_Splendid Sacrifice_
It was a solid hour's walk out to West Wilshire, where the laboratory
was. The immense bronze and glass doors of Wanamaker Institute were
closed, and so barred to the two men. But Erickson led the way down the
side.
"We can get in a service door. Then we climb through transoms and
ventilators until we get to my lab."
Major frisked along beside them. He was enjoying the action and the
companionship. It was less of an adventure to Miller, who knew death
might be ahead for the three of them.
Two workmen were moving a heavy cabinet in the side service door. To get
in, they climbed up the back of the rear workman, walked across the
cabinet, and scaled down the front of the leading man. They went up the
stairs to the fifteenth floor. Here they crawled through a transom into
the wing marked:
"Experimental. Enter Only By Appointment."
Major was helped through it, then they were crawling along the dark
metal tunnel of an air-conditioning ventilator. It was small, and took
some wriggling.
In the next room, they were confronted by a stern receptionist on whose
desk was a little brass sign, reading:
"Have you an appointment?"
Miller had had his share of experience with receptionists' ways, in his
days as a pharmaceutical salesman. He took the greatest pleasure now in
lighting his cigarette from a match struck on the girl's nose. Then he
blew the smoke in her face and hastened to crawl through the final
transom.
John Erickson's laboratory was well lighted by a glass-brick wall and a
huge skylight. The sun's rays glinted on the time impulsor.[1] The
scientist explained the impulsor in concise terms. When he had finished,
Dave Miller knew just as little as before, and the outfit still
resembled three transformers in a line, of the type seen on power-poles,
connected to a great bronze globe hanging from the ceiling.
"There's the monster that put us in this plight," Erickson grunted. "Too
strong to be legal, too weak to do the job right. Take a good look!"
* * * * *
With his hands jammed in his pockets, he frowned at the complex
machinery. Miller stared a few moments; then transferred his interests
to other things in the room. He was immediately struck by the
resemblance of a transformer in a far corner to the ones linked up with
the impulsor.
"What's that?" he asked quickly. "Looks the same as the ones you used
over there."
"It is."
"But-- Didn't you say all you needed was another stage of power?"
"That's right."
"Maybe I'm crazy!" Miller stared from impulsor to transformer and back
again. "Why don't you use it, then?"
"Using what for the connection?" Erickson's eyes gently mocked him.
"Wire, of course!"
The scientist jerked a thumb at a small bale of heavy copper wire.
"Bring it over and we'll try it."
Miller was halfway to it when he brought up short. Then a sheepish grin
spread over his features.
"I get it," he chuckled. "That bale of wire might be the Empire State
Building, as far as we're concerned. Forgive my stupidity."
Erickson suddenly became serious.
"I'd like to be optimistic, Dave," he muttered, "but in all fairness to
you I must tell you I see no way out of this. The machine is, of course,
still working, and with that extra stage of power, the uncertainty would
be over. But where, in this world of immovable things, will we find a
piece of wire twenty-five feet long?"
* * * * *
There was a warm, moist sensation against Miller's hand, and when he
looked down Major stared up at him commiseratingly. Miller scratched him
behind the ear, and the dog closed his eyes, reassured and happy. The
young druggist sighed, wishing there were some giant hand to scratch him
behind the ear and smooth _his_ troubles over.
"And if we don't get out," he said soberly, "we'll starve, I suppose."
"No, I don't think it will be that quick. I haven't felt any hunger. I
don't expect to. After all, our bodies are still living in one instant
of time, and a man can't work up a healthy appetite in one second. Of
course, this elastic-second business precludes the possibility of
disease.
"Our bodies must go on unchanged. The only hope I see is--when we are on
the verge of madness, suicide. That means jumping off a bridge, I
suppose. Poison, guns, knives--all the usual wherewithal--are denied to
us."
Black despair closed down on Dave Miller. He thrust it back, forcing a
crooked grin.
"Let's make a bargain," he offered. "When we finish fooling around with
this apparatus, we split up. We'll only be at each other's throat if we
stick together. I'll be blaming you for my plight, and I don't want to.
It's my fault as much as yours. How about it?"
John Erickson gripped his hand. "You're all right, Dave. Let me give you
some advice. If ever you do get back to the present ... keep away from
liquor. Liquor and the Irish never did mix. You'll have that store on
its feet again in no time."
"Thanks!" Miller said fervently. "And I think I can promise that nothing
less than a whiskey antidote for snake bite will ever make me bend an
elbow again!"
* * * * *
For the next couple of hours, despondency reigned in the laboratory. But
it was soon to be deposed again by hope.
Despite all of Erickson's scientific training, it was Dave Miller
himself who grasped the down-to-earth idea that started them hoping
again. He was walking about the lab, jingling keys in his pocket, when
suddenly he stopped short. He jerked the ring of keys into his hand.
"Erickson!" he gasped. "We've been blind. Look at this!"
The scientist looked; but he remained puzzled.
"Well--?" he asked skeptically.
