sat with his back against the cold metal hull of the ship smoking Martian cigarettes nervously, lighting a new one from the butt of the one he had just smoked.

She had escaped him. Slipped into the past. He had ceased to exist for her. Five short days ago he had stepped out of his ship and been kissed by Leyloon. Biff! Like that. She had gushed over him. His arrival must have been a departure in her eyes. She had been sad to see him leaving. Heartbroken perhaps.

But now she didn't know him from Adam. He hadn't even entered her life yet. It was all over unless....

Unless he could take her to Earth? No. Impossible! It would be the same farce all over again. Absolutely preposterous!

Maybe not. Why was it he hadn't succumbed to the time forces in which Neptune existed? He should have. Others had. Those lost expeditions, they accounted for the language and civilization here on Neptune.

Darrel lit another cigarette nervously, clumsily.

Maybe it was because of the speed with which he had approached Neptune. He must have ripped through the—through the point of time transition with so great a velocity that neither he nor his ship were gripped by the opposing time flow. If he had come at a lesser rate of speed, the change might have been effected. Even as it was, the ship had almost been gripped.

He threw the cigarette away and paced back and forth in front of the ship.

If he could take Leyloon out there ... take her across the zone, very slowly, a crawling two or three thousand miles per hour ... it might work. Her entire metabolism system might be reversed. She might exist properly in his time.

Blazing comets!

On the other hand, it might kill her. Tear her apart or something. How many members of the old expeditions survived the transition was unknown. The outcome was impossible to foresee.

It might kill her.

Darrel fumbled for another cigarette. And yet, he had to do something! She was receding into her past every minute. Time was desperately short.

The sun was setting—or was it rising?—and the night was coming on swiftly. The day was short on Neptune. Little more than half of an Earth day. He crumpled up the empty cigarette pack and threw it to the ground.

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