The Second Randall Garrett Megapack. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ agents, was sitting in the back seat.

      “Hi, sleuth. I heard you were coming in, so I asked to meet you.” He lowered his voice as Karnes got in and the car pulled away from the parking lot. “How about our boy, Avery?”

      Karnes shook his head. “Too late. Thirty million bucks worth of material lost and Avery lost too.”

      “How come?”

      “Had to kill him to keep him from getting away with these.”

      He showed Lansberg the microfilm squares.

      “The photocircuit inserts for the new autopilot. We’d lose everything if the League ever got its hands on these.”

      “Didn’t learn anything from Avery, eh?” Lansberg asked.

      “Not a thing.” Karnes lapsed into silence. He didn’t feel it necessary to mention the mind impressor just yet.

      Lansberg stuck a cigarette into his mouth and talked around it as he lit it.

      “We’ve got something you’ll be getting in on, now that Avery is taken care of. We’ve got a fellow named Brittain, real name Bretinov, who is holed up in a little apartment in Brooklyn. He’s the sector head for that section, and we know who his informers are, and who he gives orders to. What we don’t know is who gives orders to him.

      “Now we have it set up for Brittain to get his hands on some very honest-looking, but strictly phony stuff for him to pass on to the next echelon. Then we just sit around and watch until he does pass it.”

      * * * *

      Karnes found he was listening to Lansberg with only half an ear. His brain was still buzzing with things he’d never heard of, trying to fit things he had always known in with things he knew now but had never known before. Damn that “cigarette case”!

      “Sounds like fun,” he answered Lansberg.

      “Yeah. Great. Well, here we are.” They had driven to the Long Island Spaceways 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 hell 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 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 СКАЧАТЬ