I know little or nothing about it. Almost
nothing is known about the true nature of the space-time continuum. Only
recently have we even guessed that such things as space-time faults
existed. We were hurled through this particular fault by accident, the
result of an unfortunate combination of circumstances. Whether we can
duplicate that accident, and whether it would return us to our own
time--I just don't know. Nobody knows."

The officers of the Idaho received this information with no sign of
pleasure. Craig felt sorry for them. After all, some of them had wives,
all of them had friends back in the United States. Or was it _forward_
in the United States, in the America that was to be? It was hard to
remember that Columbus had not as yet sailed westward, would not sail
westward for--how many hundreds of thousands of years?

All human history would have to unroll before there was an America. If
the theory of continental drift was correct, there might not even be an
American continent, it might still be joined to Europe. Babylon and
Nineveh, Karnak and Thebes, Rome and London--there were no such cities
in the world, would not be for--

* * * * *

The men on this ship were probably the only human beings alive on earth!
Men had not yet become human, or maybe hadn't. The Neanderthal Man, the
Cro-Magnons, maybe the Java Man, the Piltdown Man, had not yet appeared
on the planet!

"As I understand it," an officer said, "we were sailing directly across
a space-time fault when the explosion of the bombs sent us through the
fault? Is that correct?"

"That is correct," Michaelson answered.

"Then why don't we locate this fault and set off some explosions of our
own?" the officer suggested. "Is there any chance that we might
return--home--that way?"

"I don't know," the scientist frankly answered. "Maybe it would work,
maybe it won't. We can certainly try it, and if it fails, nothing is
lost. Meanwhile I will go over my data and see if I can find some way of
accomplishing what we desire."

Michaelson went below. The Idaho was brought around. Immediately a
worried officer posed another problem.

"How are we going to find that fault?" he asked. "We can't see it. We
can't feel it. How are we going to know when we have reached the right
place?"

"We'll search the whole area," Higgins said. "We haven't moved far and
locating the fault ought not to be too difficult. For that matter, we
are pr