The detector over in one corner of Mahler’s little office gleamed a soft red. With a weary gesture of his hand he drew it to the attention of the sad-eyed time jumper who sat slouched glumly across the desk from him, looking cramped and uncomfortable in his bulky spacesuit.

“You see,” Mahler said, tapping his desk. “They’ve just found another one. We’re constantly bombarded with you people. When you get to the Moon, you’ll find a whole Dome full of them. I’ve sent over four thousand there myself since I took over the bureau. And that was over eight years ago—in twenty-seven twenty-six, to be exact. An average of five hundred a year. Hardly a day goes by without someone dropping in on us.”

“And not one has been set free,” the time jumper said. “Every time traveler who’s come here has been packed off to the Moon immediately. Every single one.”

“Every one,” Mahler agreed. He peered through the thick shielding, trying to see what sort of man was hidden inside the spacesuit.

Mahler often wondered about the men he condemned so easily to the Moon. This one was small in stature, with wispy locks of white hair pasted to his high forehead by perspiration. Evidently he had been a scientist, a respected man of his time, perhaps a happy father although very few of the time jumpers were family men. Perhaps he possessed some bit of scientific knowledge which would be invaluable to the 28th Century. Or perhaps he didn’t. It scarcely mattered. Like all the rest, he would have to be sent to the Moon, to live out his remaining days under the grueling, primitive conditions of the Dome.

“Don’t you think that’s a little cruel?” the other asked. “I came here with no malice, no intent to harm anyone. I’m simply a scientific observer from the past. Driven by curiosity, I took the Jump. I never expected that I’d be walking into life imprisonment.”