"There's our wire!" Dave Miller exclaimed. "You've got keys; I've got
keys. We've got coins, knives, wristwatches. Why can't we lay them all
end to end--"
Erickson's features looked as if he had been electrically shocked.
"You've hit it!" he cried. "If we've got enough!"
With one accord, they began emptying their pockets, tearing off
wristwatches, searching for pencils. The finds made a little heap in the
middle of the floor. Erickson let his long fingers claw through thinning
hair.
"God give us enough! We'll only need the one wire. The thing is plugged
in already and only the positive pole has to be connected to the globe.
Come on!"
Scooping up the assortment of metal articles, they rushed across the
room. With his pocket-knife, Dave Miller began breaking up the metal
wrist-watch straps, opening the links out so that they could be laid
end-to-end for the greatest possible length. They patiently broke the
watches to pieces, and of the junk they garnered made a ragged foot and
a half of "wire." Their coins stretched the line still further.
They had ten feet covered before the stuff was half used up. Their metal
pencils, taken apart, gave them a good two feet. Key chains helped
generously. With eighteen feet covered, their progress began to slow
down.
Perspiration poured down Miller's face. Desperately, he tore off his
lodge ring and cut it in two to pound it flat. From garters and
suspenders they won a few inches more. And then--they stopped--feet from
their goal.
Miller groaned. He tossed his pocket-knife in his hand.
"We can get a foot out of this," he estimated. "But that still leaves us
way short."
Abruptly, Erickson snapped his fingers.
"Shoes!" he gasped. "They're full of nails. Get to work with that knife,
Dave. We'll cut out every one of 'em!"
* * * * *
In ten minutes, the shoes were reduced to ragged piles of tattered
leather. Erickson's deft fingers painstakingly placed the nails, one by
one, in the line. The distance left to cover was less than six inches!
He lined up the last few nails. Then both men were sinking back on their
heels, as they saw there was a gap of three inches to cover!
"Beaten!" Erickson ground out. "By three inches! Three inches from the
present ... and yet it might as well be a million miles!"
Miller's body felt as though it were in a vise. His muscles ached with
strain. So taut were his nerves that he leaped as though stung when
Major nuzzled a cool nose into his hand again. Automatically, he began
to stroke the dog's neck.
"Well, that licks us," he muttered. "There isn't another piece of
movable metal in the world."
Major kept whimpering and pushing against him. Annoyed, the druggist
shoved him away.
"Go 'way," he muttered. "I don't feel like--"
Suddenly then his eyes widened, as his touch encountered warm metal. He
whirled.
"There it is!" he yelled. "The last link. _The nameplate on Major's
collar!_"
In a flash, he had torn the little rectangular brass plate from the dog
collar. Erickson took it from his grasp. Sweat stood shiny on his skin.
He held the bit of metal over the gap between wire and pole.
"This is it!" he smiled brittlely. "We're on our way, Dave. Where, I
don't know. To death, or back to life. But--we're going!"
The metal clinked into place. Live, writhing power leaped through the
wire, snarling across partial breaks. The transformers began to hum. The
humming grew louder. Singing softly, the bronze globe over their heads
glowed green. Dave Miller felt a curious lightness. There was a snap in
his brain, and Erickson, Major and the laboratory faded from his senses.
Then came an interval when the only sound was the soft sobbing he had
been hearing as if in a dream. That, and blackness that enfolded him
like soft velvet. Then Miller was opening his eyes, to see the familiar
walls of his own kitchen around him!
Someone cried out.
"Dave! Oh, Dave, dear!"
It was Helen's voice, and it was Helen who cradled his head in her lap
and bent her face close to his.
"Oh, thank God that you're alive--!"
"Helen!" Miller murmured. "What--are--you--doing here?"
"I couldn't go through with it. I--I just couldn't leave you. I came
back and--and I heard the shot and ran in. The doctor should be here. I
called him five minutes ago."
"_Five minutes_ ... How long has it been since I shot myself?"
"Oh, just six or seven minutes. I called the doctor right away."
Miller took a deep breath. Then it _must_ have been a dream. All
that--to happen in a few minutes-- It wasn't possible!
"How--how could I have botched the job?" he muttered. "I wasn't drunk
enough to miss myself completely."
Helen looked at the huge revolver lying in the sink.
"Oh, that old forty-five of Grandfather's! It hasn't been loaded since
the Civil War. I guess the powder got damp or something. It just sort of
sputtered instead of exploding properly. Dave, promise me something!
You won't ever do anything like this again, if I promise not to nag
you?"
Dave Miller closed his eyes. "There won't be any need to nag, Helen.
Some people take a lot of teaching, but I've had my lesson. I've got
ideas about the store which I'd been too lazy to try out. You know, I
feel more like fighting right now than I have for years! We'll lick 'em,
won't we, honey?"
Helen buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and cried softly.
Her words were too muffled to be intelligible. But Dave Miller
understood what she meant.
* * * * *
He had thought the whole thing a dream--John Erickson, the "time
impulsor" and Major. But that night he read an item in the _Evening
Courier_ that was to keep him thinking for many days.