inements of our own. The other two
remain rootless; yet they are linked with the first. We are now
attempting to solve that problem, and the time grows late. For some
reason, though the Reds now have their super, super gadgets, they are
not yet ready to use them. Sometimes the things work, and sometimes they
fail. Everything points to the fact that the Reds are now experimenting
with discoveries which are not basically their own----"

"Where did they get them? From another world?" Ross's imagination came
to life. Had a successful space voyage been kept secret? Had there been
contact made with another intelligent race?

"In a way it's another world, but the world of time--not space. Seven
years ago we got a man out of East Berlin. He was almost dead, but he
lived long enough to record on tape some amazing data, so wild it was
almost dismissed as the ravings of delirium. But that was after Sputnik,
and we didn't dare disregard any hints from the other side of the Iron
Curtain. So the recording was turned over to our scientists, who proved
it had a core of truth.

"Time travel has been written up in fiction; it has been discussed
otherwise as an impossibility. Then we discover that the Reds have it
working----"

"You mean, they go into the future and bring back machines to use now."

The major shook his head. "Not the future, the past."

Was this an elaborate joke? Somewhat heatedly Ross snapped out the
answer to that. "Look here, I know I haven't the education of your big
brains, but I do know that the farther back you go into history the
simpler things are. We ride in cars; only a hundred years ago men drove
horses. We have guns; go back a little and you'll find them waving
swords and shooting guys with bows and arrows--those that don't wear tin
plate on them to stop being punctured----"

"Only they were, after all," commented Ashe. "Look at Agincourt, m'lad,
and remember what arrows did to the French knights in armor."

Ross disregarded the interruption. "Anyway"--he stuck doggedly to his
point--"the farther back you go, the simpler things are. How are the
Reds going to find anything in history we can't beat today?"

"That is a point which has baffled us for several years now," the major
returned. "Only it is not _how_ they are going to find it, but _where_.
Because somewhere in the past of this world they have contacted a
civilization able to produce weapons and ideas so advanced as to baffle
our experts. We