“I’ve bagged one,” said Everard impatiently. “I’ve also been skiing and mountain-climbing and watched the native dances.”

Van Sarawak nodded, took out a cigarette, and puffed it into lighting. The bones stood out in his lean brown face as he sucked the smoke inward. “A pleasant loafing spell, this,” he agreed, “but after a bit the outdoor life begins to pall.”

There were still two weeks left of their furlough. In theory, since he could return almost to the moment of departure, an agent could take indefinite vacations; but actually he was supposed to devote a certain percentage of his probable lifetime to the job. (They never told you when you were scheduled to die, and you had better sense than to try finding out for yourself. It wouldn’t have been certain anyhow, time being mutable. One perquisite of an agent’s office was the Danellian longevity treatment.)

“What I would enjoy,” continued Van Sarawak, “is some bright lights, music, girls who’ve never heard of time travel—”

“Done!” said Everard.

“Augustan Rome?” asked the other eagerly. “I’ve never been there. I could get a hypno on language and customs here.”

Everard shook his head. “It’s overrated. Unless we want to go ’way upstairs, the most glorious decadence available is right in my own milieu. New York, say.… If you know the right phone numbers, and I do.”

Van Sarawak chuckled. “I know a few places in my own sector,” he replied, “but by and large, a pioneer society has little use for the finer arts of amusement. Very good, let’s be off to New York, in—when?”

“Make it 1960. That was the last time I was there, in my public persona, before coming here-now.”

They grinned at each other and went off to pack. Everard had foresightedly brought along some midtwentieth garments in his friend’s size.

Throwing clothes and razor into a small suitcase, the American wondered if he could keep up with Van Sarawak. He had never been a high-powered roisterer, and wouldn’t have known how to buckle a swash anywhere in spacetime. A good book, a bull session, a case of beer—that was about his speed. But even the soberest men must kick over the traces occasionally.