"But why all this construction work? What are you building?" "There is a need for it. I am not quite certain I know everything about that need, that I really know anything about it, except that it exists." "What is this need?" Martin insisted. "You've got twice as many men as you can really use. You're working your crews twenty-four hours a day. What is it you need? What are you doing?" Fretfully, Garth answered. "I can't tell you about it. It wouldn't make sense because it doesn't exist now. It exists two million years from now." Two millions years! What the hell? Garth was cracked, he was bugs, he was off his nut. Garth punched a button. To that plain secretary he said, "Stella, show Mr. Martin out. And see that no one else without business here gets in. Hire guards." "Yes, Mr. Garth." There had been a sleek, prosperous-looking chap waiting in the outer office when Martin went out. He had heard the secretary say, "Mr. Garth will see you now, Mr. Railton." * * * * * Two million years. Scoop Martin twisted at his desk, ran another sheet of paper into his typewriter. Two million years. Why, recorded history didn't run back over five thousand years. That guy Garth was nuts. Or was he? Those scientists talked damned funny at times. What would the earth look like in two million years? A baked, waterless plain, broken by jagged mountains? Dead, deserted, lifeless? Man and all of man's achievements gone? This was 1940. If you added two million to that, what would the number be? It would be darned hard to remember that it was 2,001,940. Two million years. It was a gag, it had to be a gag. Two million years didn't mean anything, didn't make sense. Yea, it was a gag. Well, he'd just make it a good one. There was his lead. He'd fix Garth for tossing him out on his ear. His index fingers raced over the keyboard, his thin face writhed into a wolfish grin. "Prominent Scientist forecast doom of earth in two million years--" Scoop let his imagination go. It would be a good yarn at that. Might even make the front pages. No, not likely. Hitler was holding down the front pages. * * * * * Railton came through the front office at a dead run. Mr. Tompkins swallowed his annoyance at the sight of the young man leaning against his desk. Mr. Railton was no longer sleek and capable. He was panting and sweating, actually sweating. "Chief," he panted, holding his side and gasping for air. "That guy Garth, he's got--he's got _atomic power_." It was the first time Railton or anyone else had ever seen Tompkins show surprise. "What?" he snapped. "Atomic power," Railton parroted. "That's why he needed those bus-bars!" Tompkins settled back into his chair. His face turned faintly purple. His eyes bored into the disheveled Railton. "You got a lot of guts," he rasped, "coming back to me with a cock and bull story like that."