That evening when a thin crescent crept wanly into the sky, five
figures faded into the ebon night and slunk across the broad field.
When the five had met in the dim shadow of the towering stockade,
Randall whispered softly: "When I'm over the barrier, I'll let you know
if the coast is clear, then step on it! We're going to try to make it
as far as the entrance to the big building. Then we'll decide on our
next step. Okay, let's go."
Gordon Malherne braced his hands against the stockade, motioned Jackson
to climb on his shoulders. When the salesman was set, Doctor Gerard
clambered to his shoulders, and Randall followed up the human ladder
with Angus McClellan close behind.
When the two reached the top of the stockade, they wedged themselves
between the sharpened ends of two piling, reached down and grasped the
Doctor's hand and pulled him up. Then Randall removed his belt, asked
for Gerard's. He buckled them end to end into a strap long enough to
reach Jackson's clawing hands. The salesman clung while the engineer
scrambled over his body and up the strap, then the three men hauled the
perspiring Jackson to the top.
After a quick look below him, the little agent swung over the sharpened
ends of the piling, hung by his hands for a moment, then dropped to the
ground outside the stockade. In a moment he signalled the others to
follow.
Silently they scurried through the night toward the massive central
building which McClellan had dubbed "The Hive." Safe in the deeper
gloom of its entry, they paused at Randall's whispered command.
"Here's the plan," Randall said softly. "There are half a hundred
corridors branching from the main hallway. We'll each explore one
corridor, and if anyone finds any clue as to what has happened to
Garnet or the McMahons, he'll return to the main hallway at once and
wait for the rest. Satisfactory?"
Everyone nodded but Jackson. "That's all very well for you," the fat
man protested. "You're armed, but how about the rest of us?"
Randall silently extended his automatic, butt first. Jackson lost any
possible remaining respect his companions might have possessed for
him when he accepted the gun and turned sheepishly down one of the
corridors.
Randall found himself in a narrow, arched passage dimly illuminated by
small glowing studs set in the walls. He glanced quickly behind him,
then started on a soundless trot down the passage, staying close to the
right wall, and pausing occasionally to listen at the frequent panels
which broke the monotony of the walls.
Once a panel slid open a hundred feet down the hall ahead of him, and
one of the diminutive Kralons emerged and, luckily, started down the
corridor away from Randall.
Randall waited until the creature had gained a considerable lead, then
followed cautiously. At length he came to an open arch at the end of
the corridor, and, in what appeared to be a lounging salon, he saw
a number of the small Kralons busy at enigmatic occupations, their
mandibles clacking in weird conversation.
Randall shrugged, turned and made his way back along the corridor. When
he arrived at the main hallway, he found Angus McClellan crouched back
in the darkness of the entry, waiting for him. The lank Australian
grinned weakly.
"Found somethin'," he said huskily. "Don't know what, but I heard human
voices. Screams, rather. We'd better hurry."
Randall thought wistfully of his automatic, then nodded and followed
McClellan down the corridor until the Australian stopped before a panel
and jerked a thumb. Randall put his ear to the panel. For a moment he
heard nothing. Then came a scream, a human scream that told of extreme
agony; anguish beyond the unbearable pain of the ancient rack!
Randall's face was chalky white as he turned, looked at McClellan for a
split second, then rasped, "Let's go!"
Together, they stepped back, then threw their combined weight against
the panel.
* * * * *
When Jerome Jackson left his companions and crept sheepishly down the
dim corridor with Randall's automatic clutched tightly in one pudgy
hand, he came closer to hating himself than he ever had before in all
his introverted, cowardly existence.
His mind skimmed back over the miserable pages of his life. Born on
the wrong side of the tracks in a mid-western city, he had lacked the
innate ability and courage to grow above his inheritance. Rather,
he had allowed his childhood handicaps to reduce the advantages of
a series of lucky breaks to an extremely mediocre existence. He
was a reasonably successful salesman only by virtue of a perpetual
hang-dog look which brought a momentary feeling of magnanimity to his
prospective customers.
All in all, Jerome Jackson could not under any circumstance be expected
to make the most of any situation, much less this almost foolhardy
venture which Randall had precipitated.
Jackson realized his own limitations as he crept miserably down the dim
corridor, and was actually regretting that he, rather than Randall had
the revolver, when he heard a sound behind one of the panels. Leaning
close, he heard the low throb of massive machinery and the high-pitched
whine of generators.
