The clacking voice was regretful but positive. I felt a thin, cold edge running up and down my spine. Now I look back upon it, I think I guessed what Garrity was saying even before Biggs turned to us, his eyes wide with sympathy and sorrow.
"My friends," he said in a choked voice, "forgive me for what I must say. Your lot is irrevocably cast with ours. The strain on the motors has burnt out several vital units. There is not time enough now to repair them. The temporal deflector is—useless!"
That was a jolt. The way my several comrades took the message was the measure of their characters. Hallowell cried out sharply, began to scream protests in a frightened voice until Prexy—fat, staid, stuffy old H. Logan, himself—silenced him with a backhander across the mouth.
"That will do, Hallowell!" snapped MacDowell. And he seemed to grow three inches. It was a mile in my estimation. "I think, Lieutenant Biggs," he said, "we need no further apologies. We are not afraid to die with you."
I forgot to dislike the old guy then. I loved him a little bit for that. And I liked Tomkins' reaction, too. The little observatory technician sighed wistfully.
"It's too bad, though. I should have liked to take back to our time a knowledge of some of the marvels we have seen here."
The detective said nothing. He still didn't seem to know what the hell it was all about. But Helen MacDowell was as game as her old man.
She said, "We're not licked yet. I still think Hank—I mean, Mr. Cleaver—will find a way out of this."
Biggs said gently, "I'm afraid not, Mrs. Cleaver. This is the end for all of us."
Helen's eyes darkened suddenly.