Swift rubbed his startled eyes.
The husky voice of the doctor took up a brief explanation, a word of warning.
“Time,” he said, “is an illusion of the senses. Space is an illusion. If there’s anything in infinity as an established fact, then there can be no limit to either time or space. To think of something that has no limit, yet has an existence, is absurd. Our finite minds place a limit on everything. So does existence.
“Therefore, the limitation of space and of time are the limitations and fallacies of the mind. It’s like a single tube radio set. It has a limited range. That doesn’t mean the radio waves that it receives are limited to that field. Same way with the human mind.
“Now some organisms live much more rapidly than others. Their concept of time is so radically different that the life energy is used up in a few hours.
“Naturally, if one could determine the particular gland which controls that time element it would be possible either to speed up life or slow it down. The dog uses up his allotted life energy in seven or, ten years, the horse in a longer time. And there are cell organisms that live but a few hours.
“There’s no time for details. You wouldn’t understand them, anyway. But the point I’m making is that the extract I am able to furnish doesn’t do anything to give new energy. It simply directs the speed with which the existing energy is burned up. So you’ve got to be careful of the dosage. It’s barely possible that one could take a sufficient dose to live up a whole lifetime in five minutes.
“The effect of this extract is to speed up everything. It wears off as quickly as it takes effect. The muscles, the nerves, the brain, the heart, all function according to the new scheme of things. And your strength is multiplied accordingly.
“We don’t know what strength is. Take the elbow, for instance. It’s a fulcrum for the forearm. The raised forearm is a lever of the third class. The power is applied but a few inches from the fulcrum. Yet a strong man can raise a fifty-to eighty-pound weight in his hand without difficulty.
“Take a pencil and paper, calculate the moments of force and you’ll see that this calls for an utterly incredible amount of power to be applied to the forearm. In fact the bone wouldn’t stand such a strain. Take the forearm of a cadaver, put such a weight in it and raise it by mechanical means and the bone snaps.
“Therefore strength has something mental about it. The mind acts on the molecular structure in some way. Gravitation is the tendency of the molecules of all matter to draw together in proportion to the mass. Because of the greater mass of the earth it attracts an object many millions of times more than the object attracts the earth.”
The doctor ceased speaking and glared at Art with a look of hostility.
“Damn it, your mouth has flopped open as though the whole thing was strange to you. I’ve repeatedly warned those who sent you to see that this preliminary ground was covered first. I can’t be running a kindergarten here!
“Now here’s a box. That box contains two dozen little capsules and one big capsule. The little capsules contain enough of the extract to speed up your physical and mental processes at the rate of one hundred to one. Each capsule terminates in a hollow needle. When you are about to make use of a capsule take a deep breath, insert the needle, squeeze the capsule.
“Within the space of three deep breaths you will find your processes speeded up. You will move, think, breathe, talk one hundred times faster than normal. The small capsules last for about thirty seconds. Then the effects wear off. During that half minute you have lived fifty minutes of your normal life at a rate one hundred times as rapid as ordinary. Remember that your fast motions will be utterly invisible to ordinary eyes. If you talk, your speech will be unintelligible.
“It will be advisable to take two or three preliminary doses so you can accustom yourself to your new rate of life, and be able to gauge your motions accordingly.
“Now the big capsule is to be used only in the event of a major emergency. Every man is similarly equipped. It will speed up your life at the ratio of five hundred to one.”
There was an imperative pounding at the door which led to the reception room. Dr. Cassius Zean stifled an impatient exclamation, and wheezed his way to the door.
“I’m busy,” he said.
The girl’s voice that drifted through the panels contained some note of alarm. Art Swift could not hear the words. The doctor shot the bolt. The surgical nurse appeared in the crack of the open doorway. Art Swift kept his back turned.
There was the hissing of a sibilant whisper.
“Very well. I’ll attend to it at once,” said the doctor.
The nurse turned, paused, swung back. Art Swift could feel her eyes upon him.
“Turn around!” she cried.
Art turned, and, as he turned, he took a swift step toward the pair.
The girl’s eyes burned into his own. Her lips parted in a screamed warning. “He’s a spy!”
Dr. Cassius Zean flung a hand toward his hip.
The girl jumped into the room and kicked the door shut. Her face was chalky white, the lips a thin line of grim determination.
“A knife!” she cried. “No noise!”
But Dr. Zean was lugging a heavy revolver from his hip pocket.
Art Swift was unarmed. The girl was coming toward him, fury blazing from her eyes. The doctor was raising the revolver.
Art made a wild leap.
The girl went through the air and tackled him with outstretched arms, a tackle that would have done credit to a football star. Despite himself, the surprise of the attack, the weight of her hurtling form, threw Swift from his feet. He staggered, tried to catch his balance and crashed to the floor.
“Crack him!” he heard the girl say.
He saw Dr. Zean’s arm upraised, bringing down the weapon in a crushing blow, and flung up his knees, swung to one side.
The blow missed.
“Then shoot him, quick!” yelled the girl. “He’s breaking my grip!”
Even as she screamed the words, her hands slipped from the struggling body, and Art Swift lunged out with a circling arm, caught the ankle of the pudgy doctor, and gave a jerk. The foot slipped, the ankle gave, and the huge bulk came down with a thud. The girl’s hands had been busy. She was scratching at his face, biting, kicking.
Art rolled over, got to one knee, heedless of the fury of the nurse. He swung his right arm. The fist connected with the purpled jaw, but, even as he struck the blow, Swift realized that something was wrong. The flesh he hit was the color of fresh putty. The lips were blued, parted, gasping. The tongue protruded. Dr. Zean’s heart had given out, the excitement proving too much.
There remained the girl.
Swift flung his arms about her, held her helpless. He grabbed a roll of bandage that had become tangled in his feet and whipped it about her hands. She tried to scream then, but he stifled the sound, thrust the roll into the parted teeth. There followed a subdued gurgle. He tied the gag in place, endured the white-hot fury of her eyes, finished binding the wrists and ankles.
There was a closet opening from the room. He pushed her in there, gave a final inspection to the knots, closed and locked the door.
Then he turned to the doctor. He was dead, this pudgy physician who had isolated the extract that governed the tempo of conscious life.
As Swift started to search his pockets, there sounded a knock at the door of 920. A pause, two knocks. It was the messenger!
Art Swift grabbed the coat collar of the inert clay and dragged the pudgy form along the floor to the door of the laboratory. He pushed the man inside, closed the door, and walked toward 920. His fist was clenched. He was ready to strike the instant the man walked across the threshold.