He moved gracefully to the screen on the left wall, stepped into it and
disappeared. It was as if he had slid into opaque water.
Jeff and Ann blinked in mystification. Then they remembered his
instruction to watch the other screen. They turned. After a moment, in
the far distance down the long moving corridor, they could see a stocky
figure. The motion of the picture brought him nearer. In a few seconds,
he was recognizable as Snader--and as the picture brought him forward,
he stepped down out of it and was with them again.
"Simple," Snader said. "I rode to next station. Then crossed over. Took
other carrier back here."
"Brother, that's the best trick I've seen in years," Jeff said. "How
did you do it? Can I do it, too?"
"I show you." Grinning like a wildcat, Snader linked his arms with Ann
and Jeff, and walked them toward the screen. "Now," he said. "Step in."
* * * * *
Jeff submitted to Snader's pressure and stepped cautiously into the
screen. Amazingly, he felt no resistance at all, no sense of change or
motion. It was like stepping through a fog-bank into another room.
In fact, that was what they seemed to have done. They were in the
chair-lined corridor. As Snader turned them around and seated them,
they faced another moving picture screen. It seemed to rush through a
dark tunnel toward a lighted square in the far distance.
The square grew on the screen. Soon they saw it was another room like
the waiting room they had left, except that the number hanging from the
ceiling was 702. They seemed to glide through it. Then they were in the
dark tunnel again.
Ann was clutching Jeff's arm. He patted her hand. "Fun, hey? Like Alice
through the looking-glass."
"You really think we're going back in time?" she whispered.
"Hardly! But we're seeing a million-dollar trick. I can't even begin to
figure it out yet."
Another lighted room grew out of the tunnel on the screen, and when
they had flickered through it, another and then another.
"Mr. Snader," Ann said unsteadily, "how long--how many years back are
you taking us?"
Snader was humming to himself. "Six years. Station 725 fine place to
stop."
For a little while, Jeff let himself think it might be true. "Six years
ago, your dad was alive," he mused to Ann. "If this should somehow be
real, we could see him again."
"We could if we went to our house. He lived with us then, remember?
Would we see ourselves, six years younger? Or would--"
Snader took Jeff's arm and pulled him to his feet. The screen was
moving through a room numbered 724.
"Soon now," Snader grunted happily. "Then no more questions."
He took an arm of each as he had before. When the screen was filled by
a room with the number 725, he propelled them forward into it.
Again there was no sense of motion. They had simply stepped through a
bright wall they could not feel. They found themselves in a replica of
the room they had left at 701. On the wall, a picture of the continuous
club-car corridor rolled toward them in a silent, endless stream.
"The same room," Ann said in disappointment. "They just changed the
number. We haven't been anywhere."
* * * * *
Snader was fishing under his shirt for the key. He gave Ann a glance
that was almost a leer. Then he carefully unlocked the door.
In the hall, a motherly old lady bustled up, but Snader brushed past
her. "Official," he said, showing her the key. "No lodging."
He unlocked the front door without another word and carefully shut it
behind them as Jeff and Ann followed him out of the house.
"Hey, where's my car?" Jeff demanded, looking up and down the street.
The whole street looked different. Where he had parked his roadster,
there was now a long black limousine.
"Your car is in future," Snader said briskly. "Where it belong. Get
in." He opened the door of the limousine.
Jeff felt a little flame of excitement licking inside him. Something
was happening, he felt. Something exciting and dangerous.
"Snader," he said, "if you're kidnaping us, you made a mistake. Nobody
on Earth will pay ransom for us."
Snader seemed amused. "You are foolish fellow. Silly talk about ransom.
You in different time now."
"When does this gag stop?" Jeff demanded irritably. "You haven't fooled
us. We're still in 1957."
"You are? Look around."
Jeff looked at the street again. He secretly admitted to himself
that these were different trees and houses than he remembered. Even
the telephone poles and street lights seemed peculiar, vaguely
foreign-looking. It must be an elaborate practical joke. Snader had
probably ushered them into one house, then through a tunnel and out
another house.
"Get in," Snader said curtly.
Jeff decided to go along with the hoax or whatever it was. He could
see no serious risk. He helped Ann into the back seat and sat beside
her. Snader slammed the door and slid into the driver's seat. He
started the engine with a roar and they rocketed away from the curb,
narrowly missing another car.