He stopped and peered at the panel searchingly. He noticed a glowing
stud set in the casement, and after a moment's hesitation he pressed
it. The panel slid back smoothly. Jackson looked up and down the
hallway, then stepped cautiously through the door.
He found himself in a great high-domed room filled with ordered ranks
of mighty but absolutely incomprehensible machinery, all humming
enigmatic paens of power. Far down the serried ranks of gargantuan
equipment he saw a light glinting on mighty crystal tubes.
With hypnotic fascination, Jackson advanced slowly through the maze
of humming mechanisms. The closer he came to those enigmatic tubes,
the wider his pale eyes opened, until, as he stood at the base of
the rod-high crystal cylinders, he looked like a puppet registering
amazement and consternation.
* * * * *
Doctor Gerard held neither Jerome Jackson's cowardly fear of danger,
nor Randall's contempt for it. While there were important scientific
facts to be learned, danger didn't count. It just didn't exist insofar
as he was concerned.
Consequently it wasn't at all surprising that Gerard stepped right into
a regular hornet's nest of trouble.
The little Doctor had been counting doors on his way down the corridor,
more from scientific habit than anything else, and on the seventh
door to his right, he noticed a very strange insignia. It was a weird
diagrammatic inscription which immediately caught his interest.
Emblazoned in the central panel in glowing outline was a triangle
enclosing a huge multi-faceted eye. As Gerard stared at the weird orb
in its geometrical figure he suddenly recalled that a similar figure
had been used by ancient necromancers and later by hypnotists, as a
symbol of their questionable accomplishments.
Puzzledly he wondered whether its use here in this fantastic
world of the past held any esoteric connection with its meaning
in the far-distant future. Without stopping to consider potential
consequences, he pushed the stud which opened the panel, and stepped
inside.
When his eyes finally became accustomed to the even deeper gloom,
he saw that the room was filled with a number of coffin-like glass
cabinets and an equal number of switchboards crowded with dials and
levers. Slowly he edged toward one of the crystal cabinets and peered
down into its dimly illumined interior.
He saw a number of oval white objects resting on tiered trays, for all
the world like eggs in an incubator. Then Gerard realized that was
exactly what these instruments were. Incubators! But they were Kralon
eggs, not chicken eggs. Furthermore, it was obvious that the elaborate
instruments which adjoined the incubators had a far more involved
function than merely maintaining the eggs at incubation temperature.
Doctor Gerard's grizzled eyebrows lifted in interest as he turned
back to examine the dials. Both the design of the controls and the
hieroglyphics engraved upon them were entirely incomprehensible to him.
He shrugged his shoulders, then began to turn every triangular control
on the panel to its extreme limit.
Nothing untoward happened during the alteration of the first two
settings, but when Gerard threw over the third, all hell broke loose in
that dim crypt!
Violet light danced between the poles of circuit breakers and ate away
the metal like butter. Great gongs dinned a cacophony of sound through
the lurking dusk of the room, then were suddenly silent as brilliant
lights flashed on.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Gordon Malherne had also engineered something for which his
text books had provided no solution.
After leaving his four companions, he had started down the corridor
furthest to the right.
"Always go right," he told himself whimsically as he crept noiselessly
down the dim hallway. "And you'll never go wrong."
However, this must have been the exception which proved the rule, for
Malherne hadn't gone a dozen yards when things started to happen.
A double panel just ahead and to his left slid open and a column of
small worker Kralons, two abreast, started marching into the corridor.
The two leaders saw the engineer almost simultaneously, and both
started for him with mandibles clacking furiously.
Malherne started on a dead run for the "Hive" entrance. Behind him he
heard the harsh rustle of chitin-clad limbs.
It seemed for a moment as though he were gaining, then the foremost
insect lunged and caught his jacket. It threw Malherne off stride, and
he caromed against the wall of the corridor. He regained his balance
almost instantly, but he had lost ground, and he felt another limb
clutch his right arm.
He jerked to a stop, pivoted suddenly in an attempt to dislodge the
hold. His motion threw the foremost Kralon into the one immediately
behind, and the human and the two huge insects went down in a heap.
When Malherne hit the floor under a tangle of limbs, he reached in his
pocket and pulled out a knife, snapping the spring blade open in the
same motion.
He slashed viciously at everything which touched him, and was rewarded
with a raucous clatter of mandibles and the sticky feel of a warm
liquid which spattered his hands and face and rendered his knife almost
too slippery to hold.
He pulled free from the two mangled Kralons, slashed at a third which
had hooked through the fabric of his sleeve. Then he went down as a
heavy blow caught him in the temple.
