It was no help at all. Random choice then? Why not, just as good as guessing. I put the finger out again and promised myself that I would push down on whatever color was under the finger when the jingle ended.

“Eeeny, meeny, miney, shmoe, catch a…”

I never found out what I was going to catch because at that moment I heard the dragging footsteps coming from the hall.

Sound?

Out there where nothing moved!

I jumped about, hands raised in defense. Lowered them and waited as the footsteps grew louder, came closer and closer to the doorway…

Slipped past Floyd’s immobile body.

“Aliens! Monsters!” I gasped, pulling back. Trying to run although I knew there was no place to go.

Two hideous metal creatures. Bifurcated limbs, many-angled skulls, glowing eyes, claw-fingered hands. Coming towards me. Stopping. Reaching out

No! Reaching up to twist their own heads off. I could hear a gurgling scream, was only dimly aware that it was my own voice.

Twisted and turned and lifted-

Lifted off the helmets. Two very human faces looked at me with a good deal of interest. I stared back with the same emotion. Realized that, despite the close-cropped hair, the one on the left was female. She smiled at me and spoke.

“Wes hal, eltheodige, ac hwca bith thes thin freond?”

I blinked, didn’t understand a word. Shrugged and smiled in what I hoped was a winning way. The second visitor shook his head.

“Unrihte tide, unrihte elde, to earlz’ch eart thu rcome!”

“Look,” I said, having enough of this and very much needing a few questions answered. “Could you please try Esperanto? That good, old, simple intergalactic second language Esperanto.”

“Certainly,” the girl said, smiling a winning and white-toothed smile. “My name is Vesta Timetinker. My companion is Othred Timetinker.”

“Married?” I asked for some incomprehensible reason.

“No, stepsiblings. And you-you have a name?”

“Yes, of course. James diGriz. But everyone calls me Jim.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Jim. Our thanks for activating the temporooter. We’ll take it off your hands now.”

She started towards the artifact-which I now knew was a temporooter. Though I still knew little else. I stepped in front of it and said:

“No.”

“No?” Her rather attractive forehead furrowed while Othred’s face suddenly looked grim. I turned a bit so I could keep an active eye on him.

“If no is too abrupt,” I said, “then I will ameliorate it and say hold on just a moment if you please. Didn’t you just thank me for finding this thing?”

“I did.”

“Finding means that it has been lost. And has now been recovered because of my intervention. In return for this favor I believe you owe me at least an explanation.”

“We’re dreadfully sorry. But it is strictly forbidden to pass on information to temporal aborigines.”

Not too flattering, I thought. But I was thick-skinned enough to take it. “Look,” I carefully explained. “This is one aborigine who already knows a good deal about what is happening. I now have in my possession your temporooter, a device that has been constructed for burrowing through time. It seems that you or your associates not only lost control of the device but actually lost it in time and space. This is very worrying because you are forbidden to reveal your operations to people living along the time tracks you explore.”

“How-how do you know this?” she asked. Well done, Jim. They may be long on linguistics but are certainly short on extrapolation and imagination. Keep going.

“At first, when we aborigines discovered the device, we thought it was an alien construction from the far past, built by longlost, millennia-dead aliens. Of course the real explanation is much simpler. It was sent from the future and through a malfunction got out of control.” Now I was just guessing – but their shocked expressions meant I was still doing well.

“Got so far out of control that it just kept going back in time until it ran out of power. Without power you could not locate it. You thought it might have been destroyed. Which is why there was such consternation when it signaled its presence. And you two were sent to retrieve it.”

“You-you read minds?” She spoke in a hushed voice. I nodded firmly.

“The science of mental telepathy is well advanced in this era. Though it is obvious that all knowledge of our abilities has been expunged from your records in the future. But I will cease my mind reading now. I know how embarrassing it is to have one’s secret thoughts revealed to strangers.” I turned away, pinched my forehead, turned back. “I have stopped the function. We now communicate by words.”

They looked at each other, still dazed.

“Speak, please, for now I do not know what you are thinking. Only by speech can we understand each other’s thoughts.”

“Knowledge of time travel is forbidden,” Othred said.

“That’s not my fault-you’re the ones who lost the thing. You must understand that now I know all about it-as do all of my brothers in telepathekinesis who have been listening to my thoughts. But we are sworn to silence! If you wish your secret to remain a secret it will be secret. But you must aid us in keeping this secret secret. Look about you. See this ugly-looking type in the horned helmet? He is just about to kill me. And when you entered you probably stepped over the wreckage of a very armed and deadly machine-you did?, nod yes-good. That thing was going to kill me and my friend, but he got it first. So just turning off the temporooter and skedaddling is out of the question. You will leave behind a deadly and destructive situation.”

“What must we do?” Vesta asked. Palm of my hand.

“First you will help me by permitting myself and my associates to escape before the time stasis has been turned off.”

“That should be possible,” Othred said.

“Then that’s agreed. Secondly I will need another temporooter to take back with me…”

“Forbidden! Impossible!”

“Hear me out, will you please. Another temporooter to take back that does not function. A realistic fake that will disguise the fact that you and your machine have been here. Catch on?”

“No.”

They sure bred them dumb in the future. Or without imagination or whatever. I took a deep breath.

“Look. I want you to remember that all the scientists here, in this time, know that there is a device of some kind that looks like your temporooter. Only they think that it is an alien artifact from the far past. Let us convince them that their assumption is true. If we do that, why no one will ever know about you and your lost equipment. Just have your technicians get some million-year-old rock and carve out something that looks like this. We’ll pass it off as the original, the secret will be kept, honor satisfied, all’s well that ends well.”

“Excellent idea,” Vesta said, and pulled a microphone from her armored suit. “I’ll have one constructed now. It will be here in a second or two – ”

“Wait. I have another small favor to ask. I will need certain functions built into the duplicate to convince our scientists that it is not a dummy. Just a simple device that will destruct after a single operation. This will pose absolutely no difficulties for your techs, I am sure.”

It took me a bit longer to convince them of this necessity, but in the end they reluctantly agreed. The duplicate was an exact physical duplicate of the original. It blinked into existence floating in the air before us. Othred reached up and tugged; there was a popping sound as he pulled it down and handed it to me.

“Wonderful,” I said, tucking it under my arm. “Shall we go?” They nodded agreement and put their helmets back on.

I had my temporal companions first release the stasis field on Floyd’s hand so I could disarm him. Like our mutual enemy his finger was also tightening on the trigger. What a world of nascent danger do live in! I tucked the gun into my belt and nodded to the tempotechs.