Tugh was our real enemy, and for all the gruesome aspect of the
pseudo-human Robot, this man Tugh seemed the more sinister, more
menacing.... We must escape. Tugh would never return us to our own
worlds. But the cage was stopping presently. We were loose: a sudden
rush--

Dared I chance it? Already I had been in conflict with Migul, and
lived through it. But this Tugh--was he armed? What weapons might be
beneath that cloak? Would he kill me if I crossed him?... Whirling
thoughts.

* * * * *

Tugh was saying, "And Mary--" I snapped from my thoughts as Mary
gripped me, trembling at Tugh's words, shrinking from his gaze.

"My little Mistress Atwood, did you think because Tugh vanished that
year the war began that you were done with him? Oh, no: did I not
promise differently? You, man of 1935, are unwelcome." His gaze roved
me. "Yet not so unwelcome, either, now that I think of it. Chain them
up, Migul; use a longer chain. Give them space to move; you are
unhuman."

He suddenly chuckled, and repeated it: "You are unhuman, Migul!"
Ghastly jest! "Did not you know it?"

"Yes, Master."

The huge mechanism advanced upon us. "If you resist me," it murmured
menacingly, "I will be obliged to kill you. I--I cannot be
controlled."

It chained us now with longer chains than before. Tugh looked up from
his seat at the instrument table.

"Very good," he said crisply. "You may look out of the window, you
two. You may find it interesting."

We were retarding with a steady drag. I could plainly see trees out of
the window--gray, spectral trees which changed their shape as I
watched them. They grew with a visible flow of movement, flinging out
branches. Occasionally one would melt suddenly down. A living, growing
forest pressed close about us. And then it began opening, and moving
away a few hundred feet. We were in the glade Tugh mentioned, which
now was here. There was unoccupied space where we could stop and
unoccupied space five hundred feet distant.

Tugh and Migul were luring the other cage into stopping. Tugh wanted
five hundred feet of unoccupied space between the cages when they
stopped. His diabolical purpose in that was soon to be disclosed.

"700 A. D.," Tugh called.

"Yes, Master. I am ready."

* * * * *

It seemed, as our flight retarded further, that I could distinguish
the intervals when in the winter these trees were denuded. There would
be