When consciousness pushed through the haze, Malherne found himself back
in the stockade. He was lying on a crude bed in the main hut. Zor Ala
was bending over him.
"How do you feel?" the man from the 43rd century asked solicitously.
"It appears that you encountered a little trouble."
Malherne gingerly felt the lump on his temple. "So I did," he grimaced.
"But how did I get here? Did those entomological nightmares really let
me live, even after I carved them up?"
Zor Ala nodded somberly. "For awhile, at least," he said. "They intend
to drain all knowledge possible from any of the 'fish' they catch from
the future before the--" He shrugged, left his sentence unfinished.
"But your companions," he continued. "Where are they?"
Malherne winced. "Still somewhere in the Hive, I guess. I got caught
before I got started. Let's hope the others have better luck. I'm still
alive, though," he added thoughtfully. He stretched painfully, then sat
up, grimacing as the wrenched muscles responded.
"Zor Ala," he said, "how does it happen that these insects are so
much further advanced way back here in time, while in my day insects
apparently have nothing but complex instincts? Seems as though they
should have progressed up the evolutionary scale the same as everything
else."
The future-man shook his head, sat down on the crude bench. "No one
knows what happened to the Kralons after the Carboniferous Period," he
said. "Nor does anyone understand why later insects retrogressed from
the logical thinking of the Kralons' level of intellect, back to a mere
set of complex instincts.
"We do know that the Kralons made a mighty stride ahead of the rest
of Earth life many millions of years ago. They've admitted to me that
they have not progressed at all for untold ages now, and they're very
worried. They don't know why they do not progress in an evolutionary
sense as the rest of the life forms seem to be doing.
"And they are exceedingly worried about the future, for we have let
them know that apparently the Kralon race vanished around the end of
the Carboniferous Period, leaving only diminutive descendants with
instinct rather than intelligence to show that their race might ever
have existed.
"Of course, we of the future know that there is another similar
parallel in the disappearance of the dinosaurs. As you probably have
read in paleontological treatises, those huge reptiles seemed to have
had everything their own way through the late Triassic, the Jurassic
and the Cretaceous Periods."
The engineer nodded. "I remember a paragraph from Gamow's 'Biography
of the Earth' which I learned by heart," he said. "It went like this:
'The kingdom of giant reptiles, with its innumerable representatives on
the land, in the sea, and in the air, was certainly the most powerful
and most extensive animal kingdom during the entire existence of life
on the Earth, but it also had a most tragic and unexpected end. During
a comparatively short period toward the end of the Mesozoic era the
tyrannosaurus, stegosaurus, ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the
other 'sauri' disappeared from the surface of the Earth as if wiped
away by some giant storm, leaving the ground free for miniature mammals
that had awaited this opportunity for more than 100 million years.'"
* * * * *
Malherne paused, reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out the half
packet of cigarettes he had been hoarding. He offered them to Zor Ala,
and when the other refused, he lit one and inhaled gratefully.
"Then, in conclusion," Malherne continued, "Gamow says that the causes
leading to the elimination of all the dinosaurs in a very short period
of time are obscure. There are many hypotheses which have been advanced
by various scientists to account for it. One theory was that the rising
of general ground levels destroyed the inland seas and marshes. But
that wouldn't have had any effect on the dinosaurs who had already
fully adapted to dry land. Neither would it affect those reptiles
who inhabited the oceans. So the whole episode has remained one vast
mystery, without much chance of solution."
Zor Ala nodded. "Even in my time we still didn't know," he said. "We
had theories that perhaps the tiny mammals of the later Mesozoic were
eating the eggs of the dinosaurs to an extent which brought about their
eventual extinction. There was also the theory of 'dilution of genetic
stock' in a very old race of any life form. That is, through millions
of years of reproduction, the hereditary stock of any race eventually
becomes so diluted that the cells become 'tired' of dividing. As a
result, reproduction dwindles away, and the race dies out. But even
that doesn't satisfactorily explain the geologically sudden death of
the dinosaurs."
"Apparently quite a parallel to what must have happened to the
Kralons," Malherne observed. "How is it that we don't find clear
paleontological evidence of the existence of the Kralons?"
"No calcareous skeletal structure," returned Zor Ala. "They have only a
chitinous exoskeleton. Also, you must remember that the dinosaurs held
sway for almost 100 million years, and invaded almost every part of
the world. In all that time, with the animals existing by the billions
in almost every clime, there were naturally a few 'saurs' who fell
into asphalt pits or other unusual environments where their bones were
preserved for us.
