shed, and he was looking into the shadowy
interior of a deserted barn. The barn vanished; blue sky appeared above,
streaked with wisps of high cirrus cloud. The autumn landscape flickered
unreally. Buildings appeared and vanished, and other buildings came and
went in a twinkling. All around him, half-seen shapes moved briefly and
disappeared.

Once, the figure of a man appeared, inside the circle of the dome. He
had an angry, brutal face, and he wore a black tunic piped with silver,
and black breeches, and polished black boots, and there was an insignia,
composed of a cross and thunderbolt, on his cap. He held an automatic
pistol in his hand.

Instantly, the man at the desk snatched up his own weapon and thumbed
off the safety, but before he could lift and aim it, the intruder
stumbled and passed outside the force-field which surrounded the chair
and instruments.

For a while, there were fires raging outside, and for a while, the
man at the desk was surrounded by a great hall, with a high, vaulted
ceiling, through which figures flitted and vanished. For a while,
there were vistas of deep forests, always set in the same background
of mountains and always under the same blue cirrus-laced sky. There
was an interval of flickering blue-white light, of unbearable
intensity. Then the man at the desk was surrounded by the interior
of vast industrial works. The moving figures around him slowed, and
became more distinct. For an instant, the man in the chair grinned as
he found himself looking into a big washroom, where a tall blond girl
was taking a shower bath, and a pert little redhead was vigorously
drying herself with a towel. The dome grew visible, coruscating with
many-colored lights and then the humming died and the dome became a
cold and inert mesh of fine white metal. A green light above flashed
on and off slowly.

He stabbed a button and flipped a switch, then got to his feet,
picking up his rifle and musette and fumbling under his shirt for
a small mesh bag, from which he took an inch-wide disk of blue plastic.
Unlocking a container on the instrument panel, he removed a small roll
of solidograph-film, which he stowed in his bag. Then he slid open the
door and emerged into his own dimension of space-time.

Outside was a wide hallway, with a pale green floor, paler green
walls, and a ceiling of greenish off-white. A big hole had been cut to
accommodate the dome, and across the hallway a desk had been set up,
and a