"Got him!" cried his great-grandson. "Now get Peccary!"
Three shots rang out as one. But at some point in the bullets' flight toward Peccary and Staghorn, the square and everything in it vanished.
Staghorn found himself sitting in Humanac's transmitter unit.
The time clock had functioned. He was disengaged.
He lifted the helmet from his head and stumbled from the cell, drawing a trouser leg up to examine his leg. It seemed that he could detect a scar. Then he turned and helped Dr. Peccary from the other transmitter. Both men stepped toward the console to look at Humanac's screen.
It was still focused on the little park. The bearded man and his companions were now exchanging glances of consternation. After a moment the bearded man wet his lips. "Maybe he was right," he said in awed tones. "No one but my great-grandfather could ever do a trick like that. And maybe what he said is true. It's all illusion. We're nothing but mathematical probabilities!"
At this point Staghorn hauled down the master switch. The screen went dead as Humanac's power was shut off.
Some twenty minutes later he had finished draining Dr. Peccary's sample of the Y Hormone from Humanac's analyzer and had thoroughly cleansed the computer of any last traces of it. He handed the little bottle of the hormone back to Dr. Peccary.
"There," he said. "As far as Humanac is concerned, it's as though it never was. Do as you wish."