Introduction

You have stepped from your rightful place and time into this rude world of the here and now. It is my duty and solemn pleasure to introduce to you the rudiments of life as it is now lived.

First, a word on why you are here. These men of the future are consumed with making. They are crafters of the first water, but users of a most inferior kind. Their automobiles smash one into another with abandon; their airplanes, with all the sky in which to fly, do the same; and their neglect of the world in which they live bids fair to bring it crashing down around their ankles.

More to the point, they build machines that hurtle them back in time at will. Haply, due to some quirk of nature, the traveler finds his mental essence exchanged with some denizen of the past while his respective bodies remain bound to his own time. When he returns, if he returns, the exchange is reversed.

Sometimes the he is a she but most often not. Women prefer to remain rooted to their own bodies.

If he dies in the past he does not return to reclaim his present body. If he chooses to remain in the past, he does not return. If the machinery he needs loses its connection to your host, he does not return. In that case you will be awakened from your imposed sleep, be given citizenship papers, and be turned out on the street with a copy of this book.

Therefore, welcome! Make of the future what you will, and beware the sudden drowsiness that presages your being taken by some resident of the even more distant future.

Coffee will help.

-WS