ave learned quickly, Larry.
That is true."

A sudden emotion swept him. His hand found hers; and her fingers
answered the pressure of his own. Here in this remote Time-world they
felt abruptly drawn together.

He murmured, "Tina, you are--" But he never finished.

The cage was coming! They stood tense, watching the fence corner
where, in the flat dawn light, the familiar misty shadow was
gathering. Harl was returning to them.

The cage flashed silently into being. They stood peering, ready to run
to it. The door slid aside.

* * * * *

But it was not Harl who came out. It was Tugh, the cripple. He stood
in the doorway, a thick-set, barrel-chested figure of a man in a wide
leather jacket, a broad black belt and short flaring leather
pantaloons.

"Tugh!" exclaimed Tina.

The cripple advanced. "Princess, is it you?" He was very wary. His
gaze shot at Larry and back to Tina. "And who is this?"

A hideously repulsive fellow, Larry thought this Tugh. He saw his
shriveled, bent legs, crooked hips, and wide thick shoulders set
askew--a goblin, in a leather jerkin. His head was overlarge, with a
bulging white forehead and a mane of scraggly black hair shot with
grey. But Larry could not miss the intellectuality marking his
heavy-jowled face; the keenness of his dark-eyed gaze.

These were instant impressions. Tina had drawn Larry forward. "Where
is Harl?" she demanded imperiously. "How have you come to have the
cage, Tugh?"

"Princess, I have much to tell," he answered, and his gaze roved the
field. "But it is dangerous here; I am glad I have found you. Harl
sent me to this night, but I struck it late. Come, Tina--and your
strange-looking friend."

It impressed Larry then, and many times afterward, that Tugh's gaze at
him was mistrustful, wary.

"Come, Larry," said Tina. And again she demanded of Tugh, "I ask you,
where is Harl?"

"At home. Safe at home, Princess." He gestured toward Major Atwood's
house, which now in the growing daylight showed more plainly under its
shrouding trees. "That space off there holds our other cage as you
know, Tina. You and Harl were pursuing that other cage?"

"Yes," she agreed.

* * * * *

They had stopped at the doorway, where Tugh stood slightly inside.
Larry whispered:

"What does this mean, Tina?"

Tugh said, "Migul, the mechanism, is running wild in the other cage.
But you and Harl knew that?"

"Yes,"