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 a