Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930

"Right!" He held up his wrist. "See this? Now watch!" Whereupon he pressed the button. But to their dismay, nothing happened. "Wa-al. I'm still watchin'!" drawled the officer. "Who's loony now?" Kendrick examined the mechanism in impatience, pressed that little button repeatedly: but still nothing happened. "Try yours!" he told Marjorie finally. She did so, with similar results--or lack of them, rather. "Something's wrong," he said at length. "The ray isn't working." "Wrong is right!" declared the officer with a contemptuous flood of tobacco juice. "Yuh folks better go catch yuhr train 'fore yuh ferget where it is." Chagrined, embarrassed, they took their leave, headed back toward the railroad station. "Of all the utterly silly things!" declared Marjorie, as they walked along. "Why do you suppose it didn't work?" Kendrick didn't reply at once. When he did, his voice was grave. "Because the disc has gone!" he said. "We are outside its zone of influence. That's my hunch, at least, and I think we'd better act on it." "You mean...?" "I mean our escape has probably caused them to hurry their plans. They're probably over New York right now. I think we'd better get there the quickest possible way." The result was that when the train came, they remained on it only to Tucson. There they chartered a fast plane and started east at once. At sunset the following day the plane swooped out of the sky and slid to rest on the broad grounds of the Blake estate at Great Neck.