Ed Earl Repp

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ There was a heavy, brass-studded collar about the animal's neck, and Dave Miller read on its little nameplate: "Major."
"Well, Major, at least we've got company now," was Miller's sigh of relief.
For a long time he was too busy with the dog to bother about the sobbing noises. Apparently the dog failed to hear them, for he gave no sign. Miller scratched him behind the ear.
"What shall we do now, Major? Walk? Maybe your nose can smell out another friend for us." ”

“ And I did not know that only those who are hovering between life and death can deviate from the normal process of time!"
"You mean—we're dead!" Miller's voice was a bitter monotone.
"Obviously not. We're talking and moving, aren't we? But—we are on the fence. When I gave my impulsor the jolt of high power, it went wrong and I think something must have happened to me. At the same instant, you had shot yourself.
"Perhaps, Dave, you are dying. The only way for us to find out is to try to get the machine working and topple ourselves one way or the other. If we fall back, we will all live. ”

“ He returned to the front of the house, shambling like a somnambulist. Seated on the porch steps, head in hands, he slipped into a hell of regrets. He knew now that his suicide had been no hallucination. He was dead, all right; and this must be hell or purgatory.
Bitterly he cursed his drinking, that had led him to such a mad thing as suicide. ”

“ No woman minds that if she feels she is really helping her husband over a rough spot. When business went bad a year ago, I told you I was ready to help in any way I could. But you haven't let me. You quit fighting when things got difficult, and put in all your money and energy on liquor and horses and cards. I could stand being married to a drunkard, Dave, but not to a coward ..."
So she was trying to show him. But Miller told himself he'd show her instead. Coward, eh? Maybe this would teach her a lesson! Hell of a lot of help she'd been! Nag at him every time he took a drink. ”

“ The impulsor isn't that powerful. I can understand about the dog, poor fellow. He must have been run over, and I caught him just at the instant of passing from life to death."
"Oh!" Dave Miller lifted his head, knowing now what Erickson was driving at. "Well, I may as well be frank. I'm—I committed suicide. That's how drunk I was. There hasn't been a suicide in the Miller family in centuries. It took a skinful of liquor to set the precedent." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Police, however, discount this idea, as there was a roll of wire only a few feet from the body.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Obviously this electric time impulsor is a machine in the nature of an atomic integrator. It "broadcasts" great waves of electrons which align all atomic objects in rigid suspension.
That is to say, atomic structures are literally "frozen." Living bodies are similarly affected. It is a widely held belief on the part of many eminent scientists that all matter, broken down into its elementary atomic composition, is electrical in structure. ”

“ 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. ”