He submitted, without letting go of either his gun or brief case.
"You seem to be in good shape, as nearly as I can tell from a superficial examination. But don't you want to reconsider this twenty-year arrangement? I can't change the setting once you're in the chair, you know. Are you sure you understand that the only thing affected will be your own subjective experience, that time will go on just as it always has, but that you won't be aware of anything between now and twenty years from now?"
"Sure. You told me that three-four times already. What are you trying to do? Stall till help gets here?" Slick asked suspiciously.
"I'm not stalling," the doctor said. "In fact, I'm only too glad to find someone to whom the present means so little that he's willing to go into a twenty-year blank. But ethics insist that I warn you."
He turned the switch to the twenty-year mark.
"I'm ready," he said.
"Whaddya mean, warn me?" Slick snapped. "Is this thing booby trapped?"
"Certainly not. I have merely tried to explain that it is not exactly what you anticipated—"
"You know what I'm drivin' at. Have you got the machine set to electrocute me or explode the grenade? A lot of you respectable citizens don't figure a guy like me is exactly human. You wouldn't call it murder to rub me out. You'd think you was doin' the town a favor."
"Some people would, perhaps, but I'm a doctor, not a judge. I've spent my life trying to find out what makes men like you act as they do, not in devising means of punishing them. But even if I wanted to do you bodily harm, I couldn't. The machine has a built-in safety factor."