force us back
through the time fault."

They had to get away from this world. There was danger here. Planes
that flew as fast as the one that had gone streaking off across the sky
represented danger.

Higgins ordered the planting of the explosives to proceed at the
double-quick.

"I said I could definitely tell you two things," Michaelson spoke again.
"One of them was that we are in the past, millions of years in the
past." He spoke slowly, his eyes on the busy boats around the ship. "Are
you not interested in the second of the two things I said I could tell
you?"

"Yes," said Higgins. "What is it?"

The scientist sighed. "It is that we will never be able to return to our
own time!"

"What? But--we are planting mines. If the explosion of the Jap bombs
sent us through the time fault, maybe a second explosion will send us
back through it."

Michaelson shook his head. "I have investigated the mathematics of it,"
he said. "It is impossible. You might as well call in your boats and
save your explosives. The fact is, we are marooned in this time,
_forever_!"

Marooned in time, forever! The words rang like bells of doom. Marooned
forever. No chance of escape. No hope for escape.

"Are you sure?" Higgins questioned.

"Positive," the scientist answered.

Craig looked at the sea. He lit a cigarette, noting that it was the last
one in the package. He drew the smoke into his lungs, feeling the bite
of it.

Marooned in time, forever!

CHAPTER IV

Silver on the Sea

Night had come hours ago. Craig stood on the deck, watching the sea and
the sky and the stars in the sky. Up overhead the constellations had
changed. They were not the familiar star clusters that he knew.
Completely blacked out, the Idaho moved very slowly through the
darkness. Her speed was kept to almost nothing because the charts of the
navigators were useless. The charts had been made in that far future
which the battle wagon had quitted forever and they revealed nothing
about this sea. There might be a mile of water under the ship. She might
be scraping bottom. The navigators were going mad worrying about what
might be under the ship. Captain Higgins was going mad worrying not only
about what might be under the ship but about what might soon be over it,
when the mysterious planes returned. The pilot of the scouting plane had
been rescued. He had not lived to tell what he had found.

Craig was aware of a shadow near him but he thought i