It was quite apparent that Jackson had failed to sell the Kralon Council the truth of his innocence. Their final acts had been to exact retribution.

Slowly the two men turned away, then continued their search for some sign of the McMahons. And Randall knew then, with a sudden flash of insight, that the phase of the future to which he and his companions would soon return would not know the names of Blake Garnet, Jerome Jackson, or Charles and Evelyn McMahon. He knew with an esoteric knowledge that in that particular future there would have been just seven Diamvator passengers and himself scheduled on the historic trip. And he was somehow sure that the passenger check list would substantiate that count.

For it would be an alternate phase of the future, rather than the one in which those people had, or might have existed. Those four personalities would henceforth exist only as a memory in his mind. And perhaps it wouldn't even be strictly a memory. Perhaps it would be a dream; an ephemeral and elusive link between alternate potential Time phases.

There was a fantastic thought! Perhaps all dreams were but vague links between Time potentials or alternate phases.

Then Randall impatiently thrust aside the fanciful theories and turned to the search.

The room he and McClellan now entered was quite obviously a genetics research laboratory. And it was there that they found unmistakable evidence of the two young McMahons.

They examined the grisly proof that the young couple had been victimized by vicious Kralon experiments. Apparently the research was aimed at the use of human gene-determinants in synthesizing a greater Kralon race.

In the next room Randall found a case filled with metallic sheets covered with hieroglyphics. Feeling that the records might hold information of value to Zor Ala and Lanson, the agent removed the first sheet and took it with him.

Back in the Time Trap room he called it to Zor Ala's attention, and while Lanson and Malherne were busily completing their transpositions and calibrations, the future-man excitedly examined the record.