Part 2 (1/2)
”Sounds like fun,” he answered Lansberg.
”Yeah. Great. Well, here we are.” They had driven to the Long Island s.p.a.ceways Building which also housed the local office.
They got out and went into the building, up the elevator, down a corridor, and into an office suite.
Lansberg said: ”I'll wait for you here. We'll get some coffee afterwards.”
The redhead behind the front desk smiled up at Karnes.
”Go on in; he's expecting you.”
”I don't know whether I ought to leave you out here with Georgie or not,” Karnes grinned. ”I think he has designs.”
”Oh, goodie!” she grinned back.
_My, my aren't we clever!_ His thought was bitter, but his face didn't show it.
Before he went in, he straightened his collar before the wall mirror.
He noticed that his plain, slightly tanned face still looked the same as ever. Same ordinary gray-green eyes, same ordinary nose.
_Chum, you_ look _perfectly sane_. _You_ are _perfectly sane. But who in h.e.l.l would believe it?_
It wouldn't, after all, do any good for him to tell anyone anything he had found. No matter what the answer was, there wasn't anything he could do about it. There wasn't anything _anyone_ could do about it.
Thus, Karnes' report to his superior was short, to the point, and censored.
That evening, Karnes 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 s.p.a.ce 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)._