Lance groaned. "Now, I'm told!"
"I'm sorry. It's nothing new, only the information is classified top-secret in our world; and evidently in yours, too. It has to be withheld from hype-trainees, otherwise they might deliberately flunk their course. We're running pilot classes here on our track, too. We have to keep them filled."
Lance was stunned. He hardly knew what he should say or do next.
Finally, he put forth a faltering question: "Is there any way I can get back to Home Base? My home base?"
All three officers in the room shook their heads in unison.
"You might as well look for a pebble in the beach," said Nordsen. He elucidated: "As a matter of fact, this is Home Base for you. The differences between one track and another are not usually too great; the resemblances are many. Sometimes even, the returned pilot accommodates himself to the new time-track without suspecting in the slightest what's happened to him."
"And in those cases, you seldom bother to enlighten him, I suppose."
"Naturally not. Security frowns on it."
"But in my case, you couldn't cover up."
"Your case manifests a much more serious slippage. Your path, evidently, warped to a track several million or billion worlds further over than anybody from your world had previously experienced. Consequently, your luck has really been unfortunate. You've materialized out of hyperspace into a universe where someone you apparently knew quite closely simply was never born."