relieved, and threw a quick look at Sam. Apparently he had
underestimated her intelligence, too--in spite of all her degrees.

* * * * *

"We never thought it could be real," he emphasized. "But the theory was
that multiple universes lay side by side, perhaps each an instant's time
away from the other. The only thing I can see is that some flaw in the
space warper threw us out of our dimension into another one closely
adjacent--not far enough for things to be totally different, just
different enough that the duplication isn't identical. It's Earth, but
it's not our Earth. It's a New Earth, one we don't know anything about."

"In another few hours, we'll be entering the atmosphere," Sam put in,
"and we don't know what we'll find. We thought you ought to know."

She flared in exasperation at the simple assumption of male arrogance.

"Of course I should know!" she snapped back. "I am not one of your
little bits of blonde, empty-headed fluff to be protected by strong
males! I should have been told immediately!"

Lt. Harper looked at Sam with a broad grin. It was amusement, but it was
more--a confirmation that they could depend on her to take it in her
stride--an approval. Apparently, they had discussed more things about
her than she'd overheard, while she slept. He didn't turn off the grin
when he looked directly at her.

"What could you have done about it, if we had told you, Miss Kitty?" he
asked mildly.

* * * * *

It was not the same Earth. The charts and maps had not been wrong. Her
tentative theory that perhaps there were vision flaws in the plastic
nose window which had not stood up.

The continents, the lakes, the rivers--the topography really was
distorted. Now there was the Mississippi River, one spot swinging rather
too widely to the East. The Great Lakes were one huge inland sea. The
Gulf of Mexico swung high up into what had once been Alabama and
Georgia.

There was no New Orleans, shipping center of the world, headquarters of
Space.

There were no cities anywhere up and down the Mississippi. Where St.
Louis should have been, there was virgin forest. As they dropped down
into the upper reaches of atmosphere, experiencing the familiar and
sometimes nauseating reference shift from ahead to below, there had been
no New York to the East, no San Francisco to the West. There had been no
Boulder Dam, no Tennessee Valley project, no continuous