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course; engineers will always be expecting your arrival and will assist in the transits."
"I thought he was pulling my leg," Chaney admitted. "But how will you manage the clothing and the
engineers--how will you have it and them up there waiting for us?"
"That has already been arranged, sir. A fallout shelter and storage depot is located below us,
adjacent to the laboratory. It is stocked with everything you may possibly need for any season of the
year, together with weapons and provisions. Our program requires that the laboratory and the vehicle be
continuously manned for an indefinite period; a hundred or more years, if necessary. All times of arrival in
the future will be known to those future engineers, of course. It has been arranged."
"Unless they've walked out on strike."
"Sir?"
"Your long-range planning is subject to the same uncertainties as my projections--one fluke, one
chance event may knock everything askew. The Indic report failed to allow for a weak Administration
replacing a strong one, and if that report was placed before me today I wouldn't sign it; the variable casts
doubt on the validity of the whole. We can only hope the engineers will still be on the job tomorrow, and
will still be using standard time."
"Mr. Chaney, the Bureau's long-range planning is more thorough than that, It is solidly grounded
and has been designed for permanency. I would remind you that the primary target area is only
twenty-two years distant."
"I have this feeling that I'll come out--come to the surface--a thousand years older."
"I am sure you will make do, sir. Our team is notable for individual self-reliance."
"Which properly puts me in my place, Miss van Hise."
Moresby interrupted. "What about those stores?"
"Yes, sir. The shelter is stocked with necessities: motion picture cameras, tape recorders, radios,
weapons and weapons detectors, hand radar, and so forth. There is money and gems and medical
supplies. Materials such as film, tape, ammunition and clothing will be restocked at intervals to insure
fresh or modern supplies."
Major Moresby said: "I'll be damned!" and fell silent for a moment of admiration. "It makes good
sense, after all. We'll draw what we need from the stores to cover the target, and replace the remainder
before coming back."
"Yes, sir. No part of the supplies may be carried back with you, except tapes and film exposed in
the field. The engineers will instruct you on how to compensate for that small extra weight. Do not bring
back the recorders and cameras, and you are expressly forbidden to bring back any personal souvenir
such as coins or currency. But you may photograph the money if you wish."
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"Those engineers have an answer for everything," Chaney observed. "They must work around the
clock."
"Our project has been working around the clock for the past three years, sir."
"Who pays the electric bill?"
"A nuclear power station is located on the post."
He was quickly interested. "Their own reactor? How much power does it generate?"
"I don't know, sir."
"I know," Saltus said. "Commonwealth-Edison has a new one up near Chicago putting out eight
hundred thousand kilowatts. Big thing--I've seen it, and I've seen ours. They look like steel light bulbs
turned upside down."
Chaney was still curious. "Does the TDV _need_ that much power?"
"I couldn't say, sir." She changed the subject by calling attention to the sheaf of mimeographed
papers taken from the envelopes. "We have time this afternoon to begin on these reports."
The first sheet bore the stylized imprint of the Indiana Corporation, and Chaney quickly recognized
his own work. He gave the woman an amused glance but she avoided his eyes; another glance down the
table revealed his companions staring at the massive report with anticipated boredom.
The next page plunged immediately into the subject matter by offering long columns of statistics
underscored by footnotes: the first few columns were solidly rooted in the census figures of 1970, while
the following columns on the following pages were his projections going forward to 2050. Chaney
recalled the fun and the sweat that had gone into the work--and the very shaky limb on which he perched
as he worked toward the farthest date.
_Births_: legitimate and otherwise, predicted annually by race and by geographical area (down
sharply along the Atlantic seaboard below Boston, and the southern states except Florida; figures did not
include unpredictable number of laboratory-hospital births by artificial means; figures did not include
unpredictable number of abnormal births in Nevada and Utah due to accumulation of radioactive fallout).
_Deaths_: with separate figures for murders and known suicides, projected annually by age groups
(suicides increasing at predictable rate below age thirty; females outliving males by twelve point three
years by year 2000; anticipated life-expectancy increased one point nine years by year 2050; figures did
not include infant mortalities in Nevada-Utah fallout area; figures did not include infant mortalities in
laboratory-hospital artificial births).
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