year 2051 nach der Zeitwende?"

The scientist was soothed. "I am Dr. Pankraz Kahl, member of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, inventor of the world's first Zeitfahrer."

"A time traveler? A machine of some sort?"

"Of course."

"Then where is this machine?"

"Back there in the forest—the forest! The fire! It may have reached it—" Kahl plucked at Schwinzog's coatsleeve. "You must save my invention—"

The other shook him off. "When I see it I will save it."

"Come, then! Quick!"

The fire had rolled farther into the forest; everywhere the evergreens were burning like torches. Sparks rained down from overhead as they approached the time traveler's resting place, and directly ahead the thicket was a sheet of flame. From Kahl came a wounded cry; he broke from the guards and dashed forward. Then he stopped as if he had run into a stone wall.

The soldiers closed up, weapons thrusting.

"But this is the place!" Kahl was muttering feverishly. "It was right there—" He pointed at the bare, smoldering grass.

The ten-foot metal cube of the time traveler had burned to feathery ash and drifted away on the breeze—or it had in some no less unbelievable fashion vanished utterly.

Schwinzog's smile was not good to see. "Of course there is nothing there," he nodded satisfiedly. "Lieutenant Kramer, arrest these men. They are American saboteurs, and will be tried as such tomorrow by the Volksgericht."

"We," Eddie Dugan summed up the situation, "are up the creek without a paddle."

"And we don't know where the creek is," added Manning. "Only that this is 2051, and the Nazis evidently either won the war or staged a comeback somehow after losing. Neither idea seems possible, but here we are. Item, America is still fighting Nazism—at least, there are 'American saboteurs.' Item two, we landed smack in the middle of a wasp nest stirred up by those same saboteurs. They must have scored a success; did you see that building in 

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