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"Good luck," said the man behind the desk. "Mr. Travis, he's all yours."

They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light.

First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was day-night-day-night. A week, a month, a year, a decade! A.D. 2055. A.D. 2019. 1999! 1957! Gone! The Machine roared.

They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms.

Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaw stiff. He felt the trembling in his arms and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle. There were four other men in the Machine. Travis, the Safari Leader, his assistant, Lesperance, and two other hunters, Billings and Kramer. They sat looking at each other, and the years blazed around them.

"Can these guns get a dinosaur cold?" Eckels felt his mouth saying.

"If you hit them right," said Travis on the helmet radio. "Some dinosaurs have two brains, one in the head, another far down the spinal column. We stay away from those. That's stretching luck. Put your first two shots into the eyes, if you can, blind them, and go back into the brain."

The Machine howled (Машина завыла). Time was a film run backward (время было как пленка, прокрученная назад). Suns fled (солнца бежали, спасались бегством: to flee — fled — fled) and ten million moons fled after them (и десять миллионов лун бежали вслед за ними). "Think (подумайте)," said Eckels. "Every hunter that ever lived would envy us today (любой охотник, который когда-либо жил, позавидовал бы нам сегодня). This makes Africa seem like Illinois (это заставляет Африку выглядеть как Иллинойс = после этого и Африка будет казаться обыкновенной)."

The Machine slowed (замедлила ход); its scream fell to a murmur (ее визг упал, стих до жужжания = сменился жужжанием). The Machine stopped (Машина остановилась).

The sun stopped in the sky (солнце остановилось на небе).

The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away (туман, который окутал Машину, рассеялся) and they were in an old time (и они были в старом времени = в древности), a very old time indeed (в очень старом времени, на самом деле = в действительно глубокой древности), three hunters and two Safari Heads (три охотника и два руководителя) with their blue metal guns across their knees (со своими синими металлическими ружьями «поперек колен» = на коленях).