Rebel in Time

It certainly did. The electrical fittings were most impressive. Wires thicker than his arm swung from gigantic ceramic insulators, looping down into the guts of hulking great machines. Most of the apparatus was grouped in the brightly-lit centre of the room — where the floor apparently bulged upwards. It wasn't a bulge, Troy saw when they walked closer, but a ridge of grey stone that projected up through the white concrete floor. Some of the machines were bolted to it, while others hung out over the stone on shining steel arms. A man in a laboratory smock was working at one of the machines; he turned around when Roxanne called out to him.

'Bob, you've got a visitor. Lieutenant Harmon, Doctor Kleiman. Troy, Bob.'

'My pleasure,' Kleiman said, wiping grease from his hand onto his already stained coat before extending it. They shook hands. Doctor Kleiman looked very much like the classic image of the scientist. His greying hair was raggedly cut and long overdue for a barber's attention. And his eyesight was bad; he blinked through bottle-thick lenses at Troy.

'If you are here to recruit me for the Army you are too late. I been four-F since I was born.' Troy smiled.

'You're safe,' he said. 'You don't look like cannon-fodder to me.'

'You betcha. So, since the purpose of this visit is not official — what is the purpose?'

'A demonstration,' Roxanne said. 'I thought Troy would understand the project better if he could see just what we are doing. Are you running any calibration set-ups?'

'Been doing them all day, and if you don't mind some self-adulation I will humbly tell you that I have added two more zeros to the right of the decimal point.'

'How wonderful!'

Roxanne almost clapped with joy and Troy almost wished that he too could get so excited by decimal points and zeros. But he knew better than to ask for an explanation.

'However, don't take my word for it,' Bob Kleiman said, turning to a computer terminal. 'Let me just feed in some info and I will show you. You, Troy, do you have a quarter with you? Admission to this show is two-bits. Good, thanks.'

Bob took the coin over to a workbench, laid it flat, gave it a few rasping strokes with a file, then handed it back.

'Look close,' he said. 'I've put a nick right behind the cute little bow on George's pigtail. Correct?'

'Right.'

'And the date on the coin is 1965. Is this coin unique enough so you will be able to recognize it again? Some people always claim they were tricked.'

'They could have been,' Troy said. 'I didn't notice the date when I gave you the quarter. You could have substituted another one just like this, and have a prepared duplicate as well.'

'You're right, this guy is a sharpy, Roxy, watch out for him. So do some additions yourself, Mister Sharpy. Take this knife and the coin and make it unique so you will be positive there is no hanky-panky.'

Troy scratched a cross on Washington's noble forehead then returned the quarter. Bob backed away from it, hands raised. 'No way, Sharpy,' he said. 'You put it down yourself, over there on top of the rock, on the laser spot. Otherwise you will claim that I palmed it.'

There was a flat area on top of the rock that was marked in the centre by a disc of ruby light. Troy laid the coin on the spot of light and stepped back.

'The experiment begins,' Bob said, throwing some switches, then squinting at the VDU screen of the computer to see the figures displayed there. He used them to set a different set of instruments. 'Done,' he said. 'If you people will kindly join me behind this insulated barrier we'll be able to avoid some of the sparks. That's it, on the rubber carpet, hold onto the brass rail at the same time. Troy, does that fancy Army turnip on your wrist have a stop-watch function?'

'Yes.'

'Okay. Switch it on and start it going when I hit the controls. Now!'

There was a sharp crackling in the air and a vivid display of coronal sparks from a number of metal surfaces. The effect died away very quickly and Bob led them back to the experiment area. The rock was bare.

'Where's your coin?' he asked.

'Gone.'

'You have keen eyes.'

'Thanks. But where did it go?'

'When did it go would be more grammatically exact. Keep watching. It should be exactly seventeen seconds. Now!'

The coin reappeared, there on the rock, looking as though it had never moved. Yet no one had gone near it; the nearest piece of apparatus was a good two feet away. Troy had pressed the button on his watch by reflex. He looked at it now. Seventeen point seven seconds. He reached out and picked up the coin. The nick was there, as was the cross. 1965.

'That's really great, Bob,' he said, closing his fist tightly on the coin. 'Now would you kindly tell me just what the hell happened?'