"If I can find it again...."

He turned to his dials.

"That's one of our problems," Captain Marks said. "Once we focus on a crime, it's sometimes hard to locate it again. The time interval between the present and the time the crime is committed keeps getting less. It takes a different adjustment each time...."

His voice trailed away, and I looked from Walker to the six-foot-square screen above his head. Shadows flitted about on the screen. A female shadow walking along the street holding a child shadow by the hand. Shadow aircars moving along jerkily. A row of male shadows grotesquely posed along a bar, their glasses making bright blotches in the picture. A room, and a female shadow moving around a table. The future revealed by Cronus was a shadow world and the only way you could tell male from female was by their dress.

The scene kept shifting. A park, with trees, and lounging adults, and running children. A room with people seated around a table, a reading room, perhaps at the public library. A large living room, with an old-fashioned fireplace, and a bright blotch that was the fire. Another smaller room, a female shadow....

"That's it!" Walker said suddenly. He moved a motion picture camera into position, and pressed a button. It whirred softly as we watched.

A nondescript living room. A female shadow. She threw up her hands and stood transfixed for a horrible moment or two. A male shadow bounded into the picture—a giant male shadow. She turned to run, and he caught her from behind. His hand moved upward. Something glittered in it, and he brought it down. He struck twice, and the female crumpled to the floor. He whirled, ran toward us, and disappeared. The camera ground on, recording the image of that shapeless shadow on the floor.

Abruptly the scene changed. A restaurant, with crowded tables and jerkily moving robot-servers. Walker swore softly and turned off the camera.

"That's all I got before," he said. "If I could come on it from a different angle, maybe we could locate the place."

"When?" the Captain asked.

"Seven to twelve days."

It hit me, then, like a solid wallop on the jaw. I'd been looking into the future.

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