Nordsen took off his shell-rimmed glasses, wiped them, restored them to his boyish face. "I would advise you to brace yourself. By 'here,' I mean on this particular time-track."

Lance stared at him.

"Doesn't the word have any significance for you?" Nordsen asked.

"Time-track? Sure, I've heard of the concept before. It's a theory that parallel worlds branch off when ... hey!" Lance's tone rose to a shout. "You're not trying to imply that ... that I'm on a diff—?"

"That's right. We're trying to tell you that you have obviously landed in another time-track. One that is parallel to—but just a slight bit different from the one you formerly knew. To you, we seem to be the same officers as in that world; but of course, we're not. It isn't the same universe. Hyperspace is tricky stuff, as our men are finding out. You've just got bounced around by one of the trickiest things connected with it."

Lance groaned. "Now, I'm told!"

"I'm sorry. It's nothing new, only the information is classified top-secret in our world; and evidently in yours, too. It has to be withheld from hype-trainees, otherwise they might deliberately flunk their course. We're running pilot classes here on our track, too. We have to keep them filled."

Lance was stunned. He hardly knew what he should say or do next.

Finally, he put forth a faltering question: "Is there any way I can get back to Home Base? My home base?"

All three officers in the room shook their heads in unison.

"You might as well look for a pebble in the beach," said Nordsen. He elucidated: "As a matter of fact, this is Home Base for you. The differences between one track and another are not usually too great; the resemblances are many. Sometimes even, the returned pilot accommodates himself to the new time-track without suspecting in the slightest what's happened to him."

"And in those cases, you seldom bother to enlighten him, I suppose."

"Naturally not. Security frowns on it."

"But in my case, you couldn't cover up."

"Your case manifests a much more serious slippage. Your path, evidently, warped to a track several million or billion worlds further over than 

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