that it had been cast
from Grand Central. Time didn't matter. It couldn't have been cast
more than a microsecond earlier.

The envelope contained a card upon which was typed:

"Caution! Site on cylinder of 2 ft. radius and 6 ft. height. Unwrap at
armslength."

Now what? A practical joke? If so, it must be Benson's work. He's
played plenty, from pumping hydrogen sulphide (that's rotten egg gas,
as you know) into the air-conditioning system at high school to
calling a gynecologist to the launching stage at the Sands to sever an
umbilical cord which he neglected to say was on a Viking rocket.

I followed the instructions. As I bent back the first fold of the
strange wrapping it came alive, unfolding itself with incredible
swiftness.

Something burst forth like a freed djinn--almost instantaneously
lengthening, spreading--a thing with beetling brows, low, broad
forehead, prognathous jaw, and a hunched, brutally muscular body, with
a great club over its swollen shoulder.

I went precipitously backward over a coffee table.

It stabilized, a dead mockery, replica of a Neanderthal.

A placard hung on its chest. I read this:

"Even some of the early huntsmen weren't successful. Abandon the
chase, Monk. I've things to do and this--your blood brother, no
doubt--couldn't catch me any more than you can!"

Which positively infuriated me.

Do you blame me?

A few cussing, cussed minutes later I realized what Al Benson had
apparently done: solved the torchship's fuel problem.

Oh, I'd seen Klein bottles and Mobius strips and other things that
twist in on themselves and into other dimensions, twisting into
microcosms and macrocosms--into elsewhere, in any event. And here I
had visual evidence that Benson had had something nearly six feet tall
and certainly two feet in breadth enclosed in a nearly weightless
carton less than eight inches on the side!

Sufficient fuel for a Marstrip? Just wrap it up!

The stereo's audio was saying: "... from the Museum of Natural
History. Curators are compiling a list of the missing exhibits which
we will reveal to you on this channel as soon as it's available. Now
we switch to Dick Joy at City Hall with news of the latest exhibit
found. Come in, Dick!"

On the steps of City Hall was a full size replica of a mastodon over
whose massive back was draped a banner bearing the slogan: "The
Universal Party is for you! Don't return to prehistory with Cadigan!
Re-elect President Ollie James