There was delay in starting for quite a while since Joe had to acquire a few crude ideas about the technique of using the belts. He had been sitting down, for instance, with the belt strapped round his waist, enjoying an ease similar to that of a comfortable armchair; when he stood up with a natural exertion of muscular effort, he shot ten feet into the air, with a wild instinctive thrashing of arms and legs that amused Sandra greatly.

But after some practice, he began to get the trick of measuring muscular effort to a minimum of vertical and a maximum of horizontal. The correct form, he found, was in a measure comparable to that of slithering. he found, also, that in forest work, the arms and hands could be used to great advantage in swaying along from branch to branch, so prolonging leaps almost indefinitely at times.

In going up the side of the mountain, Joe found that his 20th Century muscles did have some benefit, in spite of lack of skill with the belt, and since the slopes were very sharp, and most of the leaps were upward, he could have distanced Sandra easily. But when they crossed the ridge and descended, she outshone him with her superior technique. Choosing the steepest slopes, she would crouch in the top of a tree, and thrust herself outward, literally diving until, with the loss of horizontal motion, she would assume a more upright position and float downward. In this manner she would sometimes cover as much as a quarter of a mile in a single leap, while Joe leaped and scrambled clumsily behind, thoroughly enjoying the innovative feeling.

Half way down the mountain, they saw another green-clad figure leap out above the tree tops toward us. The three of them perched on an outcropping of rock from which a view for many miles around could be had, while Sandra hastily explained her adventure and Joe’s presence to her fellow watch; whose name was Lisa. "You want to report by phone then, don't you?" Lisa took a compact packet about six inches square from a holster attached to her belt and handed it over to Sandra. So far as Joe could see, it had no special receiver for the ear. Sandra only threw back a lid, as though she were opening a book, and began to talk. The voice that emanated back from the machine was as clear as her own.

She was probed closely as to the attack upon her, and at considerable length as to Joe’s, and he could tell from the manner of that voice that its owner was not prepared to take him at his face worth as readily as Sandra had. For that matter, neither was the other girl. He could realize it from the doubtful looks she threw his way, when she thought his
attention was elsewhere, and the manner in which her hand drifted regularly near her gun holster.

Sandra was ordered to bring Joe in at once, and informed that another scout would replace her on the other side of the mountain. So she closed down the lid of the phone and gave back to Lisa, who seemed pleased to see us departing over the tree tops in the direction of the camps. They had covered possibly ten miles, in what still seemed to Joe a surprisingly easy approach, when Sandra explained, that from here on they would have to keep to the ground. They were nearing the camps, she said, and there was always the possibility that some small Van scout ship, invisible high in the sky, might catch sight of us through a projectoscope and thus find the overall site of the camps. Sandra took Joe to the Scout office, which showed to be a small structure of unequal shape, conforming to the trees around it, and noticeably constructed of green sheet-like material.

Joe was received by the assistant Scout Boss, Sir Edmund who reported his arrival at once to the head office, and to officials he called the Janero Boss and the Boss X, who came in a few minutes later. The brashness of the three men was at first polite but cynical, and Sandra's keen advocacy seemed to amuse them covertly.

For the next two hours Joe was talking, explaining and answering questions. He had to explain, in detail, the manner of his life in the 20th Century and his understanding of civilizations, behaviors, business, knowledge and the antiquity of that period, and about growths in the centuries that had elapsed. Had he been in a classroom, He would have come through the scrutiny with a very poor mark, for he was unable to give any answer to almost half of their questions. But before long he realized that the majority of these questions were planned as traps. Objects, of whose purpose he knew nothing about, were casually handed to him, and he was watched intensely as he handled them.

In the end Joe could see both wonder and belief begin to show in the faces of his interrogators, and at last the Janero and X Bosses agreed amenably that they could find no error in his story or responses, and that implausible as it seemed, his story must be accepted as genuine. They took me at once to Boss Tom. He was a portly man with a chimney face. He would perhaps may have been the successful official even in the 20th Century. They gave him a brief outline of Joe’s story and a report of their analysis of him. He said nothing other than to nod his acceptance of it. Then he turned to Joe.

