Our Children's Children by Clifford D. Simak Page B

had. For that reason it seems to me important that we have the specifications and talk with your people who can explain them to us as soon as possible.”
    â€œMr. President,” said Reynolds, “we have less than two hours to get your talk shaped up.”
    â€œCertainly,” said the President. “I am sorry to have held you up. Steve, you can stay a moment, please.”
    â€œThank you, sir,” said Howard, following Reynolds toward the door.
    â€œNow, where were we?” said the President. “Oh, yes, I was saying that we need to get to work on the matter of the tunnels. I plan to have some of our physicists and engineers come in and confer with your people.…”
    â€œDoes that mean, sir, that you will help us?”
    â€œI would think so, Mr. Gale, although at the moment I’m in no position to make a positive commitment. But I don’t see much else that we can do. We can’t keep you here. We can’t possibly absorb you into our population. It would wreck our economy. The first step would seem to be to talk with your physicists and find out what’s involved—what kind of fabrications we will need, what kind of engineering, how much labor. Until we know that, we can’t do any planning. And there’s the matter, as well, of selecting sites.”
    â€œWe have that all worked out,” said Gale. “Our geologists have made a study, as well as is possible, of the Miocene terrain. It would be an easy matter to have a tunnel emerge above an oceanic arm or in the middle of a lake or a volcanic area. Stable land surfaces have been pinpointed and mapped out. We can’t be entirely sure, of course, but our people, operating within their best knowledge, have done at least the preliminary work.”
    â€œThen,” said the President, “we won’t have to worry about that. But we do need something to get started on.”
    â€œThe men you want to talk with,” said Gale, “were among the first to come through the tunnel. I presume they are wherever you have been taking the people who came from the Virginia tunnel.”
    â€œFort Myer,” said the President. “Or at least the most of them went there. The army set up a number of inflatable shelters.”
    â€œI can give you their names,” said Gale, “but I’ll have to go with whoever is sent to contact them. Without me, they’d refuse to come. You can understand our situation, sir. We could take no chances of our men or their information falling into other than official hands.”
    The President frowned. “I’m reluctant to let you leave, even for a short time. You can, of course, walk out of here any time you wish. You are in no way detained. But we may have need of your advice on a moment’s notice. Our information so far is sketchy. You have done an excellent job of supplying us with it, of course, but situations can arise.…”
    â€œI understand,” said Gale. “Alice, perhaps. They know her and if she carried a note from me, on a White House letterhead.…”
    â€œThat would be fine,” said the President, “if she would be willing. Steve, I wonder if you’d undertake to accompany her.”
    â€œCertainly, sir. But my car’s not here. Judy drove it home.”
    â€œYou can have a White House car and driver. Perhaps we’d better send along a Secret Service man. It may seem a silly precaution, but a lot is riding on this.”
    He put up his hand and made a gesture of wiping his face.
    â€œI hope to God, Mr. Gale,” he said, “that you and I, your people and our people, can work together on this. This is just the beginning of it. It’s going to get rough. There’ll be all sorts of pressure, all kinds of frenzied screaming. Have you got a good strong back and a good thick skin?”
    â€œI think I have,” said Gale.

24
    The Attorney General’s visitor was an old and