Hewett threw a switch and electricity arced from the transformer in the comer, the mechanical howl turned to a scream while banks of tubes flashed brilliantly and the air filled with the smell of ozone.

The beer bottle flickered briefly and the roar of the apparatus died away.

“Did you see the displacement? Dramatic wasn’t it?” The professor glowed with self-appreciation and pulled a length of paper marked with squiggles of ink out of a recording machine. “Here it is, on the record. That bottle traveled back seven microseconds in time then returned to the present. In spite of what my enemies say the machine is a success. My vremeatron—from vreme, the Serbo-Croatian for ‘time,’ in honor of my maternal grandmother, who was from —is a workable time machine.”

L.M. sighed and turned to the stairs. “A nut,” he said.

“Hear him out, L.M., the professor has some ideas. It is only because he has been turned down by all the foundations in his requests for funds that he will even consider working with us. All he needs is some finance to jazz his machine up.”

“There’s one born every minute. Let’s go.”

“Just listen to him,” Barney pleaded. “Let him show you the one where he sends the beer bottle into the future. This is too impressive to ignore.”

“There is a temporal barrier in any motion towards the future, I must explain that carefully. Displacement toward the future requires infinitely more energy than displacement into the past. However, the effect still operates—if you will watch the bottle closely.”

Once again the miracle of electronic technology clashed with the forces of time and the air crackled with the discharge. The beer bottle flickered, ever so slightly.

“So long.” L.M. started up the stairs. “And P.S., Barney, you’re fired.”