Free The Fury Out of Time by Lloyd Biggle jr.

three of the capsules—the large one in the center and the ones on either side. The way I see it, they have to be the destination selectors. I want to know if they can be given settings that are opposite to the settings they arrived with.”
    Ostrander climbed through the hatch. He seated himself on the circular metallic hump in front of the instrument panel, and bent forward against the curving wall. The position was cramped, and his knees partially obscured the instruments. “This thing was designed for midgets,” he complained.
    Karvel leaned through the hatch, aiming the flashlight. “Interesting. No one mentioned that to me.”
    “They must have noticed it. If they tried to sit here, they had to notice it. Let me have that photo.”
    “You’d better pull them,” Karvel said.
    “Nuts. What would that prove? What difference does it make what can be done with them when they aren’t in place?”
    Karvel handed in the photograph. “Don’t force them.”
    “There’s hardly any resistance. There. Precisely opposite. All three of them.”
    “That is strange—about the seat, I mean. The dead passenger wasn’t a midget. Nearly eight feet tall, Haskins said.”
    “He must have been awfully uncomfortable.”
    “Maybe that thing isn’t supposed to be a seat.”
    “Sure it is. You can tell that just by looking at it. It’s shaped. It certainly isn’t the shape of my bottom, though. Let me have the flashlight.”
    Karvel traded the flashlight for the photograph and eased himself back into the wheel chair. The hatch opened again a moment later, and Ostrander babbled excitedly, “I found the light switch!”
    “Which one is it?”
    “The lowest gadget on the right. It lights up the whole interior. That metal projection at the top glows with a white light. Want to see it?”
    “I can see it from here. Turn it off, and get out of there.”
    “Right,” Ostrander said.
    “Better not touch anything else. I’ve found out what I wanted to know, which wasn’t much, but at least I feel a little less frustrated. We can go to bed now.”
    “Right.”
    Ostrander’s head jerked back, and the hatch closed. Suddenly, with a tremendous swish, the U.O. vanished. Papers sucked from a nearby bench swirled about the hangar floor in a fluttering spiral, and then lay still. The excited scientists came at a run, shouting questions, arguing. Later Haskins arrived, with a raging Colonel Stubbins.
    Through it all Karvel sat silently in his wheel chair with the crumpled photograph in his lap, and said nothing.

Chapter 5
    It was another November Saturday. Karvel had been lying awake for hours, staring at his trailer ceiling, when the knock came at the door. The handsome, boyish, light-encircled face of Phineas Ostrander hovered just below the dark paneling, one of its variegated moods following another, the frowns, the laughter, the whimsies, the buffoonery, all so real, so terrifyingly alive.
    The knock came again. Wearily Karvel took his crutches, which were contraband from the base hospital, and started for the door. His ribs hurt when he used the crutches, but not as much as his muscles ached with the strain of trying to get around without them.
    He opened the door. Gerald Haskins said matter-of-factly, “You look terrible,” and pushed past him into the trailer. Bert Whistler followed, remarking that there was nothing wrong with Karvel’s appearance that a little embalming fluid wouldn’t cure.
    “Did you come to invite me to the court-martial?” Karvel asked Haskins.
    “Nonsense. Stubbins wouldn’t dare. Five men heard you tell Ostrander not to touch anything. Anyway, Stubbins has no authority over you. You’re on special assignment to me.”
    “I sent Ostrander in there.”
    “So? Both of you had clearance to work on the U.O. Sit down. When did you eat last?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Fix the man some breakfast, Whistler.”
    Whistler rummaged through the cupboards and glanced into the refrigerator.