Laurie looked puzzled. "I don't get it."
Calvin turned to his daughter. "We've got to hurry," he said; "we've got to meet Lester Ackerman and Tansie Lee, take Ackerman to the edge of time to see the destruction of our world."
"Then it is to be destroyed?" said Laurie fearfully.
"It is only an excellent probability," said her father. "That may—it please God—be averted. Come."
8
Ackerman ran to the laboratory and climbed into another 'time-vehicle'. He drove it through "time" and "space" as fast as he could, returning to the forest area where he had sent the group back. Once there, he pursued a blind train forward in "time", hurrying to catch them.
Swiftly he moved, but as fast as he was, they were always lost ahead of him. In effect, their return was instantaneous, but so was his flight across the years. It was only to Ackerman that "time" seemed to hang heavily as he drove futureward, stopping at regular intervals to see through the gray haze that covered up the outside when the vehicle was in motion.
At long last he saw them, but only for an instant and then through a fading fog.
Again he saw them, hurried ahead of them and waited. They re-appeared in the same postures of their leaving, were present for a bare instant, and then were gone again.