f air, and my legs almost thrust themselves
through my body. Quickly, I pushed the lever back until, with my eye
on the altimeter, I held the _Ertak_ at her attained height--something
over a mile, as I recall it. Then I pressed the General Attention
signal, and snatched up the microphone.

Less than a minute later Correy and Hendricks, fellow officers, were
in the room and besieging me with solicitous questions.

* * * * *

It had been my idea, of course, to keep Harbauer from leaving the
ship, but it was not so destined.

Shiro, the sentry on duty outside the _Ertak_, was the only witness to
Harbauer's fate.

"I was walking my post, sir," he reported, "watching the sun come up,
when suddenly I heard the sound of running feet inside the ship. I
turned towards the entrance and drew my pistol, to be in readiness. I
saw the stranger we had taken into the ship appear at the exit, which,
as you know, was open.

"Just as I opened my mouth to command him to halt, the _Ertak_ shot up
from the ground at terrific speed. The stranger had been about to leap
upon me; indeed, he had discharged some sort of weapon at me, for I
heard a crash of sound, and a missile of some kind, as you know,
passed through my left arm.

"As the ship left the ground, he tried to draw back, but he was off
balance, and the inertia of his body momentarily incapacitated him, I
think. He slipped, clutched at the gangway across the threads which
seal the exit, and then, at a height I estimate to be around five
hundred feet, he fell. The _Ertak_ shot on up until it was lost to
sight, and the stranger crashed to the ground a few feet from where I
was standing--on almost exactly the spot where we first saw him, sir.

* * * * *

"And now, sir, comes the part I guess you'll find hard to believe.
When he struck the ground, he was smashed flat; he died instantly. I
started to run toward him, and then--and then I stopped. My eyes had
not left the spot for a moment, sir, but he--his body, that
is--suddenly disappeared. That's the truth, sir, for I saw it with my
own eyes. There wasn't a sign of him left."

"I see," I replied. I believe that I did. We had gone straight up, and
his body, by no great coincidence, had fallen upon the spot close to
the exit of the _Ertak_ where we had first found him. And his machine,
in operation, had brought him, or rather, his mangled body, back to
his own age. "