now there is a time-mark fixed I think of all sorts of things
I should have done before; for instance taking a look at the controls
of the Hoppers.

I have been in one of them half an hour and figured out most of the
dials--Up down and sideways are controlled much as in a helicar, but
here a big viewscreen has been hooked in to the autopilot--when
across the hold I see the air lock start to move.

_Gilgamesh_ is on the other side.

It takes forever to open. When at last it swings wide on the dark
tunnel what comes through is a storage rack, empty, floating on
antigrav.

What follows is a figure in a spacesuit; modern type, but the windows
of the hopper are semipolarized and I cannot make out the face inside
the bubble top.

He slings the rack upon the bulkhead, takes off the helmet and hangs
that up, too. Then he just stands. I am beginning to muster enough
sense to wonder why when he comes slowly across the hold.

Reaching the doorway he says: "Oh it's you, Lizzie. You'll have to
help me out of this. I'm stuck."

M'Clare.

The outside of the suit is still freezing cold; maybe this is what has
jammed the fastening. After a few minutes tugging it suddenly gives
away. M'Clare climbs out of the suit, leaving it standing, and says,
"Help me count these, will you?"

_These_ are a series of transparent containers from a pouch slung at
one side of the suit. I recognize them as the envelopes in which we
put what are referred to as Personal Background Sets.

I say, "There ought to be twenty-three."

"No," says M'Clare dreamily, "twenty-two, we're saving one of them."

"What on earth is the use of an extra set of faked documents and
oddments--"

He seems to wake up suddenly and says: "What are you doing here,
Lizzie?"

I explain and he wanders over to the hopper and starts to explain the
controls.

There is something odd about all this. M'Clare is obviously dead
tired, but kind of relaxed; seeing that the hour of Danger is only
thirty-six hours off I don't understand it. Probably several of his
students are going to have to risk their lives--

I am on the point of seeing something important when the speaker
announces in the colonel's voice that Professor M'Clare and Miss Lee
will report to the Conference Room at once please.

M'Clare looks at me and grins. "Come along, Lizzie. Here's where we
take orders for once, you and I."

It is the colonel's Hour. I suppose that having to work with
Undergraduates is