"Yes, sir. Changing the time-dimension of substance amounts merely to a
change in the rate and character of the motion that constitutes the
electrical vortex we call a proton."
Loto looked at Rogers somewhat helplessly, with a faintly quizzical
smile twitching at his lips.
"I seem to be talking very ponderously tonight, father. I wonder if it
wouldn't be easier for us to show them the apparatus?"
Rogers rose from his chair. "By all means. Gentlemen, Loto has completed
his apparatus on the roof of the club. You may have noticed for the past
month that one end is boarded up, and has a canvas roof over it. That is
where Loto has been working. Will you come up with us?"
The building that houses the New York Scientific Club is a full block in
depth and twenty stories high. Its flat roof is surrounded by a parapet
of stone. One end of the roof is a garden, with pergolas, trellised
vines, and beds of flowers with white gravel walks between. At the other
end, on this particular evening, a twenty-foot, rough board wall
enclosed a space about a hundred feet square, with a canvas roof above
it.
The night was calm and moonless, with a purple sky brilliantly studded
with stars. At this height the hum of the great city was stilled. Near
by, many buildings towered still higher, but for the most part the roofs
lay below, with their chimneys and pot-bellied water tanks set upon
spindly legs like huge, grotesque bugs on guard. A block away the roof
garden of a great hotel blazed with red and green lights. Spots of light
crawled through the streets below, with black blobs that were
pedestrians scurrying between them. Occasionally the drone of a plane
overhead broke the stillness.
Rogers led the way across the roof top, and unlocked a tiny door that
led into the temporary board enclosure. Lylda and Loto entered last,
the woman clinging to her son's hand. The turn of a switch flooded the
place with light.
At first glance one would have said it was a modern passenger airplane
that was standing there under the canvas--a huge, glistening dragonfly
of aluminum color with a long, narrow cabin below.
"There," said Rogers, "is the product of Loto's work. What you see from
here is merely an adaptation of the Frazia plane--and the Frazia company
built it for us. The apparatus flies as any other Frazia plane does; it
has the same motors, the same equipment. Its other mechanism--by which
the time-dimension, the basic electrical nature of the whole apparatus,
and everything or everybody within its cabin can be changed at
will--that mechanism Loto constructed and installed himself."
"There you go again," growled the Banker. "Let Loto tell it, won't you?"
Rogers bridled a little. "I'll tell you this, Donald. That is the
apparatus in which Loto is going to cross time into the future. At least
you can understand that--if you keep your mind on it."
There was a general laugh at the Banker's expense. But Lylda did not
laugh. She was leaning against a wooden post, clinging to her son's
hand, and staring at that sleek, shining thing with wide, terrified
eyes.
"Come, Loto," said Rogers. "They want you to show it to them."
The young man disengaged himself from his mother and went forward. In a
moment the men were scattered about, examining the plane.
"You may not understand the Frazia model," Loto was saying. "It was only
put on the market recently. It's slightly larger than the average of the
older types--more stable in the air, but no faster. The 'copter-type,
variable-pitch propellers are powered by a Frazier atomic motor."
The Banker called to them. He was standing on a box, looking into one of
the cabin windows. "You've got different rooms in here."
"Yes, sir," said Loto. "I've divided it into three small compartments
according to my own needs."
"Can we get inside?"
"I think perhaps it would be better not to," said Rogers, coming
forward. "At least, not tonight. Loto wants to get started. There is--"
"You plan to operate this _tonight_?" the Doctor asked.
"Yes," answered Loto. "I am going forward in time, to--"
"To find that girl," George finished eagerly. "To rescue her. Don't you
remember he saw her in that--"
"Be quiet, boy," the Banker commanded. "Loto, what is this other
mechanism your father mentioned?"
"It is not particularly complicated," the young man answered readily.
"In general principle, that is. The Frazia mechanism causes the machine
to travel through space--to change its space-factors at the will of the
operator. That's clear, isn't it?"
"Of course it is," said the Banker impatiently.
"It's clear because you've always been able to travel through space
yourself," interjected the Big Business Man. "Don't be so
self-satisfied, Donald. If you'd been rooted to one spot all your
life--like a tree--you wouldn't have a chance on earth of understanding
an airplane."
