Wasting no time, Gordo Lanson rapidly began his check tests with the
drycell, calling out his readings to Malherne who noted them down on
the white wall.
Meanwhile, Randall was determined to find out definitely what had
happened to the McMahons. Calling McClellan, he left the Time Trap
laboratory and led the way to the operating room. No trace of any form
there.
From room to room they searched. Finally they arrived at the council
room door. Randall opened it and stepped in, McClellan close behind
him. What he saw brought the gorge to his throat, inured though he was
to dealing in violence.
It was quite apparent that Jackson had failed to sell the Kralon
Council the truth of his innocence. Their final acts had been to exact
retribution.
* * * * *
Slowly the two men turned away, then continued their search for some
sign of the McMahons. And Randall knew then, with a sudden flash of
insight, that the phase of the future to which he and his companions
would soon return would not know the names of Blake Garnet, Jerome
Jackson, or Charles and Evelyn McMahon. He knew with an esoteric
knowledge that in that particular future there would have been just
seven Diamvator passengers and himself scheduled on the historic
trip. And he was somehow sure that the passenger check list would
substantiate that count.
For it would be an alternate phase of the future, rather than the
one in which those people had, or might have existed. Those four
personalities would henceforth exist only as a memory in his mind. And
perhaps it wouldn't even be strictly a memory. Perhaps it would be a
dream; an ephemeral and elusive link between alternate potential Time
phases.
There was a fantastic thought! Perhaps all dreams were but vague links
between Time potentials or alternate phases.
Then Randall impatiently thrust aside the fanciful theories and turned
to the search.
The room he and McClellan now entered was quite obviously a genetics
research laboratory. And it was there that they found unmistakable
evidence of the two young McMahons.
They examined the grisly proof that the young couple had been
victimized by vicious Kralon experiments. Apparently the research was
aimed at the use of human gene-determinants in synthesizing a greater
Kralon race.
In the next room Randall found a case filled with metallic sheets
covered with hieroglyphics. Feeling that the records might hold
information of value to Zor Ala and Lanson, the agent removed the first
sheet and took it with him.
Back in the Time Trap room he called it to Zor Ala's attention, and
while Lanson and Malherne were busily completing their transpositions
and calibrations, the future-man excitedly examined the record.
"It's written in Ulla!" he cried. "The Universal written language
adopted in the 30th Century for documentary purposes. Where did you
find it?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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