Elwood Caswell, a homicidal maniac who wants to murder his best friend. Knowing it was wrong, he stops to buy a therapeutic machine, one made by General Motors. In a hurry, he buys, for cash, the floor model. The clerk learns that the floor model was gauged for Martians, who knows what effect it would have on a human, and the hunt is on.
This brand-new series of short stories takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity lives in one of many compounds. One of these is experimenting with Time Travel using captured convicts as their guinea pigs. Owen was sent to 1983, given a gun, and instructed to kill a murderer before the killing can take place, but when all doesn't go as planned, he believes the man may be innocent.
What will happen when the alien ships strike Earth? And later? Who will survive? What will life be like in that latter-day jungle? William F. Nolan, well known in SF circles on the West Coast, returns with this grim story of the days and the nights of Lewis Stillman--survivor.