"That's exactly what I mean," said Loto quickly. "My other mechanism
changes the time-factor of the entire apparatus. I can explain it best
this way: Every particle of matter in that machine--as well as my own
body--is electrical in its basic nature. My mechanism circulates a
current through every particle of that matter. Not an electrical
current, but something closely allied to it. The nature of this I do not
yet know. But it causes the inherent vibratory movements of the protons
of matter to change their character. The matter changes its state. It
acquires a different time-factor, in other words."
"Is this change instantaneous?" the Doctor asked.
"No, sir. It is progressive. To reach the time-factor of tomorrow night,
take the first few minutes of time as it seems to us to pass. The
time-factor of next week would be reached during the succeeding two or
three minutes."
"In other words, it picks up speed," said the Big Business Man.
"Yes. How long the acceleration will last I do not know. I have a series
of dials for registering the time-movement. By altering the strength,
the intensity of the current, I can vary the speed, or check it
entirely."
"But why have this apparatus in the form of an airplane?" asked the
Banker. "You're going through time, not space."
Rogers answered: "In a hundred years from now this building will not be
here. If we were to stop his time-movement at that point, he would drop
twenty stories through space to the ground."
"Why, of course!" exclaimed the Big Business Man. "But in the air..."
"Exactly," said Loto. "I shall not start the propellers until later;
until I am launched into future time, and need them."
Rogers looked at his watch. "Have you much to do before you start,
Loto?"
"No, sir--nothing. I have food and water, clothing, and everything else
I need. I filled our list very carefully, and checked over everything
this afternoon. I could have started then; I've left nothing to do
tonight."
"Then you might as well get away at once. You'll remember everything
I've told you, Loto? You'll come back here, as quickly as possible? Here
to this rooftop?"
The strain of anxiety under which Rogers was subconsciously laboring
came out suddenly in his voice. "You'll be careful, lad?"
"Yes, sir, of course. I--well, I might as well say good-by now, Father."
They shook hands silently, and Rogers abruptly turned away.
Loto shook hands with the others.
The Banker had withdrawn to the farthest corner of the enclosure, where
he stood regarding the airplane fearfully. Loto walked over to him.
"Good-by, boy." The Banker's voice was gruff and a trifle unsteady.
"Take it easy. Don't be a reckless fool just because you're young."
"I'll be all right, sir." Silently they shook hands.
Loto met his mother a few paces away. He stood head and shoulders above
her, and her arms went around him hungrily as he bent down to kiss her.
"You'll come back to me, little son?" she whispered. "You'll come back
safely?"
"Yes, Mother. Of course."
He met her eyes, with the terror lurking in their gray depths.
"Don't look like that, _mamita_. I'll be all right."
Rogers was calling to them. Loto disengaged himself gently.
"Good-by, _mamita_. I'll be back tomorrow or the next day. Don't
worry--it's nothing."
The last preparations took no more than a moment or two. Loto climbed to
the cabin and disappeared within it.
"Be sure and take off the canvas roof later tonight," he called down to
them. "And leave it off so I can get back."
"Yes," said Rogers, "we will. And one of us, at least, will be here
watching all the time you're away. Good-by, Loto."
"Good-by, Father." The cabin door closed upon him.
At a distance of twenty feet the men stood in a solemn group, watching.
"What will it look like going?" George whispered.
But no one answered him.
Presently a low hum became audible. It grew in intensity, until it
sounded like the droning of a thousand winged insects. The airplane
rocked gently on its foundation. It was straining, trembling in every
fiber.
A moment passed. Then the plane began to glow, seemingly phosphorescent
even in the light of the electric bulbs on the scaffolding beside it.
Another moment. There was a fleeting impression that the thing was
growing translucent--transparent--vapory. For one brief instant the
vision and sound of it persisted--_then it was gone_!
The men stood facing a silent, empty space, where a few loose boards
were lying, with a discarded hammer, a saw, and a keg of nails.
They had forgotten the woman. In an opposite corner of the enclosure
Lylda was seated alone, crying softly and miserably to herself.
* * * * *
George sat alone on a little bench in the roof garden of the Scientific
Club. On the ground beside him, stretched on a broad leather cushion,
Rogers lay asleep. It was well after midnight. There was hardly a breath
of air stirring, and only a few fleecy clouds to hide the stars. In the
east, a flattened moon was rising.
George sat with his chin cupped in his hands, staring out over the
lights and the roofs of the city. The growing moonlight gleamed on his
soft white shirt and white flannel trousers.