"No." She plucked at her lower lip. "I do not understand it very well. You could picture something that hooks into a gravity field, and pulls. A long way from the Earth if would not work very well, because the field is so thin there.... I guess I just cannot explain it very well to you."
"That's all I need." Maitland licked his lips and frowned. "On that point, anyway. Another thing—Swarts told me I'd be here for about a week. Is there any set procedure involved in that? Have other persons been brought to this period from the past?"
She laughed. "Thousands. Swarts has published nearly a hundred case studies himself, and spent time adding up to years in the 19th and 20th centuries."
Maitland interrupted incredulously. "How on Earth could he ever manage to keep that many disappearances quiet? Some of those people would be bound to talk."
She shook her head definitely. "The technique was designed to avoid just that. There is a method of 'fading' the memories people have of their stay here. The episode is always accepted as a period of amnesia, in the absence of a better explanation."
"Still, in thousands of cases...."
"Spread out over centuries in a total population of billions."
He laughed. "You're right. But will that be done to me?"
"I suppose so. I can't imagine Swarts letting you take your memories back with you."
Maitland looked out the window at the green horizon. "We'll see," he said.