ts, assuming I could find a loaf of bread to steal. But
neither did most of the civilizations that practiced those barbarisms.

I was more tired, hungry and scared than I'd ever believed a human
being could get. Lost, completely lost in a totally alien world, but
one in which I could still be killed or starve to death ... and God
knew what was waiting for me in my own time in case I came back
without the information she wanted.

Or maybe even if I came back with it!

That suspicion made up my mind for me. Whatever happened to me now
couldn't be worse than what she might do. At least I didn't have to
starve.

I stopped a man in the street. I let several others go by before
picking him deliberately because he was middle-aged, had a kindly
face, and was smaller than me, so I could slug him and run if he
raised a row.

"Look, friend," I told him, "I'm just passing through town--"

"Ah?" he said pleasantly.

"--And I seem to have mislaid--" No, that was dangerous. I'd been
about to say I'd mislaid my wallet, but I still didn't know whether
they used money in this era. He waited with a patient, friendly smile
while I decided just how to put it. "The fact is that I haven't eaten
all day and I wonder if you could help me get a meal."

He said in the most neighborly voice imaginable, "I'll be glad to do
anything I can, Mr. Weldon."

* * * * *

My entire face seemed to drop open. "You--you called me--"

"Mr. Weldon," he repeated, still looking up at me with that neighborly
smile. "Mark Weldon, isn't it? From the 20th Century?"

I tried to answer, but my throat had tightened up worse than on any
opening night I'd ever had to live through. I nodded, wondering
terrifiedly what was going on.

"Please relax," he said persuasively. "You're not in any danger
whatever. We offer you our utmost hospitality. Our time, you might
say, is your time."

"You know who I am," I managed to get out through my constricted
glottis. "I've been doing all this running and ducking and hiding for
nothing."

He shrugged sympathetically. "Everyone in the city was instructed to
help you, but you were so nervous that we were afraid to alarm you
with a direct approach. Every time we tried to, as a matter of fact,
you vanished into one place or another. We didn't follow for fear of
the effect on you. We had to wait until you came voluntarily to us."

My brain was racing again and getting nowhere. Part of it was