Tansie cried: "No, Les!" She ran to take his hands from the open hatch.
He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "You'll be all right," he said softly; "it is a chance we must take!"
"But—" she said uncertainly, and stopped because of the roar that came from behind.
"Ackerman!" bellowed Tod Laplane. "He's removing the original temperon!"
"If he does!" swore Barry Ford, "We'll not exist!"
Their private fight forgotten, both factions turned and hurled themselves at Ackerman.
Eight people to one—and Tansie Lee still against his purpose to boot; he shook her free and reached, missed and tried again.
The roar of noise stopped. Ackerman caught it out of the corner of one eye. Tansie Lee still believed that the removal of the temperon and the resulting correction of the "time-split" would make her non-existant, but she was standing there with a wicked-looking shotgun poised across one shapely hip. If she fired, the kick would turn her around, and Tansie knew it, for she was pointing the gun to her left. The second shot would sweep the right side of the room, and the chances were excellent that no one would be much alive after the third.
Limbo—the land of non-existance—might be her lot, but until she left here, no one was going to harm Les Ackerman.
He shook all thoughts from his mind and reached again. And this time he touched it!