Manning grinned. "We ought to be able to duck ourselves. We know where we were, don't we?"

Dugan digested that, then advanced another problem: "If we go back to 1935, I'll only be thirty when the war starts. What do they do when two of a guy try to enlist in the Army at once, especially if he's already missing four years later?"

"Maybe there won't be any war."

"Want to bet?"

"No," answered Manning soberly. But a moment later his face lit as he recognized, only a couple of miles away, the big clearing on the plateau where the time traveler had rested.

Minutes later, he set the glider bumpily down on the meadow. From on high the sun had been visible, but here only a gray dawn was breaking. Where the forest fire had passed the trees raised black desolate arms to the light, but those still green were greeting the morning with cool balsam scent and awakening bird song, oblivious of the rain of death falling through space to wipe out all life in this land.

They climbed out of the glider—and froze, for in the same moment both saw the two long black cars, one with an official swastika on its sleek flank, that were parked under the trees, and the uniformed men who were springing to their feet around the vehicles and lifting rifles.

"Turn on your invisibility unit and run for the woods!" hissed Manning. The soldiers gaped for seconds at the spot where the arrivals from the sky had vanished, then fired a useless volley at the glider and huddled together in panic.

Both of the Americans were wearing the units Kane had given them, but had tucked the hoods under their belts. Manning stumbled, unable to see his own feet as he ran, and paused on the edge of the woods to cram his hood down over his head. As he did so he saw Dugan a few yards away, doing likewise.

"Somebody's got the same idea as us!" called Manning. "Maybe Kahl convinced them, or—We'd better get there fast!"

They plunged through the fire-cleared woodland toward their goal. From behind a voice shrieked warning to someone ahead: "Hutet euch! Zwei Unsichtbare!"

Then they saw among the trees the cubical bulk of the time machine. Its door was open, and around it was a squad of soldiers who gripped their weapons with shaking hands and peered wild-eyed about them.

 Prev. P 43/47 next