ing it so
with a cord. "Because ... because I feel.... No, I can not really put it
into words, Gordon. It is that feeling one has on the eve of some
important event--anticipation, fear, excitement. You'll let me go with
you tonight, please! I want to see it--not the Hawaika that is, but that
other world with another name, the one they saw and knew!"

An instant protest was hot in Ross's throat, but he had no time to voice
it. For Ashe was already nodding.

"All right. But we may have no luck at all. Fishing in time is a chancy
thing, so don't be disappointed if we don't turn you up that other
world. Now, I'm going to pamper these old bones for an hour or two.
Amuse yourselves, children." He lay back and closed his eyes.

The past two days had wiped half the shadows from his lean, tanned face.
He had dropped two years, three, Ross thought thankfully. Let them be
lucky tonight, and Ashe's cure could be nearly complete.

"What do you think happened here?" Karara had moved so that her back was
now to the wash of waves, her face more in the shadow.

"How do I know? Could be any of ten different things."

"And will I please shut up and leave you alone?" she countered swiftly.
"Do you wish to savor the excitement then, explore a world upon world,
or am I saying it right? We have Hawaika One which is a new world for
us; now there is Hawaika Two which is removed in time, not distance. And
to explore that--"

"We won't be exploring it really," Ross protested.

"Why? Did your agents not spend days, weeks, even months of time in the
past on Terra? What is to prevent your doing the same here?"

"Training. We have no way of learning the drill."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it wasn't as easy as you seem to think it was back on Terra," he
began scornfully. "We didn't just stroll through one of those gates and
set up business, say, in Nero's Rome or Montezuma's Mexico. An Agent was
physically and psychologically fitted to the era he was to explore. Then
he trained, and how he trained!" Ross remembered the weary hours spent
learning how to use a bronze sword, the technique of Beaker trading, the
hypnotic instruction in a language which was already dead centuries
before his own country existed. "You learned the language, the customs,
everything you could about your time and your cover. You were letter
perfect before you took even a trial run!"

"And here you would have no guides," Karara said, nodding. "Yes, I can
see the di