 Why is the lack of hotel space important for Simon's story?
Unfortunately , there was only one thing he could bring back from the wonderful future ... and though he didn't want to ... Illustrated by Freas Betty looked up from her magazine. He sat down at his desk, passed his tongue over his teeth in distaste, groaned, fumbled in a drawer for the aspirin bottle. He looked over at Betty and said, almost as though reciting, "What I need is a vacation." "Providence," Simon told her whilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle, "will provide." But before providing vacations it'd be nice if Providence turned up a missing jewel deal, say. Something where you could deduce that actually the ruby ring had gone down the drain and was caught in the elbow. Simon said, enigmatically, "Now it comes." Betty bounced up with Olympic agility and had the door swinging wide before the knocking was quite completed. Simon said unenthusiastically, "Good morning, Mr. Oyster." The client fussed himself with Betty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyed Simon, said finally, "You know my name, that's pretty good. When Simon continued to say nothing she ventured, "Time travel is impossible." "Time travelers," she said, not very intelligently. "Then you'll realize that there are a dozen explanations of the paradoxes of time travel. It's my contention that within a century or so man will have solved the problems of immortality and eternal youth, and it's also my suspicion that he will eventually be able to travel in time. So convinced am I of these possibilities that I am willing to gamble a portion of my fortune to investigate the presence in our era of such time travelers." Simon seemed incapable of carrying the ball this morning, so Betty said, "But ... Mr. Oyster, if the future has developed time travel why don't we ever meet such travelers?" "The usual explanation, Betty, is that they can't afford to allow the space-time continuum track to be altered. If, say, a time traveler returned to a period of twenty-five years ago and shot Hitler, then all subsequent history would be changed. In that case, the time traveler himself might never be born. Mr. Oyster returned his glasses to their perch, bug-eyed Simon, but then nodded. Simon said, "You want to hire me to find a time traveler and in some manner or other—any manner will do—exhort from him the secret of eternal life and youth, which you figure the future will have discovered.
 It set the stage for him to encounter an alien's home for himself.
 It made him cut his trip short without finding any time travelers.  Simon would have to learn how to time travel in order to keep his bag from being stolen.  It set the stage for him to encounter an alien's home for himself.  It meant he would find a number of unsavory characters as he tried to find somewhere to sleep.