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Kerim was a friendly sort of girl; they'd got to calling each other by their first names within a day or two after the trip started. But after that, she seemed to be avoiding him; and Gefty guessed that Maulbow had spoken to her, probably to make sure that Kerim didn't let any of her employer's secrets slip out.

Maulbow himself was as aloof and taciturn a client as Rammer Spacelines ever had picked up. Why he had selected a bulky semifreighter like the Queen for a mineralogical survey jaunt to a lifeless little sun system far beyond the outposts of civilization was a point he didn't discuss. Gefty, needing the charter money, had restrained his curiosity. If Maulbow wanted only a pilot and preferred to do all the rest of the work himself, that was certainly Maulbow's affair. And if he happened to be up to something illegal--though it was difficult to imagine what--Customs would nail him when they got back to the Hub.

But those facts looked a little different now....

In this classic science 1962 fiction story by James H. Schmitz, space captain Gefty Remmer and his passenger Kerim Ruse face off against an unknown adversary as they attempt to return to their own time.

James H. Schmitz was a popular science fiction writer of the 1960s. Most of his work was originally published in science fiction magazines and later anthologized or expanded into novels. Schmitz is probably best known for his novel The Witches of Karres.

The Winds of Time was originally published in Analog in 1962. It was recently released by Baen Books as part of the anthology The Hub : Dangerous Territory .

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