n at all. He was visibly a tough
younger brother of the kind of young man who goes in for battered
motorcycles because he can't afford anything better. Naturally no one
suspected him of being a telepathic monster, a creature of space, or the
object of a desperate search.

* * * * *

It was helpful that Soames was not missed at first and was not searched
for. It was a full day after the Navajo Dam breakdown before anybody
thought to have him check on the melted-down apparatus. It was two days
before anybody was concerned about him, and three before flights out of
Denver had been checked futilely for his name.

But on the fourth day after a green flame reached up toward the sky,
Soames and a silent, scowling, supposed younger brother occupied a
fishing-shack on the shores of Calumet Lake. They were seven hundred
miles from Denver, and the way they'd come was much longer than that.
They were far removed from the tumult of the world. They'd made bivouacs
in the open on the journey, and this would be the first time they'd
settled anywhere long enough to take stock.

"Now," said Soames, as sunset-colorings filled the sky beyond the lake's
farther edge, "now we figure out what we're going to do. We ought to be
able to do something, though I don't yet know what. And first we act the
parts we're playing. We came here to catch some fish. You shouldn't be
able to wait. So we go out and catch fish for our dinner."

He led the way to a tiny wharf where a small boat lay tied. He carried
fishing-rods and bait.

He untied the boat and rowed out to the middle of the lake. He surveyed
his surroundings and dropped anchor. He baited a hook, with Fran
watching intently.

Soames handed him the rod. Fran waited. He imitated Soames' actions when
Soames began to fish. He watched his line as closely as the deepening
dusk permitted.

"Hmmm," said Soames. "Your ankle's doing all right. Lucky it was a
wrench instead of a break or a sprain. Four days of riding and no
walking have fixed it pretty well. It's fairly certain nobody knows
where you are, too. But where do we go from here?"

Fran listened.

"You came out of time," said Soames vexedly. "But time-travel can't be
done. The natural law of the conservation of matter and energy requires
that the total of substance and force in the cosmos, taken together, be
the same at each instant that it was in the instant before and the one
after. It's self-evident.