his uncle's. Can you imagine his uncle having done
something like that?"

* * * * *

I shook my head, but I could not help thinking what an ironic thing it
would have been if there had been something to McIlvaine's story, and in
the process to which he had been subjected from out of space he had not
been rejuvenated so much as just sent back in time, in which case he
would have no memory of the machine nor of the use to which it had been
put. It would have been as ironic for the inhabitants of McIlvaine's
star, too; they would doubtless have looked forward to keeping this
contact with Earth open and failed to realize that McIlvaine's
construction differed appreciably from theirs.

"He virtually junked it. Said he had no idea what it could be used for,
and didn't know how to operate it."

"And the telescope?"

"Oh, he kept that. He said he had some interest in astronomy and meant
to develop that if time permitted."

"So much ran in the family, then."

"Yes. More than that. Old McIlvaine had a trick of seeming shy and
self-conscious. So did this nephew of his. Wherever he came from, his
origins must have been backward. I suspect that he was ashamed of them,
and if I had to guess, I'd put him in the Kentucky hill-country or the
Ozarks. Modern concepts seemed to be pretty well too much for him, and
his thinking would have been considerably more natural at the turn of
the century.

"I had to see him several times. The police chivvied him a little, but
not much; he was so obviously innocent of everything that there was
nothing for them in him. And the search for the old man didn't last
long; no one had seen him after that last night at Bixby's, and, since
everyone had already long since concluded that he was mentally a little
off center, it was easy to conclude that he had wandered away somewhere,
probably an amnesiac. That he might have anticipated that is indicated
in the hasty preparation of his will, which came out of the blue, said
Barnevall, who drew it up for him.

"I felt sorry for him."

"For whom?"

"The nephew. He seemed so lost, you know--like a man who wanted to
remember something, but couldn't. I noticed that several times when I
tried to talk to him; I had the feeling each time that there was
something he wanted desperately to say, it hovered always on the rim of
his awareness, but somehow there was no bridge to it, no clue to put it
into words. He tried so hard fo