, he paused, and grinned down at the still-unconscious
Perfidion. "It's a better break than you meant to give me, Jason," he
said. "And don't worry--once you explain to the authorities what
you're doing in a suit of sixth-century armor and how you happened to
open a giant hot-dog stand in the middle of a traffic-clogged
crossroads, you'll be all right. As a matter of fact, with your
knowledge of things to come, you'll probably wind up a richer man than
you are now--if the smog doesn't get you first." He stepped through
the lock, jerked the twine, and the "castle" vanished into thin air.

Remounting Easy Money and encephalopathing the black rohorse to
follow, he started back toward the _Yore_, taking a direct route
through the forest. He was halfway to his destination and had just
emerged into a wide meadow when he saw the knight with the white
shield riding toward him in the bright moonlight. In the center of the
shield there was a vivid blood-red cross.

When the knight saw Mallory, he brought his steed to a halt. Moonlight
glim