ificance of the entire situation. That was why Norris had
been so insistent that we always return to the ship before dark. He
didn't want us to see the night sky and the constellations there for
fear we would guess the truth. That was why he had never permitted any
of us in the bridge cuddy and why he had kept all ports and observation
shields closed.

"But the names of the planets ... Coulora, Stragella, and the others and
their positions on the chart...?" I objected.

Norris smiled grimly. "All words created out of my imagination. Like the
rest of you, I knew nothing of the true action of the booster. It was
only gradually that truth dawned on me. But by the time we had made our
first 'landing' I had guessed. That was why I demanded we always take
organic surveyor readings. I knew we had traveled far into future time,
far beyond the life period of man on Earth. But I wasn't sure how far we
had gone, and I lived with the hope that Klae's booster might reverse
itself and start carrying us backwards down the centuries."

For a long time I stood there in silence, a thousand mad speculations
racing through my mind.

"How about that piece of _Indurate_?" I said at length. "It was chipped
off an image in the ruins of a great building a mile or so from here."

"An image?" repeated Norris. A faint glow of interest slowly rose in his
eyes. Then it died. "I don't know," he said. "It would seem to
presuppose that the formula, both parts of it, was known by Klae and
that he left it for posterity to discover."

All this time Mason had been standing there, eyes smouldering, lips an
ugly line. Now abruptly he took a step forward.

"I've wanted to return this for a long time," he said.

He doubled back his arm and brought his fist smashing onto Norris' jaw.
The Navigator's head snapped backward; he gave a low groan and slumped
to the floor.

And that is where, by all logic, this tale should end. But, as you may
have guessed, there is an anticlimax--what story-tellers call a happy
conclusion.

Mason, Brandt, and I worked, and worked alone, on the theory that the
secret of the _Indurate_ formula would be the answer to our return down
the time trail. We removed the body of Ganeth-Klae from its solidifex
envelope and treated it with every chemical process we knew. By sheer
luck the fortieth trial worked. A paste of carbo-genethon mixed with
the crushed seeds of the Martian iron-flower was spread over Klae's
chest and abdomen.