The younger man was hesitant. "Perhaps you gentlemen wouldn't
understand. We have seen nothing more, but I couldn't forget that girl."
"_I_ understand," George murmured. But Loto went on unheeding:
"It wasn't the scientific part of our discovery that impressed me most.
We kept that secret because we had no proof of what we had done, and we
couldn't seem to get any. It was the girl that bothered me. That girl--a
captive--facing some danger.... You gentlemen will say she isn't living,
that she won't be alive for thousands of years yet. But _I_ say your
conception of it is wrong."
Loto's voice had gained sudden power. He seemed abruptly years
older--forceful, commanding.
"_You_ say that girl _will_ be living in the future. I say she _is_
living in the future. She is living just as you and I are living--right
here in this exact space that we call New York--within a few hundred
yards of this room. She is separated from us, not by space, but only by
time.
"You, gentlemen, perhaps cannot conceive of crossing that time. But if
it were a mile of space, or a thousand miles, you could imagine crossing
it very easily. Yet we know that time is a property of space; not one
iota different from length, breadth and thickness except that we think
of it differently."
Loto's flashing eyes held his little audience. "Gentlemen, suppose
you--with your human intelligence--were trees, rooted to one spot here
in America. And suppose that the accustomed order of things was that
Asia would come slowly and steadily toward you and pass before you. That
is what time does for us. Do you suppose, under those circumstances,
that you could readily conceive of going across space and reaching Asia?
Think about that, gentlemen! It's easy for us to imagine moving through
space, because we've always done it. But a tree with your intelligence
would not feel that way about it. The tree would say: 'Asia will be
here.' And if you said: 'That's true. But Asia exists just the same in a
different part of space from you. If you go there, you will not have to
wait for it to come to you,' the tree--even if it had your present
intelligence in every other way--wouldn't understand that. Simply
because the tree had always conceived space as we are accustomed to
conceiving time. That conception of ours does not fit the real facts,
for--except for the way space and time affect us personally--there is
actually no distinction to be made between them. That is no original
theory of mine; it is modern scientific thought--mathematically proven
and accepted ever since Albert Einstein first made his theory public."
A silence followed Loto's outburst. Rogers broke it:
"We would like to have you gentlemen meet us here two weeks from
tonight. We are not quite ready yet. Will you do that?"
Every one in the room signified assent.
"But what for?" George asked earnestly. "Of course we will, but has Loto
discovered anything? Has he--"
Loto interrupted him. "I have been working and experimenting for two
years." He had fallen back to his quiet manner. "Father has helped me,
of course. And given me money--more than he could afford."
He smiled at Rogers, who returned it with a gaze of affection.
"In two weeks I will be completely ready. Don't you think so, father?"
"Yes," said Rogers, and a sudden cloud of anxiety crossed his face. He
was a scientist, but he was a father as well, and even his scientific
enthusiasm could not allay the fear for his son that was in his heart.
"Yes," he repeated. "I think you will be quite ready, Loto."
"Ready for what?" growled the Banker. He was mopping his forehead with a
huge white handkerchief.
Loto's glance swept across all the men in the room. "I have found a way
to cross time, just as you are able to cross space. And two weeks from
tonight, gentlemen, with, your assistance, I propose to start forward
through the centuries that lie ahead of us. I'm going to find that
girl--if I can--and release her--help her out of whatever danger,
whatever trouble she is in!"