s yet?"

"We learned plenty, and I feel quite sure that a hint of what we have
would bring all those learning-hounds around us pretty quickly, Dad,"
laughed Arcot junior, "and believe it or not, we've been calculating on
this stuff for three months since we left yesterday!"

"What!"

"Yes, it's true! We were on our time field, and turned on the space
control--and a Thessian ship picked that moment to run into us. We cut
the ship in half as neatly as you please, but it threw us eighty
thousand years into the past. We have been coasting through time on
retarded rate while Earth caught up with itself, so to speak. In the
meantime--three months in a day!

"But don't call those men. Let them come to the appointment, while we do
some work, and we have plenty of work to do, I assure you. We have a
list of things to order from the standard supply houses, and I think you
better get them for us, Dad." Arcot's manner became serious now. "We
haven't gotten our Government Expense Research Cards yet, and you have.
Order the stuff, and get it out here, while we get ready for it.
Honestly, I believe that a few ships such as this apparatus will permit,
will be enough in themselves to do the job. It really is a pity that the
other men didn't have the opportunity we had for crowding much work into
little time!

"But then, I wouldn't want to take that road to concentration again
myself!

"Have the enemy amused you in my absence? Come on, let's sit down in the
house instead of standing here in the sun."

They started toward the house, as Arcot senior explained what had
happened in the short time they had been away.

"There is a friend of yours here, whom you haven't seen in some time,
Son. He came with some allies."

As they entered the house, they could hear the boards creak under some
heavy weight that moved across the floor, soundlessly and light of
motion in itself. A shadow fell across the hall floor, and in the
doorway a tremendously powerfully-built figure stood.

He seemed to overflow the doorway, nearly six and a half feet tall, and
fully as wide as the door. His rugged, bronzed face was smiling
pleasantly, and his deep-set eyes seemed to flash; a living force flowed
from them.

"Torlos! By the Nine Planets! Torlos of Nansal! Say, I didn't expect you
here, and I will not put my hand in that meatgrinder of yours," grinned
Arcot happily, as Torlos stretched forth a friendly, but quite too
powerful hand.

Torlos of Na