The air was foul and grimy. Mahler wondered what had happened to the Conditioner. Then he looked around. Huge, grotesque, ugly buildings blocked out most of the sky. There were dark oppressive clouds of smoke overhead, and the harsh screech of an industrial society assailed his ears.

He was in the middle of an immense city, and streams of people were rushing past him at a furious pace. They were all small, stunted creatures, their faces harried and neurotic. They all had the same despairing, frightened look. It was an expression Mahler had seen many times on the faces of jumpers escaping from an unendurable nightmare world to a more congenial future.

He stared down at the time rig clutched in his hand, and knew what had happened. The two-way rig!

It meant the end of the Moon prisons. It meant a complete revolution in civilization. But he had no desire to remain in so oppressive and horrible an age a minute longer than was necessary. He reached down to activate the time rig.

Abruptly someone jolted him from behind and the current of the crowd swept him along. He was struggling desperately to regain control over himself when a hand reached out and gripped the back of his neck.

“Got a card, Hump?” a harsh voice demanded.

He whirled to face an ugly, squinting-eyed man in a dull-brown uniform.

“Did you hear what I said? Where’s your card, Hump? Talk up or you get Spotted.”

Mahler twisted out of the man’s grasp and started to jostle his way quickly through the crowd, desiring nothing more than an opportunity to set the time rig and get out of this disease-ridden, squalid era forever. As he shoved people out of his way they shouted angrily and tried to trip him, raining blows on his back and shoulders.

“There’s a Hump!” someone called. “Spot him!”

The cry became a roar. “Spot him! Spot him! Spot him!”