elry consisted only of a copper bracelet and a
cloak pin with a jet head.

He had no idea how the time transition was to be made, nor how one might
step from the polar regions of the Western Hemisphere to the island of
Britain lying off the Eastern. And it was a complicated business as he
discovered.

The transition itself was a fairly simple, though disturbing, process.
One walked a short corridor and stood for an instant on a plate while
the light centered there curled about in a solid core, shutting one off
from floor and wall. Ross gasped for breath as the air was sucked out of
his lungs. He experienced a moment of deathly sickness with the
sensation of being lost in nothingness. Then he breathed again and
looked through the dying wall of light to where Ashe waited.

Quick and easy as the trip through time had been, the journey to Britain
was something else. There could be only one transfer point if the secret
was to be preserved. But men from that point must be moved swiftly and
secretly to their appointed stations. Ross, knowing the strict rules
concerning the transportation of objects from one time to another,
wondered how that travel could be effected. After all, they could not
spend months, or even years, getting across continents and seas.

The answer was ingenious. Three days after they had stepped through the
barrier of time at the outpost, Ross and Ashe balanced on the rounded
back of a whale. It was a whale which would deceive anyone who did not
test its hide with a harpoon, and whalers with harpoons large enough to
trouble such a monster were yet well in the future.

Ashe slid a dugout into the water, and Ross climbed into that unsteady
craft, holding it against the side of the disguised sub until his
partner joined him. The day, misty and drizzling, made the shore they
aimed for a half-seen line across the water. With a shiver born of more
than cold, Ross dipped his paddle and helped Ashe send their crude boat
toward that half-hidden strip of land.

There was no real dawn; the sky lightened somewhat, but the drizzle
continued. Green patches showed among the winter-denuded trees back from
the beach, but the countryside facing them gave an impression of untamed
wilderness. Ross knew from his briefing that the whole of Britain was as
yet only sparsely settled. The first wave of hunter-fishers to establish
villages had been joined by other invaders who built massive tombs and
had an elaborate religion.