tructed
in connection with the tri-matter block so that nothing in either of the
other two universes can enter it. After you enter, it must be sealed
from this side for the period of time travel, so that nothing can enter
from this side until it is time for you to come back. I, and my aides,
must remain to do that."

"Your sacrifice is greater than mine," Hute said simply.

"It is very little compared to what <i>you</i> are sacrificing," Carl said,
smiling, with a trace of amused contempt carefully hidden in the back of
his eyes.

Hute took his hand from Carl's shoulder and gravely shook hands with
Carl's aides. It was his simple gesture of reward for their great
sacrifice. They would die with the gratifying knowledge that the Leader
himself had taken their hand and shaken it in gratitude at a service
well performed.

Then he squared his massive shoulders and stepped onto the tri-matter
slab--and vanished. One by one the members of his general staff
followed.

When the last of them stepped into thin air above the softly glowing
square, Carl walked over to a switch board and pulled the disconnects
that broke the surge of power playing over the room.

His pale assistants watched, hypnotized.

Carl smiled at them encouragingly. He glanced at his watch and estimated
the time left.

"Another hour at the most now," he said quietly. "It could come any
second."

The wooden walls of the room closed them in with brooding foreboding. A
heavily barred window brought a view of the steel bridge that led to the
city.

A large clock on the wall became the center of attention. A red second
hand moved with slowly deliberate swiftness around the dial.

And in the center of the waiting group the luminous square built flush
with the wooden floor waited too, its face inscrutible, its substance
anchored in three roots of Being.

An electrical tension was building up around the hushed group of
scientists. Vague stirrings of cold light rippled the surface of the
square block of tri-matter.

"The cleavage is beginning," Carl said quietly. "When I say the word
step through. The entropy shift must be just right or we'll find
ourselves with Hitle and his gang. Now!"

As one man the group stepped onto the block and vanished. An instant
later the holocaust broke loose.

* * * * *

Carl Grinch stood before the tribunal of the United Nations of the
planet Amba. Video cameras pointed at him from ever