"Selective? How?"
"You'll destroy man, but the rest will live. They may evolve into something better."
"If you say so, Doctor." Roy's devotion to duty was a well-worn path. "Assuming you have the machine and I can operate it."
"The machine is merely an attachment. It will plug into the instrument panel of your spacecraft. It operates automatically."
"Good enough. You always were a whiz at these things. How far back do I go? And who do I kill?"
"I want you to strafe the Ark, exercising care not to hurt any of the animals," said old Dr. Garfield Gar.
"Noah's Ark?" Pilot Officer Roy Vanjan asked. "You mean during the Flood?"
"Yes, I've computed it exactly. You won't have to worry about getting there at the wrong time."
"You mean after the forty days' rain, so I'll have good visibility. Good-o." He agreed readily and he'd do as the doctor said, of course, but he permitted a trace of skepticism in his inflection and a searching look into his goblet.
"No, not the fortieth day," Dr. Gar said, "but in what we are told was the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month. The animals need dry land. I have it all figured out."