Brown frowned slightly. Perhaps he had expected more of a reaction.
"We are from a time very far in your future," he continued. "The
machine has the apparent effect of transferring our physical bodies
to this age. I say 'apparent' effect, because the mechanism of this
time translation is not fully understood. There are certain anomalies,
the displacement effect for example--but that is immaterial, for all
practical purposes we can move at will to and from any time in our
past, though not into our future--when the machine is working.
"Naturally, such time travel must be kept secret, if it were not,
several undesirable consequences might arise. It is very closely
regulated, and may be used only for bona fide historical research by
responsible persons."
He looked inquiringly at Dolan. "I am not really sure I can tell you
much more about the machine, I am not a technician, as you know. Does
what I have told you help any?"
"I don't know," Dolan said. "Let me think about it a minute." He was
not really much surprised at the disclosure. In terms of the technology
he knew, the machine was almost completely meaningless. From the
beginning, there had only been two possibilities--either it was the
product of an alien culture, or it was an elaborate hoax. He had
already decided it was not a hoax. He had not, he realized, allowed
himself to explore fully the implications of the other possibility. He
did so now, and some of the implications were--intriguing.
Historical research, eh? Well, maybe. He would reserve judgment on that.