"I gimmicked the machine. That's what happened. Surprise, huh? I'll bet they were plenty surprised too."
"But I thought—"
Dolan sat up and felt tenderly of his throat. He nodded. "I know," he said. "You thought they had me licked. So did they. That was just smoke-screen, a little diversion. I knew they could out-smart me if I tried to pull anything foxy, that's their trade. But they weren't really mind-readers, you told me that, and the business with the notes cinched it.
"And they didn't think like technicians. They could see I might disable the machine, or booby-trap it; but they couldn't see I could fix it so it would work, only just a little different.
"All I had to do was to keep their minds on their own specialty, let them wear out their suspicion on the little foxy tricks they expected, so they wouldn't notice what I was really doing. See?"
She shook her head. "No," she said. "I do not see. I suppose I'm stupid, too—"
"Not stupid. Just not technically minded. You understand, this machine works by setting up a field around itself, ordinarily that field's circular, it takes in everything in a certain radius. But it doesn't have to be, that's just because it's the easiest way, more convenient. So I just distorted the field a little, made it lopsided. Then I went through all that other business to keep their minds on me, keep them off your position, and make sure they both stayed over on my side." He smiled at her. "I told you, remember, in this time the villains always get it in the neck, the boy gets the girl, and they live happily ever after."
She shook her head. "No," she said gently. "I'm sorry, for you and me there will not be any ever after. You forget the displacement effect."
"Displacement effect?"
"Yes," she said. "I am afraid I did not explain that fully to you, I thought it would only hurt you to do so. You understand, the past is really immutable, we only seem to change it. For the time that the time-translator exists at any given time in the past, a sort of enclave, a self-supporting bubble, is established which permits apparent changes. When the time translator returns to its normal existence in my era, that bubble dissolves. I do not know, in terms of our present subjective time, just how long the displacement will hold, but when it vanishes we, you and I, will no longer exist."