was looking for was on a counter--a tinted metal box no
bigger than a suitcase, with a lipped hole on top and small
undisguised verniers in front. I didn't know I'd found it, actually,
until I twisted a vernier and every light in the store suddenly glared
and the salesman came rushing over and politely moved me aside to shut
it off.

"We don't want to burn out every appliance in the place, do we?" he
asked quietly.

"I just wanted to see if it worked all right," I said, still shaking
slightly. It could have blown up or electrocuted me, for all I knew.

"But they always work," he said.

"Ah--always?"

"Of course. The principle is simple and there are no parts to get worn
out, so they last indefinitely." He suddenly smiled as if he'd just
caught the gist. "Oh, you were joking! Naturally--everybody learns
about the Dynapack in primary education. You were interested in
acquiring one?"

"No, no. The--the old one is good enough. I was just--well, you know,
interested in knowing if the new models are much different or better
than the old ones."

"But there haven't been any new models since 2073," he said. "Can you
think of any reason why there should be?"

"I--guess not," I stammered. "But you never can tell."

"You can with Dynapacks," he said, and he would have gone on if I
hadn't lost my nerve and mumbled my way out of the store as fast as I
could.

* * * * *

You want to know why? He'd asked me if I wanted to "acquire" a
Dynapack, not _buy_ one. I didn't know what "acquire" meant in that
society. It could be anything from saving up coupons to winning
whatever you wanted at some kind of lottery, or maybe working up the
right number of labor units on the job--in which case he'd want to
know where I was employed and the equivalent of social security and
similar information, which I naturally didn't have--or it could just
be fancy sales talk for buying.

I couldn't guess, and I didn't care to expose myself any more than I
had already. And my blunder about the Dynapack working and the new
models was nothing to make me feel at all easier.

Lord, the uncertainties and hazards of being in a world you don't know
anything about! Daydreaming about visiting another age may be
pleasant, but the reality is something else again.

"Wait a minute, friend!" I heard the salesman call out behind me.

* * * * *

I looked back as casually, I hoped, as the pedest