the sight. It was a
beautiful gun, the kind of gun he could fall in love with. If he had
owned such a gun in the Martian desert--on the long nights when he had
lain, cramped and numbed with cold, waiting for things that moved
through the darkness--

He put the gun down and adjusted the meter readings of the cage. The
spiraling mist was beginning to condense and settle. All at once forms
wavered and fluttered around him.

Colors, sounds, movements filtered through the crystal wire. He clamped
the controls off and stood up.

* * * * *

He was on a ridge overlooking a small town. It was high noon. The air
was crisp and bright. A few automobiles moved along a road. Off in the
distance were some level fields. Conger went to the door and stepped
outside. He sniffed the air. Then he went back into the cage.

He stood before the mirror over the shelf, examining his features. He
had trimmed his beard--they had not got him to cut it off--and his hair
was neat. He was dressed in the clothing of the middle-twentieth
century, the odd collar and coat, the shoes of animal hide. In his
pocket was money of the times. That was important. Nothing more was
needed.

Nothing, except his ability, his special cunning. But he had never used
it in such a way before.

He walked down the road toward the town.

The first things he noticed were the newspapers on the stands. April 5,
1961. He was not too far off. He looked around him. There was a filling
station, a garage, some taverns, and a ten-cent store. Down the street
was a grocery store and some public buildings.

A few minutes later he mounted the stairs of the little public library
and passed through the doors into the warm interior.

The librarian looked up, smiling.

"Good afternoon," she said.

He smiled, not speaking because his words would not be correct; accented
and strange, probably. He went over to a table and sat down by a heap of
magazines. For a moment he glanced through them. Then he was on his feet
again. He crossed the room to a wide rack against the wall. His heart
began to beat heavily.

Newspapers--weeks on end. He took a roll of them over to the table and
began to scan them quickly. The print was odd, the letters strange. Some
of the words were unfamiliar.

He set the papers aside and searched farther. At last he found what he
wanted. He carried the _Cherrywood Gazette_ to the table and opened it
to the first page. He foun