Symonds paused. A little frown crossed his forehead, and he tapped an impatient fingernail on a flashlight casing. “Do not misunderstand,” he went on. “Senator Wien and his associates have not forgotten their oaths of office, nor are they trying to play God. Their primary effort goes, as it must, to a straightforward dealing with the problems of the twentieth century. It is not they who are withholding the one significant datum—a datum which, incidentally, any informed person could reason out for himself if he cared to. It is properly constituted authority, using powers legally granted to stamp certain reports Top Secret. Of course, the Senator has used his considerable influence to bring about the present eventuality, but that is normal politics.”

Herries growled: “Get to the point, damn you! What are you talking about?”

Symonds shook his thin gray head. “You are afraid to know, are you not?” he asked quietly.

“I—” Herries turned about, faced the crate and beat it with his fist. The parched voice in the night continued to punish him:

“You know that a time-projector can go into the future about a hundred years at a jump, but can only go pastward in jumps of approximately one hundred megayears. You have spoken of a simple way to explore certain sections of the historical past, in spite of this handicap, by making enough century hops forward before the one long hop backward. But can you tell me how to predict the historical future? Say, a century hence? Come, come, you are an intelligent man. Answer me.”

“Yeah,” said Herries. “I get the idea. Leave me alone.”

“Team A, a group of well-equipped volunteers, went into the twenty-first century,” pursued Symonds. “They recorded what they observed and placed the data in a chemically inert box within a large block of reinforced concrete erected at an agreed-on location: one which a previous expedition to circa 100,000,000 A.D. had confirmed would remain stable. I presume they also mixed radioactive materials of long half-life into the concrete, to aid in finding the site. Of course, the bracketing of time jumps is such that they cannot now get back to the twentieth century. But Team B went a full hundred-megayear jump into the future, excavated the data, and returned home.”

Herries squared his body and faced back to the small man. He was drained, so weary that it was. all he could do to keep on his feet. “What did they find?” he asked. There was no tone in his voice or in him.

“There have actually been several expeditions to 100,000,000,” said Symonds. “Energy requirements for a visit to 200,000,000—A.D. or B.C.—were considered prohibitive. But in 100,000,000 life is re-evolving on Earth. However, as yet the plants have not liberated enough oxygen for the atmosphere to be breathable. You see, oxygen reacts with exposed rock, so that if no biological processes exist to replace it continuously—But you have a better technical education than I.”

“Okay,” said Herries, flat and hard. “Earth was sterile for a long time in the future. Including the twenty-first century?”