"Well--no--not really sick." The druggist colored. "I"ll have to admit to being drunk a few hours ago, though."
"Drunk--" Erickson stuck his tongue in his cheek, shook his head, scowled. "No, that would hardly do it. There must have been something else. The impulsor isn"t _that_ powerful. I can understand about the dog, poor fellow. He must have been run over, and I caught him just at the instant of pa.s.sing from life to death."
"Oh!" Dave Miller lifted his head, knowing now what Erickson was driving at. "Well, I may as well be frank. I"m--I committed suicide. That"s how drunk I was. There hasn"t been a suicide in the Miller family in centuries. It took a skinful of liquor to set the precedent."
Erickson nodded wisely. "Perhaps we will find the precedent hasn"t really been set! But no matter--" His lifted hand stopped Miller"s eager, wondering exclamation. "The point is, young man, we three are in a tough spot, and it"s up to us to get out of it. And not only we, but heaven knows how many others the world over!"
"Would you--maybe you can explain to my lay mind what"s happened,"
Miller suggested.
"Of course. Forgive me. You see, Mr.--"
"Miller. Dave Miller."
"Dave it is. I have a feeling we"re going to be pretty well acquainted before this is over. You see, Dave, I"m a nut on so-called "time theories." I"ve seen time compared to everything from an ent.i.ty to a long, pink worm. But I disagree with them all, because they postulate the idea that time is constantly being manufactured. Such reasoning is fantastic!
"Time exists. Not as an ever-growing chain of links, because such a chain would have to have a tail end, if it has a front end; and who can imagine the period when time did not exist? So I think time is like a circular train-track. Unending. We who live and die merely travel around on it. The future exists simultaneously with the past, for one instant when they meet."
Miller"s brain was humming. Erickson shot the words at him staccato-fashion, as if they were things known from Great Primer days.
The young druggist scratched his head.
"You"ve got me licked," he admitted. "I"m a stranger here, myself."
"Naturally you can"t be expected to understand things I"ve been all my life puzzling about. Simplest way I can explain it is that we are on a train following this immense circular railway.
"When the train reaches the point where it started, it is about to plunge into the past; but this is impossible, because the point where it started is simply the caboose of the train! And that point is always ahead--and behind--the time-train.
"Now, my idea was that with the proper stimulus a man could be thrust across the diameter of this circular railway to a point in his past.
Because of the nature of time, he could neither go ahead of the train to meet the future nor could he stand still and let the caboose catch up with him. But--he could detour across the circle and land farther back on the train! And that, my dear Dave, is what you and I and Major have done--almost."
"Almost?" Miller said hoa.r.s.ely.
Erickson pursed his lips. "We are somewhere partway across the s.p.a.ce between present and past. We are living in an instant that can move neither forward nor back. You and I, Dave, and Major--and the Lord knows how many others the world over--have been thrust by my time impulsor onto a timeless beach of eternity. We have been caught in time"s backwash. Castaways, you might say."
An objection clamored for attention in Miller"s mind.
"But if this is so, where are the rest of them? Where is my wife?"
"They are right here," Erickson explained. "No doubt you could see your wife if you could find her. But we see them as statues, because, for us, time no longer exists. But there was something I did not count on. I did not know that it would be possible to live in one small instant of time, as we are doing. And I did not know that only those who are hovering between life and death can deviate from the normal process of time!"
"You mean--we"re dead!" Miller"s voice was a bitter monotone.
"Obviously not. We"re talking and moving, aren"t we? But--we are on the fence. When I gave my impulsor the jolt of high power, it went wrong and I think something must have happened to me. At the same instant, you had shot yourself.
"Perhaps, Dave, you are dying. The only way for us to find out is to try to get the machine working and topple ourselves one way or the other. If we fall back, we will all live. If we fall into the present--we may die."
"Either way, it"s better than this!" Miller said fervently.
"I came to the library here, hoping to find out the things I must know.
My own books are locked in my study. And these--they might be cemented in their places, for all their use to me. I suppose we might as well go back to the lab."
Miller nodded, murmuring: "Maybe you"ll get an idea when you look at the machine again."
"Let"s hope so," said Erickson grimly. "G.o.d knows I"ve failed so far!"
CHAPTER III
_Splendid Sacrifice_
It was a solid hour"s walk out to West Wilshire, where the laboratory was. The immense bronze and gla.s.s doors of Wanamaker Inst.i.tute were closed, and so barred to the two men. But Erickson led the way down the side.
"We can get in a service door. Then we climb through transoms and ventilators until we get to my lab."
Major frisked along beside them. He was enjoying the action and the companionship. It was less of an adventure to Miller, who knew death might be ahead for the three of them.
Two workmen were moving a heavy cabinet in the side service door. To get in, they climbed up the back of the rear workman, walked across the cabinet, and scaled down the front of the leading man. They went up the stairs to the fifteenth floor. Here they crawled through a transom into the wing marked:
"Experimental. Enter Only By Appointment."
Major was helped through it, then they were crawling along the dark metal tunnel of an air-conditioning ventilator. It was small, and took some wriggling.
In the next room, they were confronted by a stern receptionist on whose desk was a little bra.s.s sign, reading:
"Have you an appointment?"
Miller had had his share of experience with receptionists" ways, in his days as a pharmaceutical salesman. He took the greatest pleasure now in lighting his cigarette from a match struck on the girl"s nose. Then he blew the smoke in her face and hastened to crawl through the final transom.
John Erickson"s laboratory was well lighted by a gla.s.s-brick wall and a huge skylight. The sun"s rays glinted on the time impulsor.[1] The scientist explained the impulsor in concise terms. When he had finished, Dave Miller knew just as little as before, and the outfit still resembled three transformers in a line, of the type seen on power-poles, connected to a great bronze globe hanging from the ceiling.
"There"s the monster that put us in this plight," Erickson grunted. "Too strong to be legal, too weak to do the job right. Take a good look!"
With his hands jammed in his pockets, he frowned at the complex machinery. Miller stared a few moments; then transferred his interests to other things in the room. He was immediately struck by the resemblance of a transformer in a far corner to the ones linked up with the impulsor.
"What"s that?" he asked quickly. "Looks the same as the ones you used over there."
"It is."
"But-- Didn"t you say all you needed was another stage of power?"
"That"s right."