"How does it feel?" he asked. "Do we look funny to you?"
"A bit strange," He admitted. "But I'm beginning to lose that stunned feeling, though I can see I have an awful lot to acquire."
"Maybe we can learn some things from you, too," he said. "So you fought in the First World War. Do you know, we have very little left in the way of archives of the details of that war, that is, the precise conditions under which it was fought, and the tactics engaged. We forgot many things during the Van terror, and--well, I think you might have a lot of ideas worth thinking over for our raid masters. By the way, now that you're here, and no possible way for now of going back to your own century, so to speak, what do you want to do? You're welcome to become one of us. Or perhaps you'd just like to stay with us for a while, and then look around among the other gangs. Maybe you'd like some of the others better. Don't make up your mind now. We'll put you down as a discussion for a while. Let's see. You and Armstrong ought to get along well together. He is the Camp Boss of Number 22 when he isn't acting as Raid Boss or Scout Boss. There's a position in his camp. Stay with him and think things over as long as you desire to. Whenever you make up your mind to anything, do well to let me know."

They all shook hands, for that was certainly one custom that had not died out in five hundred years, and Joe set out with Armstrong. Armstrong, like all the others, was clad in green. He was a huge man. That is, he was about Joe’s own height, five feet eleven. This was significantly above the average now, for the race had lost something in stature, it seemed, through the variations of five centuries. Most of the women were a bit below five feet, and the men only a little above this height. For a period of two weeks Armstrong was to limit himself to camp duties, so Joe had a good chance to familiarize himself with the community life though It was not as easy as he assumed. There were so many wonders to captivate. He never stopped to wonder at the strange combination of rural social life and intense industrial activity. At least, it was strange to me. For in his experience, industrial development meant crowded cities, residences,
paved streets, abundance of vehicles, noise, hurrying men and women with strained or dull faces, huge structures and decorative public works.

Here, however, was rural simplicity, apparently isolated families and groups, living in the heart of the forest, with a quarter of a mile or more between households, a total absence of crowds, no means of transportation other than the belts called jumpers, almost always worn by everybody, and an occasional rocket ship, used only for longer journeys, and underground plants or factories that were to his mind more like laboratories and engine rooms; many of them were excavations as deep as mines, with well completed, lighted and comfortable interiors. These people were adepts at camouflage against air observation. Not only would their activity have been unknown by an airship passing over
the center of the community, but even by an enemy who might happen to descent through the screen of the upper branches to the floor of the forest. The camps, or household structures, were all uneven in shape and of colors that blended with the great trees among which they were hidden.

There were 1045 camps among the Satrun located within an area of about thirteen square miles. The total population was 7,238, every man, woman and child, whether member or "exchange," being recorded. The plants were broadly scattered through the terrain also. Nowhere was anything like crowding permitted. So far as possible, families and
individuals were assigned to living quarters, not too far from the plants or offices in which their work lay. All able-bodied men and women rotated in three-week periods between military and industrial service, excluding those who were needed for household work. Since working conditions in the plants and offices were perfect, and everybody thus had plenty of healthy outdoor activity in addition, the population was robust and active. Laziness was regarded as nearly the greatest of social felonies. Hard work and general merit were variously rewarded with extra privileges, progression to positions of authority, and with various items of personal equipment for ease and luxury.

In leisure moments, Joe got great delight from sitting outside the dwelling in which he was accommodated with Armstrong and six other men, watching the occasional passers-by, as with relaxed, but immediate movements, they swayed up and down the forest path, rising from the ground in long almost-horizontal bounds, occasionally swinging from one suitable branch overhead to another before "sliding" back to the ground farther on. Normal traveling pace, where these trails were straight enough, was about eighteen miles an hour. Such things as automobiles and railroad trains (the memory of them not more than a month old in his mind) seemed indescribably silly and pointless compared with such convenience as these belts or jumpers offered.

