"There is a sun," cried the girl, "but you can't see it. It's concealed
behind a huge dome of _impervite_--a sort of leaded, polarized glass.
Harg told me all about it while you were unconscious.
"In the year 17,000 A.D., or thereabouts, there was a terrible
catastrophe on Earth. Man's constant drainage of electrical energy
created a rupture in the Heaviside layer, and the layer collapsed.
As you know, the Heaviside layer is Earth's only protection against
potentials from space, from the undiluted strength of the Milliken rays.
* * * * *
"Without that protection, life on Earth was doomed. So large areas were
domed over with this sixty-foot-thick layer of _impervite_. And--"
"And in the meantime," interrupted Larry, "intense subjection to cosmic
radiation, along with the increasing use of telepathy, turned the human
race's hearing apparatus from a useful organ into a vestigial one."
"And one," agreed the girl, "sensitive as the nerve of a tooth. It must
be that. It couldn't be anything else. So there is Harg's weakness.
Now, if we can only find some way to play upon it--"
Larry said gloomily, "But he still is the only one who can return us to
our own time."
Sandra's hand touched his swiftly, confidently.
"We'll find some way to make him," she whispered. "We'll do it, you and
I--"
Even under these circumstances Larry Wilson found the touch of that
hand thrilling, the confidence of Sandra's voice, with its "you and I,"
endearing. It was a jest of the gods that this new glory should have
come to him at last in such a situation. But the year mattered little.
Time or no Time, he knew, and he thought she knew--
"Sandra," he said, "there is one thing--"
"Shhh!" she cautioned suddenly. "Footsteps!"
The metallic doorpane slid back, and once again Harg entered the room,
this time accompanied by a pair of diminutive companions garbed in
plainer, cruder harness than that of the scientist. Larry made an
effort to expunge all thought from his mind, fearful that the man of
the future might read his new determination. But Harg smiled easily.
"You will come with me now, Miss Day."