"You're free," he told her. "Go down the fire escape and leave that
here. I'll get rid of them out front somehow."
He shut the door again, and went down. The words had sounded brave
enough, but there had been no courage behind them. Fear still rode
him, like the little golden haze that again hovered over him, showing
they had spotted him.
He walked out, with it thick around him, rising slowly in temperature.
They had him--but Ellen might get away. He walked down the steps, his
hands up. They drew back, surprise and something else on their
features, their eyes on the haze that surrounded him. They were
shouting, but he couldn't hear the words over the shrieks of the
people along the street, rushing inside or trying to drag their kids
to safety.
Hawkes doubled his legs under him and leaped. He was still attacking
the tiger--the slim young man, down by the big gas-storage tanks,
directing the new crop of human dupes.
His charge carried him there, while the young man slipped aside. Then
someone fired a gun.
He heard the young man yell hoarsely. "No shooting! Stop it! Damn it,
NO SHOOTING!"
They weren't paying any attention to the shouts. Bullets ticked
against the tanks. Hawkes ducked frantically, physical fear knotting
his stomach.
* * * * *
Suddenly, he seemed to jerk upwards, to find himself suspended in
mid-air, fifty feet off the ground, just beyond the tanks. He stared
down at the men, dizzy with the height, but no longer surprised by
anything. The men were pointing their guns upwards, while the young
man leaped about among them. Bullets were splatting out, though none
came near Hawkes. They seemed to ricochet off the air a few feet in
front of him.
[Illustration]
The slim young man drew back. And now, the rubble and stones along the
street began to lift, and to drive savagely at the attackers. A gale
swept along the street, though Hawkes could feel no breath of air, and
the force of it was enough to knock most of them down.
They got up and began running, dashing away from the super-science
that the young man now seemed bent on turning against his own troop of
dupes, now that they were out of control.
Hawkes came drifting downward. He started to cry out in fear, until he
noticed that the ground was coming up at him slowly, and that he was
slipping sideways. He landed on a street back of the tanks, as gently
as a feather.
Surprisingly, everyone was gone when he risked a glance back at the
scene of the fight, with the back of the slim man just darting into
the apartment house. Then Hawkes cursed, as the creature came darting
out, with Ellen behind him, to leap into a car and drive off. The
sound of sirens grew louder, and a police car swung onto West End.
Hawkes straightened up slowly, as it hit him. It had been the same
scene he'd gone through before that morning--but with himself in the
middle! He shot a glance at the sun, to see it still to the east,
though his memory of the day indicated it should have been after noon.
Time! They'd twisted him back through time--the weapon that had looked
like a flashlight must have tossed him hours backwards, instead of
knocking him out. He'd been attacking himself there in the hallway of
his apartment! He'd knocked himself out. And the fight he had just
been through was the same fight that he had seen come to its end
before!
Now, his younger self and Ellen must be just fleeing toward the
hideout under the loading platform, with the slim man still following.
If he could get there in time, before the man could run off with
Ellen....