the white clouds scudding by overhead.

Abby came walking down the beach towards him, tanned a deep brown from head to foot, dressed as the Polynesians had dressed before Captain Cook had discovered them.

"You're every bit as beautiful as the women described in the old tales of the South Sea Islands," Nat said as she sat down beside him.

"And you're as big a flatterer as any sailor who ever told those stories," she answered, although she was pleased by his admiration. She lay back, stretched her hands over her head with a happy look on her face. "I'm 30 years old and don't compare to our young neighbors on the other islands."

Nat rolled over, putting an arm across her waist, kissed her tenderly. "I'm the luckiest man in the world," he whispered.

She looked up, her blue eyes serious. "You don't regret giving up all you had in your own time?"

"I didn't know what true happiness was," he answered firmly. "People in the 25th century are automatons, hemmed in by rules, regulations, regimented by necessity because there are so many billions on the planet."

He kissed her again, as the warm trade winds ruffled her dark hair—and they forgot about time.

But they didn't have real peace of mind. Fear of the TIC and the tenaciousness of Anton Bor was always present.

Nat and Abby had learned the language thoroughly through the time machine's hypno-translator, then picked an uninhabited little island in the atoll. After weeks of sun bathing, they had let themselves be discovered by the natives in their outrigger canoes.

The natives quietly accepted Nat and Abby as slightly different, but members of their informal society, for it was inconceivable to them that any but their own kind could be living on one of the atolls.

"This is a heavenly life," Abby sighed, stretching out on the sand one day. "Cocoanuts, breadfruit, seafood, all for the taking. I'll hate to leave it."

"But I'm afraid we must," Nat said slowly, "And soon, too. We don't dare stay too long in one place."

From the islands, Nat and Abby drifted on from century to century, usually stopping in post-war periods when both governments and populations were preoccupied with constructive social 

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