"That is not true of the Kralons, for they seem to have suddenly
appeared as the first insect type, sometime during the latter half of
the Carboniferous Period, and existed as a race for only a few million
years.
"Furthermore, their distribution is apparently very limited. From
what they have told me, there are only a few dozen community hives
or nations like this one. Thus it is not at all surprising that such
an extremely restricted species, possessing no calceous skeletal
structure, left no paleontological evidence."
Malherne considered this thoughtfully. "Then you believe that the
insect types of the future are degenerated descendants of the Kralons?"
he asked.
"Undoubtedly," returned Zor Ala. "But without the size or the logical
reasoning ability of the Kralons. You see, insects apparently arose
suddenly during the Carboniferous Period, without any prior evidence
of existence in the ages preceding. They seem to be an offshoot from
the main line of evolutionary development, and their sudden appearance
in geologic history is without precedence in the development of life
forms."
Malherne was nodding eagerly. "In connection with that, why is it that
an insect goes along in its development, just like a common worm, until
it reaches a certain size and age. Then it builds itself a cocoon or
chrysalis, becomes a pupa, and starts a sort of 'prenatal' development
all over again, but this time emerging as a full-fledged insect? Seems
like they've been given a second crack at development which the other
forms of life didn't get."
"That is substantially correct," agreed Zor Ala. "And we of the future
have suspected that a higher type of life from somewhere has intervened
in the development of life on Earth, and has experimentally given a
boost to one branch of Earth-life by showing it how to re-encyst in
a secondary 'egg' as a pupa, and thus continue its progress toward a
higher evolutionary form before it finally emerges as an adult type."
"Whew!" Malherne ejaculated. "Whoever or whatever did that must really
have been supermen!"
Zor Ala smiled. "At least," he agreed.
Malherne was struck with a sudden inspiration. "Look, would it be
possible that the Kralons had something to do with the disappearance of
the Dinosaurs during the latter part of the Mesozoic?--I understand, of
course," he added hastily, "that this period where we find ourselves is
around 100 million years before the time when the dinosaurs met their
Waterloo. However, isn't it possible that descendants of the Kralons
could have retained sufficient intellectual development to have been a
serious threat to the existence of the 'saurs'?"
Zor Ala shook his head. "I'm afraid your theory won't stand up," he
said. "For the Kralon race apparently only existed for a few million
years, disappearing from the surface of the Earth around the end of the
Carboniferous period.
"Thus the Kralons must have died out very nearly 100 million years
before the dinosaurs' catastrophe, and the giant insects were
apparently supplanted by only small, unintelligent prototypes without
their size or intellectual vigor. No, there is almost certainly some
other reason for the disappearance of the huge reptiles."
Malherne came to his feet suddenly. "Here I am discussing fantastic and
fanciful theories, when four of my companions are somewhere in that
hive of monsters! I've got to help them!"
"Calm down," Zor Ala soothed. "You would do them far more harm than
good, now that the Kralons are watching for you. The best thing to do
is to stay here and let them work out their own salvation as best they
can. I know it sounds rather calloused, but any interference on your
part now will certainly not be helpful."
"But I can't just sit here!" objected Malherne.
Zor Ala nodded. "I know how you feel," he said. "But you can do your
friends far more good alive than--"
He left the sentence unfinished. Then, as if he had been considering
something, he continued: "You're an engineer, Malherne, and I think
it's time for you to have a talk with Gordo Lanson concerning an idea
we have in mind. How do you feel by now?"
"A little creaky," said Malherne, rising and stretching painfully. "But
let's get started."
V
He followed Zor Ala out of the central hut and across to a smaller one.
At Zor Ala's knock, a voice called, "Come in."
As they entered, Gordo Lanson looked searchingly at the two men, then
through the open door beyond them. His expression became concerned.
"What happened to your companions?" he asked. "You ran into trouble?"
Malherne laughed rather embarrassedly. "I don't know about the others,"
he said. "But I stupidly picked a fight with a whole army of Kralons,
and ended up back here, right where I started."
The stocky physicist grimaced. "Well, I'm afraid your companions will
have to look out for themselves," he said. "You certainly can't help
them by doing something noble and frantic."
"That's what I've told him," said Zor Ala, "and I think he is
reluctantly in agreement."
Then he continued, "Malherne is an engineer, Gordo, and I thought
perhaps it might be wise to acquaint him with the rudiments of your
theory on Time Flux, and to give him an idea of what we have in mind."
