sat in his apartment, chain-smoking, and staring out the window. Finally, he mashed out a stub, stood up, and said aloud: “Maybe if I write it down I can get it straight.”
He sat down in front of the portable on his desk, rolled in a sheet of paper, and put his fingers on the keys. Then, for a long time, he just sat there, turning it over and over in his mind. Finally, he began to type.
A Set of General Instructions and a Broad Outline on the Purposes and Construction of the Shrine of Earth.
Part One: Historical.
Some hundred or so millennia ago, insofar as the most exacting of historical research can ascertain, our remote ancestors were confined to one planet of the Galaxy; the legendary Earth.
The third planet of Sun (unintelligible number) has long been suspected of being Earth, but it was not until the development of the principles of time transfer that it became possible to check the theory completely.
The brilliant work done by—
(Karnes hesitated over the name, then wrote—)
—Starson on the ancient history and early evolution of the race has shown the theory to be correct. This has opened a new and fascinating field for the study of socioanthropology.
Part Two: Present Purposes and Aims.
Because of the great energy transfer and cosmic danger involved in too frequent or unrestricted time travel, it has been decided that the best method for studying the social problems involved would be to rebuild, in toto, the ancient Earth as it was just after the initial discoveries of atomic power and interplanetary space travel.
In order to facilitate this work, the Surveying Group will translate themselves to the chronological area in question, and obtain complete records of that time, covering the years between (1940) and (2020).
When the survey is complete, the Construction Group will rebuild that civilization with as great an exactness as possible, complete with population, fossil strata, edifices, etc.
Upon the occasion of the opening of the Shrine, the replica of our early civilization will be begun as it was on (January 3, 1953). The population, having been impregnated with the proper memories, will be permitted to go about their lives unhampered.
Karnes stopped again and reread the paragraph he had just written. It sounded different when it was on paper. The dates, for instance, he had put in parentheses because that was the way he had understood them. But he knew that whoever had made the mind-impressor didn’t use the same calendar he was used to.
He frowned at the paper, then went on typing.
Part Three: Conduct of Students.
Students wishing to study the Shrine for the purpose of (unintelligible again) must obtain permits from the Galactic Scholars Council, and, upon obtaining such permits, must conduct themselves according to whatever rules may be laid down by such Council.
Part Four: Corrective Action to be Taken.
At certain points in the history of ancient Earth, certain crises arose which, in repetition, would be detrimental to the Shrine. These crises must be mitigated in order that—
Karnes stopped. That was all there was. Except—except for one more little tail end of thought. He tapped the keys again.
(Continued on Stratum Two)
Whatever in hell that means, he thought.
He sat back in his chair and went over the two sheets of typed paper. It wasn’t complete, not by a long shot. There were little tones of meaning that a printed, or even a spoken word couldn’t put over. There were evidences of a vast and certainly superhuman civilization; of an alien and yet somehow completely human way of thinking.
But that was the gist of it. The man he had seen in that new building at Carlson Spacecraft was no ordinary human being.
That, however, didn’t bother Karnes half so much as the gray globe the man had disappeared into after he had been shot at. And Karnes knew, now, that the shots probably hadn’t missed.
The globe was one of two things. And the intruder had been one of two groups.
(A) One of the Surveyors of Ancient Earth, in which case the globe had been a—well, a time machine. Or
(B) A student, in which case the machine was a type of spacecraft.
The question was: Which?
If it were (A), then he and the world around him were real, living, working out their own destinies toward the end point represented by the man in the gray globe.
But if it were (B)—
Then this was the Shrine, and he and all the rest of Earth were nothing but glorified textbooks!
And there would come crises on the Shrine, duplicates of the crises on old Earth. Except that they wouldn’t be permitted to happen. The poor ignorant people on the Shrine had to be coddled, like the children they were. Damn!
Karnes crumpled the sheets of paper in his hands, twisting them savagely. Then he methodically tore them into bits.
* * * *
When the first dawnlight touched the sea, Karnes was watching it out the east window. It had been twenty-four hours since he had seen the superman walk into his gray globe and vanish.
All night, he had been searching his brain for some clue that would tell him which of the two choices he should believe in. And he couldn’t bring himself to believe in either.
Once he had thought: Why do I believe, then, what the impressor said? Why not just forget it?
But that didn’t help. He did believe it. That alien instrument had impressed his mind, not only with the facts themselves, but with an absolute faith that they were facts. There was no room for doubt; the knowledge imparted to his mind was true, and he knew it.
For a time, he had been comforted by the thought that the gray globe must be a time machine because of the way it had vanished. It was very comforting until he realized that travel to the stars and beyond didn’t necessarily mean a spaceship as he knew spaceships. Teleportation—
Now, with the dawn, Karnes knew there was only one thing he could do.
Somehow, somewhere, there would be other clues—clues a man who knew what to look for might find. The Galactics couldn’t be perfect, or they wouldn’t have let him get the mind impressor in his hands. Ergo, somewhere they would slip again.
Karnes knew he would spend the rest of his life looking for that one slip. He had to know the truth, one way or another.
Or he might not stay sane.
* * * *
Lansberg picked him up at eight in a police copter. As they floated toward New York, Karnes’ mind settled itself into one cold purpose; a purpose that lay at the base of his brain, waiting.
Lansberg was saying: “—and one of Brittain’s men got the stuff last night. He hadn’t passed it on to Brittain himself yet this morning, but he very probably will have by the time we get there.
“We’ve rigged it up so that Brittain will have to pass it to his superior by tomorrow or it will be worthless. When he does, we’ll follow it right to the top.”
“If we’ve got every loophole plugged,” said Karnes, “we ought to take them easy.”
“Brother, I hope so! It took us eight months to get Brittain all hot and bothered over the bait, and another two months to give it to him in a way that wouldn’t make him suspicious.
“It’s restricted material, of course, so that we can pin a subversive activities rap on them, at least, if not espionage. But we had to argue like hell to keep it restricted; the Spatial Commission was ready to release it, since it’s really relatively harmless.”
Karnes looked absently at the thin line of smoke wiggling from Lansberg’s cigarette.