He hurried into the rec-hall. Easy Money stood all alone behind the tourist-bar. The black rohorse was gone.
His eyes leaped to the rec-hall table. The Sangraal was gone, too.
He groaned. The little idiot was taking it back! And after he had forbidden her to leave the "castle" too! Well no, he hadn't forbidden her exactly: he had forbidden her to leave it during his absence.
He walked over to the telewindow nearest the lock and scrutinized the screen. She was nowhere in sight, but night was on hand and the range of his vision, while considerably abetted by the light of the rising moon, was limited to the nearer trees.
Presently he frowned. Was it still the same night, or had he been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours?
It couldn't be the same night—the position of the moon disproved that. And yet he could swear that he had been unconscious for no more than a few hours.
Belatedly, he remembered his gauntlet timepiece, and returned to the bedroom-office. The timepiece registered 10:32. But that didn't make any sense either: the moon was still low in the sky.
He knew then that there could be but one answer, and he headed for the control room posthaste. Sure enough, the jump-board time-dial had been set for 8:00 p.m. of the same day. He looked at the space-dial. That had been set to re-materialize the Yore one half mile farther west.
He wiped his forehead. Good Lord, she might have sent the TSB all the way back to the Age of Reptiles! Even worse, she might have plunked it right down in the middle of WWIII!