"Here in Los."
The girl stood up hastily, a look of alarm on her face.
"Oh, please," Mikel cried, "don't go. I can explain. Perhaps you can help me."
She sat down again dubiously.
"Well, I'm a sucker for a good story," she said. "Shoot."
"I—I wouldn't shoot. I have no weapon."
That wasn't true—he did have a weapon: the knife. But he could hardly mention that. Anyway, the girl only laughed again.
"Wisecracks, yet," she said unintelligibly. "Well, what's the story?"
"I am from this place, but I am not from your time," Mikel began laboriously; he was utterly unaccustomed to social conversation with a woman. "I am from—with me it is 2839."
"What in the—look, what are you advertising? Some science fiction magazine?"