Without a jar the mighty weight of the ship touched the soil of its native planet, touched it fifty millenniums before it was made, five hundred centuries before it left!
Arcot's brow furrowed. "There is one thing puzzles me—I can't see how we can come back. Don't you see, Morey, we have disturbed the lives of those people. We have affected history. This must be written into the history that exists.
"This seems to banish the idea of free thought. We have changed history, yet history is that which is already done!
"Had I never been born, had—but I was already—I existed fifty-eighty thousand years before I was born!"
"Let's go out and think about that later. We'll go to a psych hospital, if we don't stop thinking about problems of space and time for a little while. We need some kind of relaxation."
"I suggest that we take our weapons with us. These men may have weapons of chemical nature, such as poisons injected into the flesh on small sticks hurled either by a spring device or by pneumatic pressure of the lungs," said Stel Felso Theu as he rose from his seat unstrapping himself.
"Arrows and blow-guns we call 'em. But it's a good idea, Stel Felso, and I think we will," replied Arcot. "Let's not all go out at once, and the first group to go out goes out on foot, so they won't be scared off by our flying around."
Arcot, Wade, Zezdon Afthen, and Stel Felso Theu went out. The natives had retreated to a respectful distance, and were now standing about, looking on, chattering to themselves. They were edging nearer.
"Growing bold," grinned Wade.
"It is the characteristic of intelligent races manifesting itself—curiosity," pointed out Stel Felso Theu.