d his TSB upon his arrival. On the Golp
Terrace, as the blacktop island was called, everyone and everything
conformed--or else.

The room itself was known to time-thieves as "Perfidion's Lair". And yet
there was nothing about Jason Perfidion--nothing physical, that is--that
suggested the predator. He was Mallory's age--thirty-three--tall, dark of
hair, and strikingly handsome. He looked like--and was--a highly
successful businessman with a triplex on Get-Rich-Quick Street, and he
gave the impression that he was as honest as the day was long. Just the
same, the predator was there, and if you were alert enough you could
sometimes glimpse it peering out through the smoky windowpanes of his
eyes.

It wasn't peering out now, though. It was sleeping. However, it was
due to wake up any second. "Then you're not interested in fencing the
Holy Grail?" Mallory asked.

Annoyance intensified the slight swarthiness of Perfidion's cheeks.
"Mallory, you know as well as I do that the Grail never really
existed, that it was nothing more than the mead-inspired daydream of a
bunch of quixotic knights. So go and get your hair cut and forget
about it."

"But suppose it _did_ exist," Mallory insisted. "Suppose, tomorrow
afternoon at this time, I were to come in here and set it down on this
desk here? How much could you get for it?"

Perfidion laughed. "How much _couldn't_ I get for it! Why, without
even stopping to think I can name you a dozen collectors who'd give
their right arm for it."

"I'm not interested in right arms," Mallory said. "I'm interested in
dollars. How many Kennedees could you get for it?"

"A megamillion--maybe more. More than enough, certainly, to permit you
to retire from time-lifting and to take up residence on Get-Rich-Quick
Street. But it doesn't exist, and it never did, so get out of here,
Mallory, and stop squandering my valuable time."

Mallory withdrew a small stereophoto from his breast pocket and
tossed it on the desk. "Have a look at that first--then I'll go," he
said.

Perfidion picked up the photo. "An ordinary enough yellow bowl," he
began, and stopped. Suddenly he gasped, and jabbed one of the many
buttons that patterned his desktop. Seconds later, a svelte blonde
whom Mallory had never seen before stepped out of the lift tube. Like
most general-purpose secretaries, she wore a maximum of makeup and a
minimum of clothing, and moved in an aura of efficiency and sex. "Get
me my photo-projector, Mi