Then--no over the wall for you."

"Suppose you tell me your trick for fooling the tape," Ross countered.

"That I cannot do, seeing as how it lies in the way my brain is put
together. Do you think I can break open my skull and hand you a piece of
what is inside? No, you jump with me tonight or else I must wait to grab
the next one who lands here."

Kurt stood up. His last words were spoken matter-of-factly, and Ross
believed he meant exactly what he said. But Ross hesitated. He wanted to
try for freedom, a desire fed by his suspicions of what was going on
here. He neither liked nor trusted Kurt, but he thought he understood
him--better than he understood Ashe or the others. Also, with Kurt he
was sure he could hold his own; it would be the kind of struggle he had
experienced before.

"Tonight...." he repeated slowly.

"Yes, tonight!" There was new eagerness in Kurt's voice, for he sensed
that the other was wavering. "I have been preparing for a long time, but
there must be two of us. We have to take turns driving the cat. There
can be no rest until we are far to the south. I tell you it will be
easy. There are food caches arranged along the route for emergencies. I
have a map marked to show where they are. Are you coming?"

When Ross did not answer at once the other moved closer to him.

"Remember Hardy? He was not the first, and he will not be the last. They
use us up fast here. That is why they brought you so quickly. I tell
you, it is better to take your chance with me than on a run."

"And what is a run?"

"So they have not yet briefed you? Well, a run is a little jaunt back
into history--not nice comfortable history such as you learned out of a
book when you were a little kid. No, you are dropped back into some
savage time before history----"

"That's impossible!"

"Yes? You saw those two big blond boys tonight, did you not? Why do you
suppose they sport those braids? Because they are taking a little trip
into the time when he-men wore braids, and carried axes big enough to
crack a man open! And Hodaki and his partner.... Ever hear of the
Tartars? Maybe you have not, but once they nearly overran most of
Europe."

Ross swallowed. He now knew where he had seen braids pictured on
warriors--the Vikings! And Tartars, yes, that movie about someone named
Khan, Genghis Khan! But to return into the past was impossible.

Yet, he remembered the picture he had watched today with the wolf slayer
and the shaggy