«But what about Jimmy?»
«I’m pretty busy right now,» replied Androvitch. «I couldn’t possibly do anything for a few days—»
«Is there anyone else who could do the work?» asked Hart.
Androvitch shook his head. «No other person,» he said. «I do not confide in others. Once a Time-tunnel has been established, it is easy to operate the machine—that is, projecting the Time element further away from the present or bringing it closer to the present. The football players who have been brought here to play the game were in the present time over six months. But they will be returned to their own time at approximately the same hour they left it. That merely calls for a proper adjustment of the machine controlling the tunnel back into Time. But setting up a tunnel is something only I can do. It requires considerable technique, I assure you.»
Hart brought out a bill fold. He counted out bank notes.
«Tell me when to stop,» he said.
Androvitch wet his lips and watched the notes pile up on the table before him.
Finally he raised his hand.
«I will do it,» he said. «I will start work tomorrow.»
His hand reached out and clutched the notes.
«Thank you, Mr. Hart,» he said.
Hart nodded and turned to the door. Behind him the scientist greedily counted and re-counted the bills.
Rush Culver shook hands with Ash Anderson, football scout for Coach August Snelling.
«I’m glad I didn’t hang one on you that night you came into my room, Ash,» the fullback said. «This has been the thrill of a lifetime. Any time you fellows need another good fullback just come back and get me.»
Anderson smiled.
«Maybe we will if the Control Board doesn’t change the rules. They’ll probably rip Rule Eighteen all to hell now. And all because of a lousy newspaperman who had to spill the story. No loyalty, that’s what’s the matter with those guys. They’d cut their grandmas’ throats for a good story.»
The two stood awkwardly.
«Hate to say good-by,» said Rush. «One time I kind of thought I’d like to stay up ahead in your time. But there’s a girl back here. And this stuff you gave me will help us get settled soon as I graduate. Right clever, the way you fellows struck off old money.»
«They’ll never know the difference,» said Ash. «They’ll accept it as coin of the realm. The money we have up ahead wouldn’t help you any here. As long as we had agreed to pay you, we might as well give you something you can use.»
«Well, so long, Ash,» said Culver.
«So long,» said Ash.
Rush walked slowly down the street. The music hall clock tolled the hour.
Rush listened. Gone only an hour—and in that time he had lived over six months in the future. He jingled the coins in the sack he held in his hand and struck up a tune.
Then he wheeled suddenly.
«Ash—wait a minute! Ash!» he shouted.
But the man out of the future was gone.
Slowly Rush turned back down the street, heading for the house he had quitted less than 60 minutes before.
«Hell,» he said to himself, «I forgot to thank him for helping me with math.»
A tiny bell tinkled softly again and again.
Arthur Hart stirred uneasily in his sleep. The bell kept on insistently. The editor sat up in bed, ran his hands through his hair and growled. The ringing continued.
«The Morning Space-Ways,» he said. «Getting out an extra. Now just what in the double-dipped damnation would they be getting out an extra for?»
He pressed a lever and stepped up the intensity of the light in the room.
Walking to a machine, he snapped a button and shut off the ringing bell.
Opening the machine, he took from a receptacle within it a newspaper still wet with ink.
He glared at the second of the three news-delivery machines.
«If the Star beats the Rocket to an extra I’ll go down and take the place apart,» he snarled. «We been scooped too often lately. Probably isn’t worth an extra, though. Just Space-Ways doing a little more promotion work.»
Sleepily he unfolded the sheet and glanced at the headline.
It read:
«TIME MACHINE SCIENTIST SLAIN BY GANGSTERS»
Hart’s breath sobbed in his throat as his eyes moved down to the second deck.
«ALEXIS ANDROVITCH TORCHED ON STREET FROM SPEEDING CAR. POLICE BELIEVE MARS-EARTH GAME MAY BE CLUE.»
The Rocket news-delivery machine stormed into life. Another extra.
Hart snatched the paper from the machine.
He read:
«GANGSTERS SILENCE SCIENTIST ON EVE OF GAME HEARING»
Stunned, Hart sat down on the edge of the bed.
Androvitch was dead! The only man in the world who could set up a Time-tunnel to reach Jimmy!
It was all plain—plain as day. The gambling syndicate, afraid of what Androvitch might say, had effectively silenced him. Dead men do not talk.
Hart bowed his head in his hands.
«The best damn reporter I ever had,» he moaned.
He sprang to his feet as a thought struck him and rushed to the visaphone.
Hurriedly he set up a wave length.
The face of Coach August Snelling appeared in the glass.
«Say, coach,» said Hart breathlessly, «have you sent all the boys back to the past?»
«Hart,» said Coach Snelling in an even voice filled with cold wrath, «after the way the newspapers have crucified me I have nothing to say.»
«But, coach,» pleaded Hart, «I’m not asking you for publication. What you can tell me will never be printed. I want your help.»
«I needed your help the other day,» Snelling reminded him, «and you told me news was news. You said you owed it to your readers to publish every detail of any news story.»
«But a man’s life depends on this,» shouted Hart. «One of my reporters is back in the time where you trained the team. If I could use one of the other tunnels—one of those you used to bring the boys forward in Time—I could shoot it back to the correct time. Then I could travel to where Jimmy is and bring him back—»
«I’m telling you the truth when I say that the boys have all been sent back and all the tunnels are closed,» Snelling said. «The last player went back this afternoon.»
«Well,» said Hart slowly, «I guess that settles it—»
Snelling interrupted. «I heard about Russell,» he said, «and if he’s trapped back with those Indians it’s what I’d call poetic justice.»
The glass went black as Snelling cut the connection.
The Star machine bell hammered. Hart wearily shut off the extra signal and took out the paper.
«Hell,» he said, «if we’d had Jimmy here we’d have scooped even the Space-Ways on this yarn.»
He looked sadly at the three editions.
«Best damn reporter I ever knew,» the editor said.
Prof. Ebner White was lecturing to Elementary Astronomy, Section B.
«While there is reason to believe that Mars has an atmosphere,» he was saying, «there is every reason to doubt that the planet has conditions which would allow the existence of life forms. There is little oxygen in the atmosphere, if there is an atmosphere. The red color of the planet would argue that much of whatever oxygen may have been at one time in the atmosphere—»
At this point Prof. White was rudely interrupted.
A young man had risen slowly to his feet.
«Professor,» he said, «I’ve listened to you for the last half hour and have reached a conclusion you know nothing about what you are saying. I can tell you that Mars does have an atmosphere. It also has plenty of oxygen and other conditions favorable to life. In fact, there is life there—»