He threw one out. It went arcing through the air, down off the bluff, and sent a small white geyser up in the lake, the “plunk” coming back to him a moment later.

Pretty good! If he did say it himself.

The storm out there was towering up a bit higher, grayish black, a bit ugly. He glanced toward the minesite and found the tri-wheeler had almost arrived. It stopped.

For a moment Jonnie did not recognize the rider and he stepped nearer to him, questioningly. Then he saw it was the third “duplicate” of him, a man they called Stormalong. His real name was Stam Stavenger, member of a Norwegian group who had emigrated to Scotland from Norway in ages past and who had preserved their names and lineage but not their customs. They looked and acted like Scots.

He was Jonnie's height and build and had eyes like Jonnie's, but his hair was a shade darker and his skin very much more tanned. Since the lode days he had not bothered to keep up the resemblance and had cut his beard square at the bottom.

Stormalong had stayed at the Academy. A skilled pilot, he enjoyed teaching the new cadets to fly. He had found an ancient flying coat, a white scarf, and a huge pair of goggles from a bygone age and he affected these. They gave him a bit of dash.

They swatted each other on the back and grinned at each other.

“They told me I’d find you down here throwing rocks at the crocs,” said Stormalong. “How's the arm?”

“You must have seen the last one I threw,” said Jonnie. “It might not have knocked down one of these elephants but it's getting there.” He guided him over to a big, flat rock overlooking the lake and they sat down. The storm was building up but it was an easy run back.

Stormalong was seldom very talkative but right now he was full of news. It had taken some ferreting out, real badger digging, to find where Jonnie was. Nobody knew in America, so he had gone to Scotland to find him or some trace of him.

Chrissie sent her love. He'd already given Pattie's to Bittie. The Chief of Clanfearghus had sent his respects, mind you, not his regards but his respects. His Aunt Ellen sent her love; she was married to the parson now and in Scotland.

He'd gotten on Jonnie's trail through the two Coordinators who had gone back to Scotland, the ones sent out to bring in some tribe or other...the Brigades?... the Brigantes. Oh, that mob was up in Denver now. Horrible people. He'd seen some. Anyway, they'd brought Allison's body home for burial and Scotland was in an uproar over the murder of Allison.

But that wasn't what he wanted to tell Jonnie. The craziest thing had happened on his flight over.

“You know,” said Stormalong, “how you said we could get invaded again here on Earth? Well, it does seem possible.”

He'd been coming over to Scotland on the North Great Circle, flying an ordinary battle plane, making good time, and just as he reached the northern tip of Scotland, right there on his viewscreen and visual as well he had seen the biggest, most enormous craft he ever hoped to see. For a moment he thought he was running into it and would crash right then. There it was on his screens and through his windshield! But bang! He hit it but it wasn't there.

“Not there?” asked Jonnie.

Well, that was exactly it. He'd run into a solid object that wasn't there. Right in the sky, mind you. Big as all the sky but not there. Here, he had the screen pictures in this pack.

Jonnie looked at it. It was a sphere with a ring around it. Nothing like any ship he had ever heard of. And it looked huge. In fact, at the corner, the Orkney Islands were visible. It looked like it reached from mid-Scotland to the Orkneys. The next consecutive picture showed it enveloping the battle plane taking the shot, and the third one showed it was

“The ship that wasn't there,” said Stormalong.

“Light,” said Jonnie, suddenly recalling some man-theories. “This thing could have been going faster than light. It left its image behind. That's a guess, you know, but I read that they thought that things that went faster than light could look as big as the whole universe. It 's in some texts on nuclear physics we had. I didn't understand most of it.”

“Well, that just could be,” said Stormalong. “Because the old woman said it wasn't that big!”

The old woman?

Well, it's like this. When he had gotten over his scare, he had backtracked his screen recorders. He hadn't noticed it in approaching Scotland– you know how it is, you get groggy on a long flight, not alert, and he hadn't had much sleep lately, cadets being what they were, slow to graduate when desperately needed by the overloaded pilots.

The backtrack of the screens showed this little trace coming up from a farm west of Kinlochbervie. You know, on the northwest coast of Scotland-that little place? Well, he cranked down his speed and went in to that spot, expecting maybe the place had been raided or shot up.

But there was just a burned spot in the rocks– a farm raises mostly rocks around there– and he didn't see any other damage or hostile force so he landed near the house.

An old woman came out, all fluttery about two callers from the sky in one day when she didn't usually see anybody for months on end. And he was made to sit down and have some yarb tea and she showed him this new, shiny pocketknife.

“A pocketknife?” said Jonnie. This ordinarily very quiet Norwegian-Scot was taking his time about getting down to it.

Well, yes. They'd seen some in ruined cities, remember? They folded in on themselves. Only this one was shiny as could be. Yes, I am getting on with it.

So anyway, according to what the old woman told him, there she was combing her dog that often got burrs in him and it almost startled her witless. Standing right behind her was a small gray man. And right behind him was a big gray sphere with a ring around it parked right where the cow was usually staked out. Like to have frightened her silly daft, she said. There hadn't been a sound. Maybe only a bit of wind.

So she asked the small gray man in for a cup of yarb tea just like she asked me, except that I’d had the manners to come down roaring and announcing myself.

But the small gray man was very pleasant. He looked a bit smaller than most men. His skin was gray, his hair was gray and his suit gray. The only thing odd about him was he had a box he wore on a strap around his neck and hung on his chest. He'd say something to this box and then, presently, the box would speak English. The small gray man's voice was quiet and had different tones and the box only had one tone, a monotone.

“A vocoder,” said Jonnie. “A portable translation device. A Psychlo text describes them but the Psychlos don't use them.”

Well, all right. But anyway this small gray man asked her whether she had any newspapers. And no, because of course she'd never seen a newspaper; few people have. And then he asked her whether she had any history books. And she was disappointed to have to tell him she had heard of a book but didn't have any.

Well, apparently he thought she didn't understand, so the small gray man made a lot of motions to indicate something printed on paper was what he wanted.

So she got very helpful. Seems like somebody had bought some wool from her and given her a couple of those new credits in exchange. And explained what they were.

“What credits?”

“Oh, you haven't seen them?” And Stormalong fished in his pockets and found one. “They pay us now. With these.” It was a one-credit note from the new Planetary Bank and Jonnie looked at it with casual interest. Then his attention riveted on the picture. A picture of him. Waving a gun. He didn't think it was all that good a likeness and also it embarrassed him a bit.

So anyway, Stormalong went on, the old woman had accepted them because of the picture of you. And she had one of them on the wall. And she sold it to the small gray man for the pocketknife because she had another one she could put on the wall.