h 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 jer