to halt near the apparatus-laden table, had taken one quick step and thrown a switch.

The damage—if damage there was—was already done; that thought stayed Manning's trigger finger. But nothing seemed to have happened; only when the contacts had touched the light had flickered briefly, and something had made a deep humming sound that rose in pitch like an electric motor starting under load—rose and snapped off in an instant.

But something stayed wrong. The unconscious faculty of observation that had been sharpened for Manning in shell-smashed towns where the ability to notice small wrongnesses might keep a man from touching off a hidden mine told him that.... He tried to read the expressions of the two Germans. Every wrinkle on Kahl's face beamed crafty triumph. But his helper's look made Manning blink. Wolfgang's Aryan-blue eyes bulged with panic. And they were staring past Manning, at the door.

Eddie Dugan broke the tense silence. "Ray—where's the light coming from?"

That was it! "Watch them!" rasped Manning, and whirled to face the door.

It was ablaze with green-gold sunlight.

II

And beyond it was not the gloomily raftered feast-hall of a Nazi baron, with gray March outside its windows—but a woodland rich with high summer. A breeze stole in from that preposterous outdoors and brought warmth and scent of firs, and of something else.... Suddenly there was a crashing in the thicket, a thud of racing hooves. "A deer," said Manning stupidly. "Something must have scared it." Dugan, sweating with his back to the door, relaxed slightly.

Like an echo from behind Manning came a dry cackle of laughter. He faced about again; his glare stilled even the Herr Doktor's hysterical glee.

"All right, how'd you do it?" he snapped in English, then, with returning control: "Erklaren Sie das sogleich!"

"Gern," grinned the scientist. "This room, all of it, is my invention. It was built into the house, but when I closed the switch, it moved, and left the house behind."

"Where are we, then? No riddles!"

"It is simple enough. What you see outside is the world of the future—no longer future to us, but present, though about a hundred years removed from the 'present' which we have just left. This room is my time traveler—der Kahl'sche 

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