The High Government of the 25th century has directed Joe Quellen (a Level Seven) to find out
who’s behind the escapes in time by lowly unemployed Level Fourteens and put a stop to it.
Suppose, he thought fretfully, some bureaucrat in Class Seven or Nine or thereabouts had
gone ahead on his own authority, trying to win a quick uptwitch by dynamic action, and
had rounded up a few known hoppers in advance of their departure. Thereby completely
snarling the fabric of the time-line and irrevocably altering the past.