details of the experiment in suspended animation.

Owen was the center of the stage. The central actor in one of history's most sensational dramas. And it was being witnessed by a bigger audience than had ever been commanded by the greatest dramatist in solar history.

A soft-spoken interviewer from Solar Broadcasters questioned him. Owen's voice in his perfectly acted role was being broadcast and telescreened everywhere on Earth, Mars and Venus. For the benefit of the teleaudience, a microfilm was projecting a complete scientific explanation, while the smooth-voiced announcer read it aloud for those who demanded visual and audial transition.

And while the announcer explained for the fascinated audience, mostly laymen, Owen, two medics, and Kaufman, entered the many-doored thickness of the chamber, and into the very small interior where the encystment reservatory machine waited. To Owen, it resembled a streamlined coffin, barely large enough for his gaunt length ... frightfully small, and confining.

The thick series of interlocking doors were still open and Owen could hear the announcer's voice:

"And, as you perhaps already know, the principle of Professor Baarslag's time-encystment process involves phenomena we're all familiar with. The stasis developed by Professor Albert Baarslag, and to which in exactly fifteen minutes he will subject himself, incorporates a kind of super-sleep principle. The synaptic connections will be broken through amoeboid contraction—and this disconnection will exist until that future time, five hundred years hence, when Professor Baarslag will awaken. Five hundred years is only the opening experiment, says Professor Baarslag. The next experiment can possibly be for any definite period of time.

"This awakening is also interestingly arranged for by leaving one awaking threshold at its normal waking level. When this is activated by automatic relays—"

Owen was stripped now, and his body was outstretched in the soft, deep depths of the reservatory. The sliding panel that exposed his upper torso was slid open and he was looking up into Kaufman's red face, and the intent professional faces of the two medics. But Kaufman's face was serious now as he reached inside the reservatory and gripped Owen's damp hand.

"Goodby, Al," he said. "You're curious about man's destiny. I'm not. I wonder if you'll really be able to bear the knowledge of where we're going."

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