vantage-point, was stranger than the people. There were no moving sidewalks, and no weather-canopies over the streets—though perhaps these had only been removed for the dry season. The buildings looked shrunken and tiny—hardly one seemed to be more than thirty or forty stories high. Archaic buses and motor-cars, apparently powered by some non-atomic fuel, plied the actual streets, instead of being confined to subways. The skies were almost empty of planes, and those he saw were incredibly clumsy and slow. There was obviously no freeway for helicopters.

It was self-evident that he was in some year of the remote past, though just which, he had no idea. He wished he had taken time to glance at the ticket before he handed it in. He wished he had studied history komikbooks, or given more than a cursory glance at the telescreen propinforms of TTT. There was something to be said, after all, for the General Educationalists, cranks as they were.

Certainly this was not his Los—his giant city stretching from Mex to Sanfran without a break. This was a little place of probably not much more than two million inhabitants. Well, here he was for a week, and he'd better find out how he was going to eat and sleep. Properly equipped time travelers had money of the right period, but the cred checks in his pouch would do him no good now. What did he have on him that could be exchanged for board and lodging?

Only one object of undoubted value. The knife.

Surreptitiously and with distaste he took it out and looked at it. The blood had dried on it and doubtless left traces on the lining of his pouch. It was probably covered with the fingerprints of the murderer as well as with his own. But it was all he had.

In the middle of the park there was a fountain, with a pool around it. Casually Mikel Skot strolled over to it and sat down on the ledge. When he was sure nobody was looking he dipped the knife in the water and scrubbed it dry on the inner hem of his tunic. There would still be traces of blood which any chemist could find, of course; but nobody here would be examining it for that. Since anyone could see that it was of immense value, he would have to account for possession of it. He could say it was an heirloom.

Putting it back in his pouch he approached a fat man on a bench nearby.

"Where is the nearest history museum, please, Citizen?" he asked politely.

The man looked up. He had been scanning a 

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