"I am from this place, but I am not from your time," Mikel began laboriously; he was utterly unaccustomed to social conversation with a woman. "I am from—with me it is 2839."

"What in the—look, what are you advertising? Some science fiction magazine?"

"I don't understand that word—adver—what is it? Please believe me. I shouldn't tell you, I'm breaking a rule. But it is true."

"Go on." She fixed him with a skeptical glance.

"I was—I am a ticket-seller for Time Travel Tours. This morning—I mean what was to me this morning—a customer was killed at my window."

He plunged ahead. She listened in silence, a peculiar expression in her eyes.

"So you see," he concluded, "I am here for a week. But then I go back—the timeporter will see to that. I want to go—I'm sorry I ran away. But I'm sure the police will say I did it, because of the knife."

"Let's see it."

He brought it out.

"Why, that's just an ordinary kitchen carving knife," she said, just as the man in the store had done. "I suppose you would call it an antique in—what was it?—2839. I still say you're haywire—or else this is some new racket I don't get."

"I don't understand."

"Okay, I guess you wouldn't—in 2839. The language would change plenty in 886 years." Once more her laugh rang out. "I'll say you keep it up fine—that funny half-foreign way you pronounce your words. But I'll play along, and pretend this is all on the up-and-up. Even so, it's haywire—crazy. Because the dumbest cop in the world wouldn't suspect you of the murder. Anybody'd know the murderer just got rid of the knife the quickest way he could. Gosh, you were behind your window, weren't you, and she was in front of it? Where was her stab wound?"

"Wait—it's hard for me to understand. 'Cop'—is that slang for police? And the blood"—he shuddered—"came from her side. Either someone in front or someone behind her could have done it."

"But they'll find out right away, won't they, that you didn't know the girl? They'll find out who she was, and they'll grill everybody she knew, to see who had a reason for wanting her out of the way.... Listen to 

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