*

Decker began to wheel the platform which held the Reintegrator toward the
door. "After today, Professor, all the scientific organizations in the
world will have heard of you and will be demanding demonstrations."

"Yes, but these Patriot Daughters! Who are they? Who in the scientific
world ever heard of them?"

"No one except a few scientists unfortunate enough to fall afoul of
their Loyalty and Conformity Committee."

"I think we should have gone elsewhere for our demonstration."

"Now Professor. Who in the world today would be interested in the past
except a group of ancestor conscious women?"

"Some historical society perhaps," the Professor said wistfully.

"And what historical society could have advanced the twenty thousand
dollars we needed to complete the machine?"

"I suppose you're right, my boy," MacCulloch sighed as he helped push
the Reintegrator onto the auditorium floor.

By the time Clark Decker reached the platform to explain the
demonstration, the fight for the microphone had turned into a
three-way struggle. A lady who represented the Finance Committee was
trying to win it away from both the Past President and the new
President.

Taking them by surprise, Decker managed to gain control long enough to
explain what was about to happen.

"You mean," demanded Mrs. Johns-Hayes, "that this is some sort of time
machine and you're going to transport great-great-great-great-grandfather
from the past into the present?"

"No, Mrs. Hayes. This isn't a time machine in the comic book use of
the term. It is just what Professor MacCulloch has called it, an
historical Reintegrator. The theory upon which it is based, the
MacCulloch Reaction, says that every person who ever existed, and
every event which ever took place caused electrical disturbances in
the space-time continuum of the universe by displacing an equal and
identical group of electrons. The task of the Reintegrator is to
reassemble those electrons. That is why Professor MacCulloch is now
placing your ancestor's sword in the machine. We will use that as a
base point from which our recreation will begin."

The machine was humming and small lights were beginning to play about
its tubes and dials. "If our calculations are accurate, and we believe
that they are," Decker said, "within a very few minutes, Colonel Johns
should be standing before us as he was on a day approximately a week
before his heroic action in the battle at Temple Farm."