.

Bending, leaving a trail of bubbles as her head went under, she set the
Judge's invention down on a lower step and picked up the Judge instead.
Cradling him in her arms, she started back up again, calling to Farmer
to be ready to take her burden aboard.

They got him on the boat with little difficulty, and John Andrew laid
him on the deck as Dor sprang lithely over the rail again, showing
interest in the little fellow's condition. The diving helmet came off
easily, not having been properly fastened down at all. Farmer bent
anxiously over the Judge, looking for signs of life.

The diving suit had shipped some water, and the Judge had gotten a nasty
crack on the head--but he was a tough bozo. There was no blood, his
breathing seemed almost normal, and he already showed signs of returning
consciousness.

John Andrew turned to Dor. "Well, I should thank you for bringing him
back, I guess," he muttered. "But now that you're with us again"--he
shot out a big paw and grabbed her by the wrist--"how about explaining
some of this?"

He was very gentle with the wrist. He didn't want to hurt her; he was
wondering already, in fact, what had made him get so rough at all. But
she didn't seem to mind.

"I've got to go quickly," she told him. "I think Garf will be all right
now, but he may take a notion to come back. And I have to see that the
gate is closed before ..."

"What gate? Get back where?" Farmer managed to put more curiosity than
impatience into his tone.

"Back to my own planet--Tamdivar, sun Nogore, member of the Galactic
Federation," she said patiently. "The gate is a matter-transmitter
between my world and yours. It was once in constant use, but my
government closed it when you people got to the point where you were
running around in submarines, using depth bombs, and just noticing our
aircraft too much."

* * * * *

Somehow, what popped into Farmer's head was the chorus of an old song he
had sung in boy's camp when very young. "_There's a hole in the bottom
of the sea! There's a log in the hole...._"

"Your machine reactivated the gate from this side, even if that isn't
what you designed it to do," Dor went on. "It's a good thing I noticed
the gate was open. Of course, the area affected isn't large--it includes
those steps and a lot of water around them.

"The gate'll stay open now until it's closed from our side--but I'll
have to take your outfit back and destroy it, any