assailed. Migul came striding back; and outside, from the nearby house
a negress was screaming. Migul flung the door closed, and we sped
away.

The cage which had been chasing us seemed no longer following. From
1777, we turned forward toward 1935 again. We flashed past Larry, Tina
and Harl who were arriving at 1777 in pursuit of us. I think that
Migul saw their cage go past; but Larry afterward told me that they
did not notice our swift passing, for they were absorbed in landing.

* * * * *

Beginning then, we made a score or more passages from 1935 to 2930.
And we made them in what, to our consciousness, might have been the
passing of a night. Certainly it was no longer than that.[1]

[Footnote 1: At the risk of repetition I must make the following
clear: Time-traveling only consumes Time in the sense of the
perception of human consciousness that the trip has duration. The
vehicles thus moved "fast" or "slow" according to the rate of change
which the controls of the cage gave its inherent vibration factors.
Too sudden a change could not be withstood by the human passengers.
Hence the trips--for them--had duration.

Migul took Mary and me from 1935 to 1777. The flight seems perhaps
half an hour. At a greater rate of vibration change, we sped to 2930;
and back and forth from 2930 to 1935. At each successive arrival in
1935, Migul so skilfully calculated the stop that it occurred upon the
same night, at the same hour, and only a minute or so later. And in
2930 he achieved the same result. To one who might stand at either end
and watch the cage depart, the round trip was made in three or four
minutes at most.]

We saw, at the stop in 2930, only a dim blue radiance outside. There
was the smell of chemicals in the air, and the faint, blended hum and
clank of a myriad machines.

They were weird trips. The Robots came tramping in, and packed
themselves upright, solidly, around us. Yet none touched us as we
crouched together. Nor did they more than glance at us.

Strange passengers! During the trips they stood unmoving. They were as
still and silent as metal statues, as though the trip had no duration.
It seemed to Mary and me, with them thronged around us, that in the
silence we could hear the ticking, like steady heart-beats, of the
mechanisms within them....

In the backyard of the house on Patton Place--it will be recalled that
Migul chose about 9 P. M. of the evening of June 9--th