A moment passed, then another, and there was the heavy, solid clanging thud of something striking metal. This time the thud was not in space, but a commonplace noise, as if someone had dropped a tool on the floor above.
Russ turned around and stared at Wilson. Wilson stared back, his mouth hanging open, the smoldering, cigarette dangling from his mouth.
"Greg!” Russ shouted, his cry shattering the silence in the laboratory.
A door burst open and Manning stepped into the main laboratory room, a calculation pad in one hand, a pencil in the other.
"What's the matter?” he demanded.
"We have to find my wrench!"
"Your wrench?” Greg was puzzled. “Can't you get another?"
"I dropped it into the field. Its time-dimension was reduced to zero. It became an ‘instantaneous wrench'."
"Nothing new in that,” said Greg, unruffled.
"But there is,” persisted Russ. “The field collapsed, you see. Maybe the wrench was too big for it to handle. And when the field collapsed the wrench gained a new time-dimension. I heard it. We have to find it."