Mists of Dawn (10 page)

Doctor
Nye
led
him
across
the
basement
floor
and paused
at
a
heavy
metal
door
set
in
the
lead
wall.
He opened
the
combination
lock
and
shoved
the
door open.
As
it
swung
back,
a
clear
white
light
was switched
on
inside
the
room.
With
a
strange,
tense feeling
that
he
did
not
understand,
Mark
followed
his uncle
into
the
room.

“There
it
is,
Mark,”
Doctor
Nye
said
quietly.
“The space-time
machine.”

The
space-time
machine
almost
completely
filled
the small
room.
Gleaming
dully
under
the
white
light,
it resembled
nothing
more
than
what
it
was—a
gray lead
sphere
fifteen
feet
across.
Its
dull
high
lights seemed
to
pulse
with
faint
shadows
of
life,
as
though tremendous
sleeping
energies
hung
suspended
in
the metal,
waiting.
Waiting
for
the
touch
of
man
to
burst into
flaming
strength
and
power.

Doctor
Nye
threw
a
switch
in
the
side
of
the
sphere and
a
circular
section
of
metal
slid
back
with
a
faint hissing
sound.
The
interior
of
the
machine
glowed gently
with
soft
light.
“After
you,
Mark.”
Doctor
Nye smiled.
“Be
careful
not
to
touch
anything.”

With
infinite
care,
Mark
Nye
stepped
up
through
the circular
entry
port
and
into
the
sphere.
He
felt
cold sweat
in
the
palms
of
his
hands.
He
told
himself
that there
was
nothing
to
worry
about,
but
he
knew
too much
about
the
awful
energies
imprisoned
inside
the atom—he
had
a
healthy
respect
for
the
compact
atomic pile
that
took
up
one
whole
side
of
the
lead
sphere.

There
was
not
a
great
deal
of
room
in
the
sphere,
but it
was
not
crowded;
indeed,
since
the
supplies
for
their 
backward
trip
in
time
had
not
yet
been
placed
in
the machine,
it
was
virtually
empty.
There
were
no
chairs. On
one
side
of
the
sphere,
opposite
the
power
source, a
control
panel
had
been
built
up
some
four
feet
from the
bottom
of
the
machine.

Hanging
from
a
projection
in
one
wall
was
a
belt holding
a
holstered
.45
automatic.
Mark
Nye
noted
the gun
with
quick
understanding.
His
uncle
had
carried the
.45
in
the
First
World
War,
when
he
had
been
an infantry
captain.
It
had
saved
his
life
more
than
once, and
he
had
kept
the
gun
near
him
through
the
years, both
as
a
sentimental
good-luck
charm
and
as
a
practical
means
of
defense
in
a
long
and
active
life.

“So
this
is
our
time
machine,”
Mark
said
finally.
“It makes
me
feel
so
little
.
.
.”

“That
is
because
you
don’t
understand
it,”
Doctor Nye
told
him.
He
pulled
out
his
pipe
again,
filled
it with
tobacco,
and
lit
it.
He
blew
a
smoke
ring
at
the control
panel
and
smiled.
“We
always
fear
what
we
do not
understand,
Mark,”
he
said.
“I
can’t,
of
course, make
entirely
clear
to
you
the
physics
and
mathematics involved,
but
I
can
explain
it
more
fully
than
I
have before.
It
is
essential
that
you
understand
what
we
are doing
before
we
start
out.”

Mark
sat
cross-legged.
“Fire
away,”
he
said.

“The
idea
of
traveling
through
time
has
fascinated mankind
for
centuries,”
Doctor
Nye
began,
puffing slowly
on
his
pipe.
His
eyes
had
a
faraway
look
in them,
the
way
some
men’s
eyes
seem
when
they
look at
the
stars.
“It
is
customary
to
say
that
it
has
never been
done,
but
that
isn’t
true.”

Mark
looked
at
his
uncle,
wondering.
Not
true?
But that
could
only
mean—

“The
point
most
people
forget
is
that
we
are
all
time travelers,”
Doctor
Nye
explained.
“Each
and
every
one of
us,
every
second
of
the
day
or
night,
travels
through time.
Even
as
I
speak,
I
am
moving
forward
in
time, so
to
speak.
When
we
came
in
out
of
the
storm,
it
was seven-thirty.
Now
it
is
eight-fifteen.
We
have
traveled forty-five
minutes
forward
in
time—into
the
future,
if you
care
to
look
at
it
that
way.
In
a
sense,
the
world itself
is
a
great
time
machine.
We
are
all
moving
into the
future,
all
the
time.”

“I
never
thought
of
it
that
way
before,”
Mark
admitted,
feeling
the
lead
sphere
all
around
him,
waiting
…

“But
to
go
back
into
the
past—to
go
from
eight-fifteen to
seven-thirty—that
is
something
else
again,”
his
uncle continued.
“That
has
never
been
done,
as
far
as
I
know. But
we’ll
do
it,
you
and
I!
I
know
we
can,
and
I
know that
it
will
be
safe,
or
I
would
not
consider
taking
you along.
You’re
all
I
have
in
the
world,
Mark—all
that matters
to
me.
I
would
rather
share
this
moment
with you
than
with
any
friend
I
have,
and
I
know
you
won’t let
me
down.
You’ve
worked
hard,
you’ve
learned
a
lot, and
I
know
I
can
depend
on
you
to
do
as
I
say.
Even science
has
its
human
side,
you
know,
and
this
is
one dream
that
I
do
not
care
to
share
with
anyone
else.”