"Yes, you would be one to say that, wouldn't you?" Again he had the feeling she knew a good deal about him. She nodded slowly, as if coming to a decision. "All right, follow me home if you like. If anyone is, you're entitled to an explanation." She did not wait for an answer, but stooped to get into the Volkswagen. Its raucous air-cooled engine roared to life.

About ten minutes later she pulled into the driveway of a freshly built tract house; the front lawn still had the half-threadbare look that tender new grass gives. Pete parked his Chevrolet across the street. She was locking her car while he and McGregor walked over.

She waved at the house. "Isn't it splendid? I've only been in about four months. Eleven thousand five hundred dollars and a four-and-a-half percent loan."

"Everything is too expensive these days," Pete said sympathetically.

She turned red and made a peculiar strangled noise that perplexed him until he saw she was trying not to laugh. "Never mind," she said. "Care for some lunch? I'm no great cook, but sandwiches are easy, and there's beer in the refrigerator."

"Sold," McGregor said at once. Pete nodded too.

"Come on, then."

For a reason Pete had trouble naming, the inside of her house disappointed him. It was pleasant enough, with Early American furniture, Raphael prints on the walls, and a number of well-filled bookcases?nothing out of the ordinary. Then he realized that was the problem. He had expected something strange, and did not know what to make of this blatant normality.

She led him and McGregor into the kitchen, slapped ham, dill pickle, and mustard on rye bread, used a churchkey to open three cans of Burgermeister. For a few minutes they were all busy eating. "That was good," Pete said, wiping his mouth. "Thanks, uh?your name isn't really Mark, is it?"

She smiled. "It's Michelle, as a matter of fact."

Almost at the same time, the two men got out their cigarettes and looked round for an ashtray. They did not see one. Michelle Gordian's smile disappeared. "I'd rather you didn't smoke in the house," she said, a trifle sharply. McGregor shrugged and put his pack away. So, reluctantly, did Pete; his nicotine habit was much stronger than the editor's.

Michelle put the few dishes in the sink, then said, "Why don't we go back into the living room? It's more comfortable there."

She waved them to the couch, sat down herself in a rocking chair facing them. She came to the point with a directness Pete was not used to in a woman: "Just what is it you think I am?"

He had to try twice before he got the words out: "A time-traveler." Speculating about the impossible was much easier than proposing it?that implied belief.

"Why?" She effortlessly controlled the conversation; for once even McGregor did not seem eager to break in. As much as anything else, that helped make Pete take the preposterous idea seriously.

He plowed ahead, outlining the strangeness he and the Astonishing editor had found. As he spoke, he knew how absurd he had to sound. He waited for Michelle to burst into laughter. But instead she was leaning forward in the rocker, following him intently. He thought of her for the first time as an attractive woman; interest brought her features to life.

When he had stumbled to a halt, she was silent for most of a minute. As had been true outside the post office, though, once she made up her mind she went with it all the way. "You're right, of course," she said briskly.

McGregor had been gathering himself while Pete was talking. "I'd like to see more proof than a peculiar typewriter and a story that corresponds too well to an outline," he said. "I've been burned before. And forgive me, but nothing here looks the least bit, ah, extratemporal. That goes for what I take to be your study, too, from what I saw of it from the kitchen."

"I'm not that careless," Michelle said, "even if I obviously wasn't careful enough. I have neighbors and friends who visit me; what would they make of a disc drive or a VCR?"

Nonsense words and letters, Pete thought. McGregor's snort said he agreed with that judgment. He shook his head with sarcastic mock sadness. "So, of course, you have nothing to show us."

Michelle Gordian's eyes sparked angrily. "I didn't say that," she snapped. She rummaged in her purse, took out a thin white plastic rectangle about the size of a driver's license, fiddled with it for a moment, and tossed it to her guests. "Go ahead?it's on. Just punch the numbers and functions and signs."

There was an inch-long strip of silvery stuff at the top of the card, with an angular dark gray zero at the right edge. Pete pressed the 7, and almost dropped the card when, silently and without any fuss, the matching number took the zero's place. McGregor leaned over and punched the radical sign. The 7 disappeared in turn, to be instantly replaced by 2.6457513.

"That," the editor said softly, "is the most astounding thing I have ever seen in my life."

Pete hardly heard him. He had used desktop electric calculators before, bulky machines half as big as a typewriter, was used to the whirr of their motors, the ratcheting thunk of turning gears and cams, the wait for everything to finish in a multidigit multiplication. But here for the asking, at the press not even of a button, was 2.6457513. He had met the future, and he was in love.

When Michelle held out her hand for the incredible little device, he did not want to give it back. All he could think of to say was, "If you're used to machines like this, how can you stand living in 1953?"

McGregor, as was his way, carried that thought a step further: "How many centuries in the future are you from?"

One of her carroty eyebrows rose. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but only about thirty-five years." When the two men exclaimed in disbelief, she said, "Think of this, then: What would the best aeronautical engineer in the world have made of an F-86 jet fighter in 1918? The more technology grows, the more it can grow. You both know that."

"Yes, but I never had my nose rubbed in it like this before," McGregor muttered.

Pete did not look at it that way. The idea of the future had drawn him long before he began writing about it. Now he had held a piece of it in his hand, had touched the warm palm and fingers of it with his own.

He had to know more. "What else can you show us?" he breathed. "What were those things you named, a 'VCR' and and a, uh, 'disc driver'? You must have them here, or you wouldn't have mentioned them."

"Disc drive," she corrected absently. "Yes, I have them. Whether you should see them or not?well, having come this far, I suppose you deserve to know the rest. Come on out to the garage with me."

She led them through the kitchen and service porch. As they walked down the steps into the backyard, she locked the door behind them. "Why bother?" Pete said. "We aren't going to be gone all that long, are we?"

She looked surprised, then sheepish. "Force of habit. Something else I brought with me from the 1980s, I'm afraid."

McGregor cleared his throat. "Which brings up another point. Pete asked how you live here; I'm more interested in why. And why so secretly? With what you know, why not give the United States the help we need against the Reds?"

Something changed in her face. She was younger than Pete, years younger than the editor, but living through her life in the future (My God?she wouldn't even be born yet! Pete thought) had left her more streetwise, more cynical than both of them together. His misgivings stirred again.

She said bleakly, "Why do you think the government deserves that kind of edge?"

"Why don't you?" McGregor demanded after a short, stunned pause. The hostile edge was back in his voice, and Pete did not blame him.

Michelle was unabashed. "For one thing, Watergate wasn't exactly fiction. All I did was change some names. Do you want to know who President Cavanaugh really is?" She paused for dramatic effect, then told them.