Armstrong suggested that Joe wander around for several days, from plant to plant, to observe and study what he could. The entire community had been told of his coming, his rating as an "exchange" getting to every building and post in the community, by means of ultronic broadcast. Everywhere he was welcomed in an interested and helpful spirit. Joe visited the plants where ultronic vibrations were isolated from the ether and through slow processes built up into sub-electronic, electronic and atomic forms into the two great artificial elements, ultron and inertron. He learned something, rapidly at least, of the processes of combined chemical and mechanical action through which were produced the various forms of synthetic cloth. I watched the manufacture of the machines which were used at places of construction to produce the various forms of building materials. But he was particularly interested in the weaponries plants and the rocket-ship shops.

Ultron was a solid of great molecular density and moderate elasticity, which has the property of being 100 percent conductive to those throbs known as light, electricity and heat. Since it is completely permeable to light vibrations, it is therefore absolutely invisible and non-reflective. Its magnetic reaction is almost, but not quite, 100percent also. It is
therefore very heavy under standard conditions but extremely receptive to the repellor or anti-gravity rays, such as the Vans use as "legs" for their airships.

Inertron was the second great triumph of American research and exploration with ultronic forces. It was developed just a few years before Joe’s awakening in the abandoned mine. It is an artificial element, built up, through a complex heterodyning of ultronic throbs, from "infra-balanced" sub-ionic forms. It is completely inert to both electric and magnetic forces in all the orders above the ultronic; that is to say, the sub-electronic, the electronic, the atomic and the molecular. In value, it has a number of amazing and valuable properties. One of these is the total lack of weight. Another is a total lack of heat. It has no molecular vibration whatever. It reflects the entire of its heat and light imposing upon it. It does not feel cold to the touch, of course, since it will not absorb the heat of the hand. It is a solid, very dense in molecular structure despite its lack of weight, of great strength and considerable elasticity. It is a perfect shield against the disintegrator emissions.

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Joe and Armstrong talked mostly of weapons, military procedures and strategy. Oddly enough he had no idea whatever of the potentials of the barrage, though the remarkable effect of a "drape of fire" with such high-explosive warheads as these modern rocket weapons used was clear to Joe. But the barrage idea, it seemed, has been lost track of completely in the air wars that trailed the First World War, and in the peculiar guerilla strategies developed by Americans in the later period of operations from the ground against Van airships, and in the gang wars which, until a few generations ago I cultured, had been almost constant.

"I wonder," said Armstrong one day, "if we couldn't work up some form of barrage to spring on the Xen Bloods. Boss Tom told me today that he's been in communication with the other gangs, and all are agreed that the Xen Bloods might as well be wiped out for good. That attempt on Sandra’s life and their apparent desire to make trouble among the gangs, has stirred up every community east of the Alleri. The Boss says that none of the others will object if we go after them. So i imagine that before long we will. Now show me again how you worked that business in the Argon forest. The conditions ought to be pretty much the same."

Joe went over it with him in detail, and gradually they worked out a modified plan that would be better adapted to their more powerful weapons, and the use of jumpers.

"It will be easy," Bill exulted. "I'll slide down and talk it over with the Boss tomorrow."

During the first two weeks of Joe’s stay. Sandra and Joe saw a great deal of each other. He naturally felt a little closer friendship for her, in view of the fact that she was the first human being he saw after waking from my long sleep; her appreciation of his saving her life, though he could not have done otherwise than he did in that matter, and most of all his own appreciation of the fact that she had not found it as difficult as the others to believe his story, operated in the same direction. He could easily imagine his story must have sounded unbelievable. It was natural enough too, that she should feel an unusual interest in him. In the first place, He was her personal discovery. In the second, she was a girl of serious and deep turn of mind. She never got tired of HIS stories and descriptions of the 20th Century.

The others of the community, however, appeared to find our friendship a bit humorous. It seemed that Sandra had a reputation for being unkind toward the opposite sex, and so others, not being able to appreciate some of her fine qualities as Joe did, misinterpreted her attitude, much to their own delight. Joe and Sandra, however, ignored this as much as they could.

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