Miss Emma Garside turned off the radio and sat in silence, bolt upright in her chair, in something approaching awe of herself for the brilliance of the idea that had just occurred to her. It was not often (well, actually never before) that she had felt that way, for although a proud woman, she also was inclined to be mousy in both her actions and her thought. The pride she had was a secret pride, divulged only occasionally and in a very guarded manner to Miss Clarabelle Smythe, her very closest friend. It was a pride she held close within herself, for comfort, although there were times she flinched a little when she remembered the undoubted horse thief and the man who had been hanged for a rather heinous offense. She had never mentioned either the horse thief or the hanged man to her good friend Clarabelle.

The Sunday sun of afternoon slanted through the westward-facing windows, failing on the worn carpeting where the aged cat slept, tightly rolled into a ball. In the garden at the rear of the dowdy house on the dowdy street the catbird was calling sassily — perhaps preparing for a new inroad on the raspberry patch — but she paid it no attention.

It had cost a deal of money, she thought, and a lot of work and letter writing and some traveling, but it had been worth it, she told herself, all the money and the time. For there was no one else in this little town who could trace back their blood as far as she — to the Revolution and beyond, back to English days and little English villages that lay sunken deep in time. And while there had been a horse thief and a hanged man and others of somewhat dubious character and undistinguished lineage, they had been offset by country squires and sturdy yeomen, with even the hint of an ancient castle somewhere in the background, although she never had quite honestly been able to authenticate the castle.

And now, she thought, and now! She had carried her family research back as far as human ingenuity and records went. Now could she — would she dare — proceed in the opposite direction — forward into the future? She knew all the old ancestors and here, she told herself, was the opportunity to acquaint herself with all the new descendants. If these people were really what the radio hinted they might be, it surely could be done. But if it were to be done, she would have to do it, for there would be no records. She would have to go among them — those who came from the area of New England — and she would have to ask her questions and she might ask many different people before she got a clue. Are there, my dear, any Garsides or Lamberts or Lawrences in your family tree? Well, then, if you think so, but don't really know, is there anyone who would? Oh, yes, my dear, of course it is most important — I cannot begin to tell you how important.

She sat in the chair unstirring, while the cat slept on and the catbird screamed, feeling in her that strange sense of family that had driven her all these years, and which, given this new development, might drive her further yet.

"So," said the President, leaning back in his chair, "as we have it so far, the Earth some five hundred years from now is being attacked by beings from out of space. It is impossible for the people of that day to cope with them and their only recourse is to retreat back into the past. Is that a fairly accurate summary of what you've told us?"

Gale nodded. "Yes, sir, I would say it is."

"But now that you are here — or a lot of you are here and more coming all the time — what happens now? Or have you had no opportunity to plan ahead?"

"We have plans," said Gale, "but we will need some help."

"What I want to know," said the Attorney General, "is why you came back to us. Why to this particular moment in time?"

"Because," said Gale, "you have the technology that we need and the resources. We made a very thorough historical survey and this particular time slot, give or take ten years, seemed to suit our purpose best."

"What kind of technology are you thinking of?"

"A technology that is capable of fabricating other time machines. We have the plans and the specifications and the labor force. We will need materials and your forbearance…"

"But why more time machines?"

"We do not intend to stay here," said Gale. "It would be unfair to do so. It would put too great a strain on your economy. As it is, we are putting a great strain upon it. But we could not stay up there in the future. I hope you understand that we had to leave."

"Where will you be going?" asked the President.

"Back deep into time," said Gale. "To the mid-Miocene."

"The Miocene?"

"A geological epoch. It began, roughly, some twenty-five million years ago, lasted for some twelve million years."

"But why the Miocene? Why twenty-five million years? Why not ten million, or fifty million or a hundred million?"

"There are a number of considerations," said Gale. "We have tried to work it out as carefully as we can. For one thing, the main reason, I would guess, grass first appeared in the Miocene. Paleontologists believe that grass appeared at the beginning of the Miocene. They base their belief upon the development of high-crowned cheek teeth in the herbivores of that time. Grass carries abrasive minerals and wears down the teeth. The development of high-crowned teeth that grew throughout the animal's lifetime would be an answer to this. The teeth are the kind that one would expect to find in creatures that lived on grass. There is evidence, too, that during the Miocene more arid conditions came about which led to the replacement of forests by extensive grass prairies that supported huge herds of grazing animals. This, say the paleontologists, began with the dawn of the Miocene, twenty-five million years ago, but we have chosen as our first target twenty million years ago, just in case the paleontologists' timetable may be in error, although we do not believe it is."

"If that is where you're heading," asked the Attorney General, "why are you stopping here? Your time tunnels, I assume, the ones you used to reach us, would have carried you that far."

"That is true, sir. But we didn't have the time. This move had to be made as rapidly as possible."

"What has time to do with it?"

"We can't go into the Miocene without implements and tools, with no seed stocks or agricultural animals. We have all those up in our own time, of course, but it would have taken weeks to gather and transport them to the tunnel mouths. There was also the matter of capacity. Every tool or bag of seed or head of livestock would mean it would take longer to move the people. Given the time and without the pressure of the aliens we would have done it that way, going directly to the Miocene. But the logistics were impossible. The monsters knew there was something going on and as soon as they found out what it was, we knew they would attack the tunnel heads. We felt we had to move as swiftly as we could, to save as many people as we could. So we arrive here empty-handed."

"You expect us to furnish you with all the things you need?"

"Reilly," the President said quietly, "it seems to me you are being somewhat uncharitable. This is not a situation that we asked for nor one that we expected, but it is one we have and we must deal with it as gracefully and as sensibly as we can. As a nation we have helped and still are helping other less-favored peoples. It is a matter of foreign policy, of course, but it is as well an old American tendency to hold out a helping hand. These people coming out of the tunnels located on our soil are, I would imagine, native Americans, our own kind of people, our own descendants, and it doesn't seem to me we should balk at doing for them what we have done for others."