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appear to change color. She whispered, "Not a Shadow?"
    Before he could pretend or even decide not to, she answered her own question. "Of course you aren't. A Shadow would know all about this ship and how the kitchen works without having to watch me first. They fix our ships for us floater folk when the repair job is too hard for us to figure out."
    The moment for pretense, whatever its possibilities might have been, was past. Cargill said grudgingly, "No, I'm not a Shadow."
    The girl's frown had deepened. "But a Tweener would've known that too." She looked at him warily. "What's your name?"
    "Morton Cargill."
    "Where are you from?"
    Cargill told her and watched those expressive eyes of hers change color again. Finally she nodded. "One of those, eh?" She seemed disturbed. "We get a reward for people like you."
    She broke off. "What did you do—back where you came from—to start the Shadows after you?"
    Cargill shrugged. "Nothing." He had no intention of launching into a detailed account of the Marie Chanette incident.
    Once more the blue eyes were flashing. "Don't you dare lie to me," she said. "All I've got to do is to tell Pa that you're a getaway and that'll cook your goose."
    Cargill said with all the earnestness he could muster,
    "I can't help that. I really don't know." He hesitated, then said, "What year is this?"
    The moment he had asked the question he felt breathless.

5
    He hadn't thought about it before. He hadn't had time. The clock in the glass-walled room in Shadow City had indicated that it was May 6th but not the year. Everything had happened too swiftly. Even his hazy questions to Ann Reece during those first minutes after arrival had been so weighted with emotion that the possibilities of being actually in the future hadn't fully penetrated.
    Which future? What year? What had happened during the centuries that must have passed? Where? How? Who? He caught his whirling mind, fastened it down, brought it to focus. The most important fact was—what year?
    Lela Bouvy shrugged and said, "Two Thousand Three Hundred and Ninety-One."
    Cargill ventured, "What I can't understand is how the world has changed so completely from my time." He described the United States of 1954.
    The girl was calm. "It was natural. Most people want to be free, not to have to live in one place or to be tied to some stupid work. The world isn't completely free yet. We floater folk are the only lucky ones so far."
    Cargill had his own idea of a freedom where individuals depended on somebody else to repair their machines. But he was interested in information, not in exploding false notions. He said cautiously, "How many floater folk are there?"
    "About fifteen million."
    She spoke glibly but Cargill let the figure pass.
    "And the Tweeners?" he asked.
    "Three million or so." She was contemptuous. "The cowards live in cities."
    "What about the Shadows?"
    "A hundred thousand, maybe a little more or less. Not much."
    Cargill guessed that she could not possibly know that those figures were accurate. She didn't appear the type of person who would be well-informed on such matters. But she did provide a picture of the age, and it filled a gap in his knowledge. He visualized wilderness, a few cities, vast numbers of floaters prowling at random through the lower skies. He nodded half to himself, parted his lips, and began: "I gather that the Shadows rule the roost."
    "Nobody rules nobody ," said Lela irritably. "And now, you've asked just about enough questions. You can mind your own business."
    She went out.
    Cargill was left alone most of the rest of the day. He saw Lela briefly again when she came in and prepared lunch for herself and her father.
    It was not till afternoon that he started to think seriously about what he had learned. The population collapse depressed him. It made the big fight of life seem suddenly less important. All the eager ambition of the twentieth century was now proved valueless, destroyed by a catastrophe that derived not