“Of course,” he said. “How childish do you think I am? I was busy. And after all, you two were newly married.”

After I introduced you, that night beneath Mauna Loa and the moon. The Time Patrol doesn’t bother with snobbishness. A youngster like Cynthia Cunningham, a mere clerk fresh out of the Academy and Attached to her own century, is quite free to see a ranking veteran… like myself, for instance… as often as they both wish, off duty. There is no reason why he should not use his skill at disguise to take her waltzing in Strauss’ Vienna or to the theater in Shakespeare’s London—as well as exploring funny little bars in Tom Lehrer’s New York or playing tag in the sun and surf of Hawaii a thousand years before the canoe men arrived. And a fellow member of the Patrol is equally free to join them both. And later to marry her. Sure.

Everard got his pipe going. When his face was screened with smoke, he said: “Begin at the beginning. I’ve been out of touch with you for—two or three years of my own lifeline time—so I’m not certain precisely what Keith was working on.”

“That long?” she asked wonderingly. “You never even spent your furloughs in this decade? We did want you to come visit us.”

“Quit apologizing!” he snapped. “I could have dropped in if I’d wished.” The elfin face looked as if he had slapped it. He backed up, appalled. “I’m sorry. Naturally I wanted to. But as I said… we Unattached agents are so damned busy, hopping around in all space-time like fleas on a griddle… Oh, hell,” he tried to smile, “you know me, Cyn, tactless, but it doesn’t mean anything. I originated a chimaera legend all by myself, back in Classic Greece. I was known as the dilaiopod, a curious monster with two left feet, both in its mouth.”