Lanson nodded, shuffling the heap of crude parchmentlike sheets in
front of him into a stack on the edge of the desk. He motioned toward
one of the rough benches. Zor Ala and Malherne seated themselves, then
waited for Lanson to speak.
"As an introduction," the psysicist began, "are you familiar with the
theory of Teleology?"
"Only that it has something to do with the future affecting the past,"
said Malherne.
"That is a broad statement of its general implication," Lanson agreed.
"And this predicament in which we find ourselves makes it necessary
for us to attempt a use of ramifications of that theory. Put it this
way," he continued. "If you were positive through an esoteric source of
knowledge that a certain event definitely was to happen in the future,
would it not affect your reactions to existing environment? Would it
not influence your actions in working toward a goal? Would it not thus
aid in the fulfillment of that occurrence?"
"You mean that the knowledge would give me courage and confidence to
accomplish what I knew would eventually come to pass?" asked Malherne.
"That is one way of putting it," said Lanson. "But it can be stated a
trifle more scientifically. Let us say rather that the Teleomagnetic
effect of such an occurrence induces a tendency in the past to evolve
toward such an event."
"I think I have it so far," said Malherne, "but it's getting shaky!"
Lanson laughed. "I'll admit it's a little like the perplexity of the
'Flatlander,'" he said, "who was trying to find a way out of a circle
which had been drawn around him. He proceeded to investigate his
barrier through every dimensional direction known to Flatlanders, which
of course were limited to two. He utilized movement through both of
those as he followed around the interior of his barrier to the point
where he had started.
"Being a very observant and discerning Flatlander, he finally realized
he was getting exactly nowhere in his two-dimensional attempts to
escape a three-dimensional barrier." Lanson paused, grinned.
"We humans are faced with a somewhat similar difficulty in trying to
solve a multi-dimensional problem with three-dimensional thinking.
However, there is some precedence for hoping that we can surmount the
obstacle. Remember that mankind, without ever being able to see the
interior of an atom, was able to divine the number and function of its
component parts, and was finally successful in inducing both fission
and fusion of unstable atoms."
Malherne nodded agreement. "But where does this lead us?" he asked
rather impatiently. "How is this discussion of obscure theory going to
help us escape from the world of the past, back into our own ages?"
Gordo Lanson nodded toward the stack of parchment sheets on the desk,
covered with his meticulous figures. "That is an attempt," he said,
"to formulate a method for determining the amount of Teleomagnetic
energy or influence required to bring about a given distortion in the
Time-flux."
Malherne considered this for a moment. "Oh. I think I'm beginning to
see," he said. "You are attempting to compute the amount of energy
required to return us to the various ages from which we were pulled by
the Kralon's Time Trap."
"Something of that sort," nodded Gordo Lanson.
"To answer a question you are undoubtedly thinking," interjected Zor
Ala. "We have found, by laboriously gleaning bits of knowledge from the
Kralons, the location of the equipment which induces the Teleomagnetic
or gravitic energy which powers the Time Trap."
"Where is it?" Malherne asked.
"In one of the laboratory rooms off the main corridor in the Hive,"
returned Zor Ala. "The Time Net itself is supported on pylons situated
outside the Hive building immediately adjoining the Time-Trap generator
room."
"What plan do you have in mind?" asked Malherne eagerly.
"Not a fully-formulated one at all," returned Zor Ala. "But each of
us is doing whatever he can to further his knowledge of the Kralon's
equipment, and all of us are trying to prepare to take advantage of any
opportunity which may arise in the future."
"But," objected Malherne, "even the Kralons apparently can't control
the Time sector from which they get their victims. By their own
admission, they are trying to gain knowledge by picking humans from
as far in the future as possible. But apparently they have been only
partially successful, for some of the people they have obtained are
from a Time preceding mine. It seems that Gordo Lanson and Dar Mikol
and you are three of the few from a period further in the future than
my time."
Gordo Lanson nodded. "That is the reason for all this," he said,
gesturing toward the stack of sheets on the desk. "I am attempting to
formulate a method of controlling the point from which or to which the
Time Trap gleans or delivers its victims. Apparently the Kralons have
never accomplished that, but I think we can succeed in doing what they
could not."
"May the Lord grant that to be true!" said Malherne fervently.
"I regret," said Zor Ala, "that Randall felt it necessary to make his
foolhardy attempt to invade the Hive, but of course I understand and
sympathize with his reasons.
