to tamper with one. A wrong move when fooling with such a tremendous amount of energy might be disastrous, and perhaps that was exactly what the old Martian had planned for him to do! On the other hand, it didn't seem possible that a machine could run forever.

There should be plenty of ways to keep himself occupied and his mind busy while he waited....

He began reading the magazines scattered about the apartment. There was only time to read a few pages, but he mentally noted the page number during each cycle and when the succeeding interval began, he opened the magazine to that exact page and continued....

The ruby rolled across the table and....

The preceding cycles seemed like an eternity when he looked back upon them. He had read every magazine from cover to cover, watched every television program and listened to every radio program countless times until he had them memorized word for word. He had worked the crossword puzzles in the newspaper several times and explored every square inch of the apartment.

He had no more ideas so he tried to sleep....

He knew it was useless: during each ten-minute interval, he had time to walk from the chair to the davenport, close his eyes and relax his body. But then, at the moment when he was about to fall asleep, he would always find himself in the tediously familiar chair.

He hoped he would grow tired and be able to fall asleep, but finally realized it was impossible. Since the machine influenced the space-time continuum and the same ten-minute interval in time was always repeated, all physical things in space were exactly as they had been at the beginning of the cycle. His body had been refreshed at the beginning of the original cycle and it would always be in the same condition. He would never grow older, he would never become hungry and he would never become tired physically.

Desperate for a way to overcome boredom, he used the bottle of whiskey in the kitchen. After several attempts, he discovered to his dismay that there were ways to get violently sick from gulping liquor but no possible way to get drunk in ten minutes!

He sat through endless cycles staring at the empty air; began to have wild thoughts and knew he was on the verge of insanity. And if he were losing the fight with boredom, he might as well try the other alternative: break the machine and hope it wouldn't blow up 

 Prev. P 5/11 next