Ilaria's gun clicked and the Centurion shuddered back and fell through the door. The gamma burst from his pistol hit the wall.
"God! Is everyone a traitor?" Jay demanded of the Universe.
People are easily swayed. It didn't take them long to espouse the new cause. They were helped along in their decision by the Liberacione planes hovering overhead with loads of KCN-H2SO4 bombs. The whispering campaign Lamberti had carefully started about germ warfare helped, too. Those who didn't switch over rapidly were jumped by the new forces. Tribune Ilaria in Louisville, Kentucky, in America held out as long as he could. Then the bombers came. And the Tribune fled to the Time building.
The building shook. A table shivered and a lamp shattered. A jet fighter flew close by the window and the Centurion watched fearfully as it flipped on one delta wing and fired a tracer burst into a PR ship. The defender exploded in mid-air.
Ilaria looked twenty years older than the man who had smiled and welcomed Jay Welch to 2054. He and a young scientist were preparing the machine to send the man from 1954 back to his own time.
"You'll have to leave the gun here, Jay." Ilaria winced as he bent over a set of dials.
"I'd like to keep the uniform."
"All right. Does that do it, Doctor?"
The scientist nodded. He looked at Jay. "It's ready," he said.