The Project Gutenberg EBook of The End of Time, by Wallace West

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Title: The End of Time

Author: Wallace West

Release Date: July 15, 2009 [EBook #29410]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

The End of Time

By Wallace West

* * * * *

[Sidenote: By millions of millions the creatures of earth slow and
drop when their time-sense is mysteriously paralyzed.]

"There is no doubt of it!" The little chemist pushed steel-bowed
spectacles up on his high forehead and peered at his dinner guest with
excited blue eyes. "Time will come to an end at six o'clock this
morning."

Jack Baron, young radio engineer at the Rothafel Radio laboratories,
and protege of Dr. Manthis, his host, laughed heartily.

"What a yarn you spin, Doctor," he said. "Write it for the movies."

"But it's true," insisted the older man. "Something is paralyzing our
time-sense. The final stroke will occur about daybreak."

"Bosh! You mean the earth will stop rotating, the stars blink out?"

"Not at all. Such things have nothing to do with time. You may know
your short waves, but your general education has been sadly
neglected." The scientist picked up a weighty volume. "Maybe this will
explain what I mean. It's from Immanuel Kant's 'Critique of Pure
Reason.' Listen:

'Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which
inheres in things as an objective determination, and
therefore, remains, when abstraction is made of the
subjective conditions of the intuition of things. For in
the former case it would be something real, yet without
presenting to any power of perception any real object. In
the latter case, as an order of de