"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."

Erickson nodded wisely. "Perhaps we will find the precedent hasn't
really been set! But no matter--" His lifted hand stopped Miller's
eager, wondering exclamation. "The point is, young man, we three are in
a tough spot, and it's up to us to get out of it. And not only we, but
heaven knows how many others the world over!"

"Would you--maybe you can explain to my lay mind what's happened,"
Miller suggested.

"Of course. Forgive me. You see, Mr.--"

"Miller. Dave Miller."

"Dave it is. I have a feeling we're going to be pretty well acquainted
before this is over. You see, Dave, I'm a nut on so-called 'time
theories.' I've seen time compared to everything from an entity to a
long, pink worm. But I disagree with them all, because they postulate
the idea that time is constantly being manufactured. Such reasoning is
fantastic!

"Time exists. Not as an ever-growing chain of links, because such a
chain would have to have a tail end, if it has a front end; and who can
imagine the period when time did not exist? So I think time is like a
circular train-track. Unending. We who live and die merely travel around
on it. The future exists simultaneously with the past, for one instant
when they meet."

* * * * *

Miller's brain was humming. Erickson shot the words at him
staccato-fashion, as if they were things known from Great Primer days.
The young druggist scratched his head.

"You've got me licked," he admitted. "I'm a stranger here, myself."

"Naturally you can't be expected to understand things I've been all my
life puzzling about. Simplest way I can explain it is that we are on a
train following this immense circular railway.

"When the train reaches the point where it started, it is about to
plunge into the past; but this is impossible, because the point where it
started is simply the caboose of the train! And that point is always
ahead--and behind--the time-train.

"Now, my idea was that with the proper stimulus a man could be thrust
across the diameter of this circular railway to a point in his past.
Because of the nature of time, he could neither go ahead of the train to
meet the future nor could he stand still