That was almost all he remembered. He did recall that he made his way back across the plain to the fields of grain, through them, stumbling and staggering, and at last to the spot where he had first appeared. The glass globe inside his coat urged him to pick up the small time machine from where he had left it. It whispered to him what dial to change, which button to press, which knob to set. Then he was falling again, falling back up the corridor of time, back, back to the graying mist from whence he had fallen, back to his own world.

Suddenly the globe urged him to stop. The journey through time was not yet complete: there was still something that he had to do.

“You say your name is Benton? What can I do for you?” the Controller asked. “You have never been here before, have you?”

He stared at the Controller. What did he mean? Why, he had just left the office! Or had he? What day was it? Where had he been? He rubbed his head dizzily and sat down in the big chair. The Controller watched him anxiously.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Can I help you?”

“I’m all right,” Benton said. There was something in his hands.

“I want to register this invention to be approved by the Stability Council,” he said, and handed the time machine to the Controller.

“Do you have the diagrams of its construction?” the Controller asked.

Benton dug deeply into his pocket and brought out the diagrams. He tossed them on the Controller’s desk and laid the model beside them.

“The Council will have no trouble determining what it is,” Benton said. His head ached, and he wanted to leave. He got to his feet.

“I am going,” he said, and went out the side door through which he had entered. The Controller stared after him.

“Obviously,” the First Member of the Control Council said, “he had been using the thing. You say the first time he came he acted as if he had been there before, but on the second visit he had no memory of having entered an invention, or even having been there before?”