People called us up, you know, joking but not joking. There’s an anti everything man for you, a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. If Deutscher had gotten in, we’d have the worst kind of dictatorship. He’ll make a fine President of the United States.” “Makes you think, If the election had gone badly yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results. “A real Time Machine.” He shook his head. “Unbelievable.” Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face.

A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, might leap roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning. Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter. There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame.Ī touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself. If you disobey instructions, there’s a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return.”Įckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. “We guarantee nothing,” said the official, “except the dinosaurs.” He turned.

The sound of thunder bradbury