Tando and I crossed the broad square on the south end of town towards the rocket building. Despite the fact that the entire metropolis was buried in a crater, everything was bright as day due to ingenious electric lights located above the streets and towers.

An automatic elevator took us to a floor near the top of the tower where an officer presented me with a uniform like Tando's and a curious harness of expanding straps.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Ah!” he said. “That's the new 'falling suit'. Keep it on under the uniform. Should there be a mishap like a fall from a rocket or a cliff, it'll slow your descent sufficiently to keep you from injury.”

“That's really something!” I said.

He helped me to dress and in the end I think I looked a little like Sitting Bull going to war. Of course, I still had the raygun that I'd found in the north woods, which differed in many ways from the weapons that modern Selenium employed.

“Who else will be flying with us?” I asked. “I'm not sure I met everyone from your crew.”

“Crew? It will just be the members of our Tero, although...”

One the crew came through the door then, and I called out “Tsang, over here!”

Tsang, the green elf from the moon of Zidd, was one of the fellows on the rocket that had first introduced me to this future era. I remembered liking him, but I hadn't seen him since that day “Pleased you came up in the rotation again.”

A look passed between Tsang and Tando and I realized I'd said something that wasn't quite right.

“Cylas,” Tando said, “I think you'll find that Tsang here is always with us when we fly. Most of the crew is fairly permanent.”

“I hope you don't mind, Cylas,” Tsang said, “we wouldn't want to be a bother.”

“No bother at all,” I replied.

Tando smiled “I didn't think it would be. Now, why not finish getting ready?”

A few hours later we were up in the air again, flying in the same old rocket, which I realized was fitted with all the latest gadgets, which included sleeping quarters and other comforts I wouldn't have expected. The crew were we three, and a new fellow who I'd never met before. Tsang, Tando, and I all kept together up front, catching up like the old friends we were getting to be.

“Say, Cylas, I'm sure glad to be flying with you again!” said Tsang.

“Me too, Tsang,” I said, “it seems I'll be flying along regularly.”

“Of course you will, you're our new prospect, after all.”

“I did not see Mardo join us.”

“Normally he would, but he was sent off-planet just the other day. I don't mind admitting, I tell people about how we know one another. Flying with you makes me slightly famous, you being a living piece of history and all. Well, folks just won't believe me when I tell them we flew together before!”

Tando shook his head “Oh, Tsang, you mustn't go bragging to people about our prospect, it isn't proper...”

I admit, I blushed then “Well, if you want to, you can always introduce me to your friends.”

“Really?” Tsang beamed.

“Why not? Didn't we fly together twice now?”

“Oh, Cylas,” Tando shook his head, “you shouldn't encourage that kind of thing.”

While Tando had the wheel I watched the country go by below us. In my day, before the accident sent me to the far future, the American West was pretty wild, but now it seemed to have gone wilder than ever before.

A lot of the dams, mines, towns, even roads, had been wiped off the map by war and by the eternal force of time. In a very real sense this was a whole other world and I was a stranger, despite how welcome I'd been made to feel.

A shrill buzzing sound started up from some of the machinery back in the cabin behind the cockpit.

“What is that?” Tando called back.

“A homing signal,” said Xato, a red hued fellow who wore his hair like a Mohawk Indian, “not a very strong one. You should see it about three miles ahead, looks like it's coming from a fork in a river.”

Tsang explained to me that Novom and his party all carried a small electrical device that emitted a steady signal that the equipment on rockets like ours could track. If this turned out to be Novom we would finish up in time for dinner.

I watched the magnificent woodlands rise up around us as Tando guided us down along the river towards a wooded island in the fork. Already, we could see where many of the trees had been disturbed, the crash trail of a huge bullet-shaped rocket.

“Wow, would you look at that ship?” I exclaimed.

“Somehow I don't think this is it,” Tando said as he slowed us for landing, “that ship doesn't look right, in fact it looks downright ancient!”