"Seat the helmet, but leave the faceplate open until the last minute. That's fine. Here are the memories, I suggest the leg pocket would be the safest place. The grav-chute on your back. I assume you know how to operate it. These weapon canisters across your chest. The temporal detector here…"

There was more like this until I could hardly stand. I didn't complain. K I didn't take it, I wouldn't have it. Hang on more.

"A language unit!" I shouted. "How can I speak to the natives if I don't know their language?"

"We don't have one here," Coypu said, tucking a rack of gas containers under my arm. "But here is a memorygram—"

"They give me headaches."

"—that you can use to learn the local tongue. In this pocket."

"What do I do, you haven't explained that yet? How do I arrive?"

"Very high. In the stratosphere, that is. Less chance of colliding with anything material. We'll get you there. After that—you're on your own."

"The front lab is gone!" someone shouted, and popped out of existence at almost the same instant.

"To the time-helix!" Coypu called out hoarsely, and they dragged me through the door.

Slower and slower as the scientists and technicians vanished from sight like pricked balloons. Until there were only four of them left and, heavily burdened, I staggered along at a decrepit waddle.

"The time-helix," Coypu said, breathlessly. "It is a bar, a column of pure force that has been warped into a helix and put under tension."

It was green and glittered and almost filled the room, a coiled form of sparkling light as thick as my arm. It reminded me of something.

"It's like a big spring that you have wound, up."

"Yes, perhaps. We prefer to call it a time-helix. It has been wound up… put under tension, the force carefully calculated. You will be placed at the outer end and the restraining latch released. As you are flung into the past, the helix will hurl itself into the future where the energies will gradually dissipate. You must go."