anoe-borne
Mongols had long since found the islands of the South Seas. Australia
was peopled. The beauty of New Zealand had been found and recognized.

500 A. D. The Mongoloids had come, and were flourishing here. They
were changed vastly from those ancestors of Asia whence they had
sprung. An obscure story, this record of primitive America! The
Mongoloids were soon so changed that one could fancy the blood of
another people had mingled with them. Amerindians, we call them now.
They were still very backward in development, yet made tremendous
forward leaps, so that, reaching Mexico, they may have become the
Aztecs, and in Peru, the Incas. And separated, not knowing of each
other's existence, these highest two civilizations of the Western
World nourished with a singularly strange similarity....

I saw on the little island around me still no evidence of man. But men
were here. The American Indian, still bearing evidence of the Mongols,
plied these waters in his frail canoes. His wigwams of skins, the
smoke of his signal fires--these were not enduring enough for me to
see....

* * * * *

We had no more than passed the year 500 A. D.--and were traveling with
progressive retardation--when again I was attracted by the movements
of the Robot, Migul. It had been sitting behind us at the control
table setting the Time-levers, slowing our flight. Frequently it gazed
eastward along the tiny beam of light which issued from the
telespectroscope. For an interval, now, its recording mirror had been
dark. But I think that Migul was seeing evidences of the other cage
which was pursuing us, and planning to stop at some specific Time with
whose condition it was familiar. Once already it had seemed about to
stop, and then changed its plan.

I turned upon it. "Are you stopping now, Migul?"

"Yes. Presently."

"Why?" I demanded.

The huge, expressionless, metal face fronted me. The eye-sockets flung
out their small dull-red beams to gaze upon me.

"Because," it said, "that other cage holds enemies. There were three,
but now there is only one. He follows, as I hoped he would. Presently
I shall stop, and capture or kill him. It will please the master
and--"

The Robot checked itself, its hollow voice fading strangely into a
gurgle. It added, "I do not mean that! I have no master!"

This strange mechanical thing! Habit had surprised it into the
admission of servitude; but it threw off the yoke.

"