"He feels entirely responsible for the passengers of the Diamvator, and
considers himself obliged to attempt their rescue. However, I am very
much afraid that his attempt will be ill-fated."
Lanson nodded. "The Kralons are very intelligent," he said. "And they
will have no scruples whatsoever in dealing with troublesome humans.
They resent the fact that their own race is to vanish from the surface
of the globe in one phase of the future, and that man has supplanted
them as the intelligent, governing form of life. And they intend to do
something about it!"
Malherne nodded impatiently. "Yes," he said, "but what can we do now?
What can we do to help Randall and the rest of my companions? And how
can we prepare to use Lanson's theories concerning the Time Trap?"
Both Zor Ala and Gordo Lanson regarded the engineer understandingly.
They realized his fear concerning his companions, and sympathized with
his frustration in being unable to help them.
The physicist nodded toward the pile of sheets on the desk. "If you
remember your calculus," he said, "you could be of great help to us by
checking my figures."
Malherne looked uncertainly toward the desk. "I'll do what I can," he
said.
* * * * *
When Randall and McClellan threw their combined weights against the
panel in the Hive corridor, they had no idea what lay beyond.
The metal sheet bulged, then popped from its guides, and Randall
sprawled through the opening, with McClellan atop him.
They found themselves in a room which was shining white from ceiling
to floor. In the middle of the room was a flat white table over which
several Kralons were absorbed.
Gathered around the central figures were a dozen or more Kralons,
apparently spectators. And on the table lay something which Randall
knew, from its outlines, had once been human.
Randall looked around for a weapon. A neat stack in one corner of
the room caught his eye. There were a dozen or more foot-long metal
bus-bars or ingots, apparently spares for fusing electrical circuits.
McClellan followed his glance. Simultaneously both men dove for the
bars, each arming himself with one of the twenty-pound metal ingots.
Meanwhile, the room was in a furor. The metallic clack of Kralon
conversation sounded furiously, and huge insect figures were converging
from all sides.
"Back to back," said Randall tersely, "and let 'em have it!"
The first Kralon who approached the Australian put up a protective
foreleg, but the heavy ingot brushed it aside like a matchstick, and
crushed the Kralon's head to a pulp. It went down twitching, and the
next insect had to scramble over the body to reach McClellan.
Meanwhile, Randall was flailing at two Kralons which were trying to
reach him with their vicious claws. Whenever one got in the way, the
heavy bar cracked the chitinous shell like that of a crab, and both
Kralons drew back, nursing their injuries.
Randall spoke tersely over his shoulder. "Edge over toward the stack of
bus-bars," he told McClellan.
Back to back, still flailing with the heavy metal ingots, they worked
their way to the corner of the room.
"Use them as missiles," said Randall briefly. "Whenever one of the
things starts for us, let him have it with an ingot!"
McClellan did, and, with great effect. The heavy metal bars, flying
end-over-end toward attacking Kralons, soon convinced the huge insects
that another method of attack should be formulated, and the remaining
able individuals withdrew to an adjoining room.
Seizing this opportunity, Randall made sure that there was no life left
in the form on the operating table, then he and McClellan dashed from
the room, back into the main corridor.
A panel at their left opened suddenly, and a Kralon stepped into the
corridor.
Randall sent his ingot flying end-over-end toward the huge insect. It
was a perfect hit, and the Kralon went down, limbs twitching feebly.
"In here!" said Randall tersely, and McClellan followed him through the
opening. They found themselves in a high-domed room filled with huge
generators and other elaborate electrical equipment. Massive four-inch
conduits led from the generators to a main cable, which in turn left
the building through a sleeved opening in the wall.
Through a large window across the room, Randall saw the Time Net on
which they had first made their appearance into this strange world. It
was stretched like an acrobats' net between four pylons just outside
the building. The supporting pylons extended on above the net, forming
four towers, between the crests of which was supported a complex skein
of intermeshing heavy metallic strands with spherical nodules studding
their length every few feet.
Randall nodded toward the massive equipment. "The mechanism for the
Time Trap," he said.
McClellan raised his metal ingot suggestively.
Randall shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "We might have use for it."
Then he noticed that the generators were operating, and what appeared
to be a huge rectifier was humming with a deep vibrant moan, violet
light flashing in a dozen huge tubes which reached almost from ceiling
to floor.
He nudged McClellan. "It's running," he said. "The Kralons must leave
it in operation all the time in their effort to catch victims from the
future."