"Skip it. What I mean is, watch the dome. If you smell something funny,
that'll be fresh air, and it'll mean Sandy and I have taken the fort.
Attack then. We'll be in a position to crack a whip over the runts." He
held out his hand. "Be seein' you, guy! Let's go, Sandy."
Together they made their way through the labyrinth of chambers to
their own cell. This time Larry fumbled less with the mitogenic locks
that barred their progress; it took them but a few minutes to make the
journey.
Yet even at that they barely returned in time. As they came through the
chambers, Larry reminded Sandra, "We're banking on the fact that Harg
doesn't know we've been out of our coop. That's our story and we're
stuck with it. If by any chance he or a guard happened in while we were
out, we're sunk, but--"
"It's a chance worth taking," nodded the girl.
"Yes. The big idea is to get to that control chamber. I think we can
do it because Harg, big-shot as he may be, has one bad failing. Human
vanity. So remember, play up to whatever I say."
"Okay, boss!" said Sandra meekly. But there was a crinkle of laughter
in her eyes.
Then they were back in their own cell, the door behind them was sliding
closed--and almost immediately the one before them was sliding open to
admit Harg-Ofortu and a brace of armed guards!
There was fretfulness on the little scientist's face, fretfulness
that turned to swift suspicion as Larry and Sandra started guiltily.
His eyes swept the room, returned to Larry. Larry felt the raw demand
of Harg's first directed thought, "Can these two--?" then he felt
the tenuous fingers of Harg's probing mentality seeking information
from his mind. With an effort he forced himself to think of simple,
unimportant things. He concentrated on the tag end of an old nonsense
rhyme--
/P
"Oh, do I is? And am I be?
Or couldn't I have used to be?
Oh, cruel fate, which was to me; I used to ain't!"
P/
--and chuckled inwardly to catch the shocked repercussion of Harg's
amazed, "Incredible! These barbarians are simple minded children!"
Then Harg spoke. Or directed a thought to the Twentieth Century couple,
his equivalent of speech.
"You will come with me!"
Larry pretended alarm. "Why? We are comfortable here. We don't want
to--"
"I am doing," Harg advised him crisply, "that which is best for you.
There has been a little--er--disturbance in the city. I am removing you
to safer quarters. I will not have my experiments upset by--"
"By--?" prodded Larry.
"That is not your concern. Come!"
* * * * *
Harg led the way through the corridors. Larry and Sandra followed
docilely. With suspicious alacrity, had the little man but known it. As
they walked, Larry deliberately made his thoughts clear that Harg might
interpret them. "He can't be anyone important around here. He's just
one of the small fry. Obviously, he isn't very intelligent--"
Harg heard--he could not help but hear. And he understood. He could not
help but understand. His wizened cheeks gained an unexpected color. He
turned to Larry angrily.
"It might interest you to learn, my dear savage," he snapped, "that
your thoughts are crystal clear to me. I take it you doubt my
importance?"
Larry made a good job of looking embarrassed. So Sandra might know what
was going on he mumbled aloud, "Well, I just couldn't help thinking--I
mean, I figured you aren't really the big man around these parts. All
this talk about a Time warp machine, and all--"
Harg said crisply, "Then you don't believe there is such a thing? Well,
you err, barbarian. There is. And it was the genius of Harg-Ofortu that
constructed it. I--"
Here Sandra stepped in with a word to Larry.
"It's all nonsense, Larry. Don't believe a word he says. He's done
nothing but lie since we've met him. He told me the most impossible
tale about a 'dome' and a 'dome control chamber.' Of course such things
are absurd!"
"So!" Harg's thought had the crackle of audible sound. "Know, then,
my two young innocents, that you choose to mock genius. Genius never
lies. Behold!" He turned abruptly from the course they were traveling,
led them down a side corridor, fingered open a door and showed them,
glistening across a wide expanse of metal flooring, a turret-like
structure from which emanated, like the sprawling arms of an octopus,
vast cables. From the hemispherical roof of this turret emanated a
wide, unwavering cone of light, blinding in its brilliance.
"Behold," mocked Harg, "the dome control chamber in which you presumed
to disbelieve. From this heart emanates the life of our city-state--and
I am its sole supervisor. Even so, it is a tiny thing compared with the
greater invention which was, and is, my own. The Time-warp machine.
You still doubt? Let me show you, that you may marvel at the brain of
Harg--About, guards! We return to the laboratory!"
One of the guards blinked the thick soft lids of his bulging eyes, said
nervously, "But, Master of Masters--"
"We return, I said!" Harg was icy cold, even more nettled because a
guard had dared question his decision, determined to exact admiration
from his audience.
They turned about, began to retrace their steps. Larry marked carefully
the corridor which led to the control turret. He would not forget it,
nor how to reach it. And as they walked he caught Sandra's eye for a
brief moment. Harg did not see the swift wink that passed between them,
nor the way Sandra's hands clenched before her in a delighted gesture
of approbation....
But he did see, and gloried in, the amazement mirrored in the eyes
of Sandra and Larry when at last they stepped into the chamber which
housed the Time-warping machine. It was a huge structure, its inner
chamber alone being large enough to house a battalion of men. But
its core was small, being an oddly shaped, angular object spinning
endlessly on a bar of crystalline material.
Displaying all the vanity Larry had hoped for, the little scientist
pointed to the twirling object first, then at a great, banked keyboard
like that of some gigantic organ.
"The end product of man's genius," he boasted vaingloriously, "for
a thousand millenia! The machine which can span Time. You do not
comprehend the object which spins upon the bar, no? I fear it is
beyond your puny concept, friends from an unenlightened age. It is
a tesseract; the infinite cube of four dimensions. Your eyes see
but a cross section of its fullness, which is beyond seeing. Yet I,
Harg-Ofortu, conceived and built it!
* * * * *
"These banks control the ages that Have-Been and the ages that are
Yet-to-Be. Through their relays are disrupted the world-line of any
given thing at any given time. I would demonstrate, but terrific power
is expended each time I bring a new object from the past; I would not
now waste power to convince such savages as you.
"Yet by pressing a button--so--and deflecting a lever--so!--I can,
if I will, bring across the negation or Time-that-Was-Not creatures
like yourselves from any period of time. The ages in which I angle are
clearly marked here; the position on this sphere called 'Earth' from
which I draw my experiments I determine by means of this mapped globe."
He paused, smirking with pride, so blinded with self-glory that he did
not even notice the studiousness of Sandra's and Larry's eyes. But when
he spoke again, it was to say words that dragged Larry back to earth
with a start.
"And it will interest you to know, Sandra Day, that a great tribute is
shortly to be paid to you."