ur people
had to handle more energy there--and consequently acted upon more energy
here--than my people could produce with all the engines now on Earth
hooked together."

He fished, frowning thoughtfully.

"I suspect," said Soames, after a long interval, "that with machinery
and controls at this end as well as the other, instead of at one end
only, that time-transposition would be a fairly tranquil process. It
would be under accurate control. It'd probably need infinitely less
power. A ship would vanish from your time and simultaneously a
mass-and-energy equivalent would take its place. And a ship would appear
in this time and simultaneously a mass-and-energy equivalent would
vanish to appear in your time. But I think it must have been because the
whole business was done from one end that the business was so
spectacular, with lightning, earthquake, and all the rest. With
equipment at both ends, there should be no static, no earth-shock, no
concussion, nothing but a very peaceful transfer."

Soames' expression became sardonic.

"Which I am prepared to prevent at any cost," he added. "Yet I've some
responsibility to you, Fran. I think I'm getting an idea of a kind of
bluff that we might pull off, if we could get the other kids safe away.
It would be a bluff, and the biggest in history. But we might just get
away with it...."

Fran caught a three-quarter-pound lake-trout. Soames caught one weighing
half a pound. They caught two smaller ones before full darkness fell.
Then Soames put up his fishing-rod and picked up the oars. He began to
row toward the shore.

"I'll show you how to clean and cook the fish," he observed. "I think
you'll like the flavor."

He pulled hard on one oar, and swung the boat around, and caught one of
the small piles of the wharf. Fran climbed up and Soames handed him the
fish.

He followed Fran shoreward toward the rickety little week-end cottage
he'd rented. There he showed Fran how fish with scales are cleaned, and
then how they can be cooked over an open fire.

* * * * *

After Fran had gone to bed, it occurred to Soames that he hadn't heard
the news of the world for four days. On the run, as he and Fran had
been, they hadn't seen a newspaper or heard a news broadcast. Now Soames
turned on the small radio that went with the fishing cottage, to give
advance information on the weather.

News came on immediately. It was all bad.

The United States had