This is brought forcibly home to them as they appear on a crowded Chicago street, directly in front of an old man selling apples and hot chestnuts from a Depression-style pushcart. The old man sees them!pop! into existence, and at the sight of Spock, he clutches at his heart and falls over. People in the crowd, seeing the old man writhing on the ground, and seeing Spock, immediately draw the conclusion Spock has harmed him. They start yelling for the cops. A policeman emerges from a shop down the street, at the noise, and fires at Spock and Kirk.

They take off, down the street, around the corner, into an alley, over a fence, into a backyard and down another street till they come to ground in a basement of an apartment building.

There they make the necessary adjustments to change their Translations into language-interpreting devices. “I can almost make out what they’re saying,” Kirk tells Spock. “But it’s odd, all run together, filled with words I know, many of them key sentence words. It’s English, all right, but as difficult for me as, say, the English of Shakespeare’s time would be for them. We’ll use the Translations till we’ve picked up the style of the language, and then perhaps we can make it without them.”

They know they must find Edith Koestler. But to do that, they must be able to move freely in the city. Kirk cautions Spock to stay there, back in the end of that dirty basement, till he can find them lodgings, and clothes of the period. Spock agrees and Kirk goes off.

But this is the year of the Depression. Work is scarce, money is almost impossible, even clothes are a problem. And Kirk, so much worse off than men familiar with the times, with ties to the period, with knowledge of how to do it and where and how much it costs, finds himself at a loss. He manages to steal some clothes off a clothesline and returns to the apartment house.

He and Spock change, and they are about to leave, when the custodian of the building discovers them. He assumes they are bindlestiffs, just bums, sleeping in the basement, and though they think he is going to make a fight with them, he seems to be a good man; he asks them if they need work, and they say yes. He tells them they can sleep down in the basement till they find something better. “At least it’s warm near the furnace.” In exchange they will carry out the cinders and shovel the coal to keep the furnace stoked, and promise not to steal from any of the tenants.

They thank him, and he says it’s only for a short time, till something happens for them.

A short time…