And beyond it was not the gloomily raftered feast-hall of a Nazi baron, with gray March outside its windows—but a woodland rich with high summer. A breeze stole in from that preposterous outdoors and brought warmth and scent of firs, and of something else.... Suddenly there was a crashing in the thicket, a thud of racing hooves. "A deer," said Manning stupidly. "Something must have scared it." Dugan, sweating with his back to the door, relaxed slightly.
Like an echo from behind Manning came a dry cackle of laughter. He faced about again; his glare stilled even the Herr Doktor's hysterical glee.
"All right, how'd you do it?" he snapped in English, then, with returning control: "Erklaren Sie das sogleich!"
"Gern," grinned the scientist. "This room, all of it, is my invention. It was built into the house, but when I closed the switch, it moved, and left the house behind."
"Where are we, then? No riddles!"
"It is simple enough. What you see outside is the world of the future—no longer future to us, but present, though about a hundred years removed from the 'present' which we have just left. This room is my time traveler—der Kahl'sche Zeitfahrer!"
Meantime Dugan had taken a look out the door. He said nothing, but his eyes grew larger and larger in a paling face. Manning told him, tersely and without comment, what Kahl claimed to have done; in his own mind he had already accepted it as truth, the only possible explanation for the seeming impossible. He said stonily to the German: "The demonstration of your invention is very interesting. But now we must deliver it to American Intelligence, who will appreciate your genius. Set the machine to take us back where we came from."
"I could not if I would," retorted Kahl. "Because of your interference, I had no opportunity to make adjustments. I merely threw the activating switch, and the Zeitfahrer exhausted its power before coming to a stop. You see, the switch is still closed. Only the field has collapsed as the batteries went dead."
There was a sound like a sob. It came from the hard-faced Wolfgang. The man's patent terror was more convincing than Kahl's assertions.
Manning eyed him coldly, inwardly surprised at his own reaction to the news that they were stranded. Perhaps he was still dazed by the incredible—but his chief emotion was a waxing excitement and wonder at the thought of seeing with his own eyes that world of the future about which people dreamed and speculated, cursing the shortness of their lives....