ching over the edge of the canvas platform with outstretched hand was
a single, willowy, sun-baked oldster in a purple loin-cloth. His hair
and beard were a dazzling white, and his face was wreathed in a silly
smile, the kind officials always wear when presenting the keys to the
city.

He shuffled his white kid sandals and spoke with an accent: "Welcome to
2153, Sextus Rollo Forsyte! California salutes you!"

Somewhere down on the street a raucous brass band broke into the _Stars
and Stripes Forever_ that quickly medlied into _California, Here We
Come_!

Sextus shrank back against the wall and felt ancient bricks crumble into
dust against his hands. The magnitude of his disaster crushed in upon
shrinking soul, and as his nimble imagination grasped the stunning
significance every molecule of his being vibrated with horror. _He had
been warned not to open a window._

"You have fulfilled the legend," the old man sang joyously. "You are a
famous man." How famous, Sextus was forced to acknowledge as a
television boom snaked over the heads of the crowd trailing a wisp of
cable and cast its baleful, glassy eye full into his face.

"Two hundred years to the day, as my great-great-grandfather predicted.
I am Clark Bradford, direct descendent of--"

Sextus stared wildly up at the open window. He bounced once
experimentally. It was a fine trampoline, and he flipped a foot off the
surface. Next bounce he flexed his knees a little and gained another
foot. Now he doubled up purposefully.

The one-man-delegate in purple frowned. "Stop that. We are here to
welcome you and start the celebration at the Hollywood Bowl and--Stop
that, I say!" Now he sensed Sextus' incredible intent. "Officer, help
out here, please!"

A bulgy, bronzed fellow clad mainly in an immaculately white brassard
left the rope barrier and joined Bradford.

The Elder screamed, "You can't go back, Forsyte! Don't you understand?
You disappeared two centuries ago when the vector field collapsed. You
can't go back! You can't! This is your destiny!"

Sextus' heels soared five feet above the canvas and gained precious
altitude with each spring, but it was a precarious business the higher
he went. One slip and he'd glance off at a tangent and be captured by
those reaching, grasping obscene hands in the crowd. The thought almost
unseated his reason.

The police officer asked Bradford, "What would happen if he did go
back?" Then he added, "Ain't he got a right to