Page:Amazing Stories Volume 10 Number 13.djvu/53

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HE three commissars of Soverg, Soviet Bureau of Energy stared at the strange scene before them with dazed expressions of disbelief.

Peter Mikhailloff, his white hair and beard bristling with excitement, turned to the three inspectors and nodded in greeting.

"My respected Comrades. I am serious, and though over eighty, am in full possession of my senses, when I say that I will now demonstrate to your satisfaction that my colleagues and I have succeeded in partially controlling time!"

Illytch Marenin rubbed his fat chin nervously and turned to his companions. "Comrade Commissars, I fear we are wasting time. Besides—our very lives are in danger. These people are playing with voltages running up into the millions—"

"Just a moment, Marenin," broke in his fellow-inspector Boris Sarakhan. "Comrade Mikhailloff has excellent sponsors. Even Comrade Mina Boyarsky of our Secret Police, the Gay Pay Oo, supports his claims."

All eyes turned to the slight, dark-eyed brunette who was taking notes calmly, in one corner of the room. She looked up and flashed a dazzling smile to a tall, blond young American who was busily lacing a strange-looking pair of sandals on his feet.

"Comrades," she began in a steady voice. "I have the fullest confidence in Comrade Mikhailloff's statements. For fifty years he has labored to perfect his theories. Every ruler of Russia, from Alexander II to our own Secretary-General Joseph Stalin, has supported him, and but a few months ago, I witnessed an experiment where two of his colleagues, Comrade Vassily Khalin and this young American engineer, Earl Lyons were projected into space—"

"My daughter," interrupted Mikhailloff quietly, "Allow me to explain to the inspectors. It will be easier.

"Years ago, I found that by bombarding a constant magnetic field through which coils of wire are moved so as to generate in the latter an alternating current, with high voltages; it was possible to remove the fourth dimension, the time element, from any organic or inorganic object!"

The inspectors gasped in bewilderment. Marenin's heavy face paled.

"Y-you m-mean," he stammered, "you could remove it from the present!"

The old scientist nodded. "It would still retain the three dimensions of length, breadth and thickness, but would no longer exist in the present