analyze.

[Illustration: The cryptic verse had become a visual symbol in Bram's
mind.]

Returning slowly to the front yard, he pondered the dimension of
time. How, he wondered, could John Pride's line have gone through
three sires to John Pride, the last of the males, while he himself lay
for one hundred years to emerge in his obvious prime? Or perhaps even
on the near side of his prime.

* * * * *

He pondered this and other points until his mind grew weary from
unanswered questions and turned to things of the moment.

"I know not what my destiny is but at least I am able to have a name.
What shall it be?"

He remembered the one Portox had used--C. D. Bram. "Bram," he said.
"That I like." But the C. D. meant nothing to him and Bram seemed
somehow incomplete.

"John Price had a name of two parts," he said, "so why should I not
have the same?"

He looked about him and a breeze in the green branches above seemed to
whisper the answer. He heard and considered, then smiled to himself,
raised his voice.

"I christen myself Bram Forest, to be known from this moment on by
that name."

Suddenly his smile deepened, then laughter welled from his great
chest; a laughter arising from the sheer joy of this new thing called
living into which he had stepped.

Now he stretched his arms over his head, palms upward as though
supplicating to some far-off deity. He leaped high in the air testing
his muscles and finding them good.

Then he was running, naked and golden off across the open hill. He ran
until his huge chest pounded with delicious pain as his lungs labored
for air. Finally he dropped to the ground and lay spread-eagled
looking up at the sky.

He laughed long and joyously.

He lay for a long time thus, then suddenly remembered the box John
Pride had given him. But the scanty garment had dropped from his
shoulders so he sprang to his feet and ran back until he discovered
it.

The box was still there. He examined it curiously turning it over and
over in his hands. The seal was stubborn but it finally gave and he
peeled off the heavy wrapping. A small white box came to light.

This he opened to stand frowning at what it contained. An odd
instrument of some sort--a flat disc about two inches in diameter and
possibly a quarter of an inch thick. Both faces were of shining,
crystalline metal reflecting back anything that was imaged upon them.

Two short metal straps appended from