So the young man had been lying, Mahler thought with regret. The two-way rig was an utter impossibility. The youth had merely been playing a game with his captors. There couldn’t be a two-way rig, because the past had never been in any way influenced by the future.

Mahler examined the rig. There were two dials on it—the conventional forward dial and another indicating backward travel. Whoever had prepared the incredible hoax had gone to considerable trouble to document it. Why?

Could it be that the jumper had been telling the truth? Mahler wished that he could somehow test the rig immediately. There was always the one slim chance that it might actually work, and that he would no longer have to be a rigid dispenser of justice. Absolutely Inflexible Mahler!

He looked at it. As a time machine, it was fairly crude. It made use of the standard distorter pattern, but the dial was the clumsy wide-range 24th-Century one. The vernier system, Mahler reflected, had not been introduced until the 25th Century.

Mahler peered closer to read the instruction label. PLACE LEFT HAND HERE. it said. He studied it carefully. The ghost of a thought wandered into his mind. He pushed it aside in horror, but it recurred. It would be so simple. What if he should—

No.

But—

PLACE LEFT HAND HERE.

He reached out tentatively with his left hand.

Be careful now. No sense in being reckless—

PLACE LEFT HAND HERE.
PRESS DIAL.

He placed his left hand lightly on the indicated place. There was a little crackle of electricity. He let go, quickly and started to replace the time rig when the desk abruptly faded out from under him.