ified him. Wasn't he present at the time?"

"No, Your Majesty."

"Your Majesty, I am head of the physics department of the University. I
have too much administrative work to waste time on the technical aspects
of experiments like this," Dandrik interjected.

"I understand. Professor Faress was actually performing the experiment.
You told Professor Dandrik what had happened. What then?"

"Why, Your Majesty, he simply declared that the limit of accuracy had
been reached, and ordered the experiment dropped. He then reported the
highest reading before this anticipation effect was observed as the
newly established limit of accuracy in measuring the velocity of
accelerated micropositos, and said nothing whatever in his report about
the anticipation effect."

"I read a summary of the report. Why, Professor Dandrik, did you omit
mentioning this slightly unusual effect?"

"Why, because the whole thing was utterly preposterous, that's why!"
Dandrik barked; and then hastily added, "Your Imperial Majesty." He
turned and glared at Faress; professors do not glare at galactic
emperors. "Your Majesty, the limit of accuracy had been reached. After
that, it was only to be expected that the apparatus would give erratic
reports."

"It might have been expected that the apparatus would stop registering
increased velocity relative to the light-speed standard, or that it
would begin registering disproportionately," Faress said. "But, Your
Majesty, I'll submit that it was not to be expected that it would
register impacts before emissions. And I'll add this. After registering
this slight apparent jump into the future, there was no proportionate
increase in anticipation with further increase of acceleration. I wanted
to find out why. But when Professor Dandrik saw what was happening, he
became almost hysterical, and ordered the accelerator shut down as
though he were afraid it would blow up in his face."

* * * * *

"I think it has blown up in his face," Prince Travann said quietly.
"Professor, have you any theory, or supposition, or even any wild guess,
as to how this anticipation effect occurs?"

"Yes, Your Highness. I suspect that the apparent anticipation is simply
an observational illusion, similar to the illusion of time-reversal
experienced when it was first observed, though not realized, that
positrons sometimes exceeded light-speed."

"Why, that's what I've been saying all along!" Dandrik broke