"All right. Soon, as all time is reckoned. In your lifetime, I would say. Now, I suggest that you adjust yourself emotionally and accept what is inevitable. The best thing you can do is answer a few questions I've prepared." I took his advice. I calmed down. "Questions? Well, Mr. Zon, or whatever your name is, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make a bargain with you. I'll answer your questions if you'll answer mine. I'll tell you what's happening here--anything you want to know--if you look in that little file of yours and tell me what's _going_ to happen in my time. A deal?" He was silent for a moment, and at first I thought we'd been cut off again. "Hello? Zon? You still there?" "Yes, I'm still here." His voice had become oddly quiet. "So it's the old Faust legend all over again, is that it?" "I don't know what you're talking about," I said. I didn't--then. "You just answer my questions, and I'll answer yours. Mine first." "All right," he said. "Very well." And I started my barrage. When would the Final War start? He told me. How would it start? He told me that. Who would be the belligerents, and what weapons and techniques would be used at first, and what new ones would be developed? He knew. Where would the major campaigns be fought--how many troops would be involved? I got the whole story. I scribbled furiously and put it on paper. Afterwards, he asked his questions. They were innocuous, compared to mine. He wanted to know about taboos and marriage customs and slang expressions and education and eating habits and articles of clothing. I told him. I was in the midst of an explanation of the game of Bingo, of all things, when there was a sudden whooshing and crackling in the earpiece of the telephone. "Hello? Zon? Still with me?" "Yes--but I think the signal's going out. This may be the inversion passing! We probably won't be able to talk again. Hello? Do you still hear?" "I do. Look--one more thing before we go. You said this dictator--the one everybody hated so much--survived the final series of blasts. He and his staff. Where were they? Where were they when the blasts came?" "In a country at that time called Canada. Little place named Resolution, on Great Slave Lake. They'd dug in there--very elaborate underground installation." "And the date you gave me is correct?" "As far as I know. You're determined to be in that place at that time, I suppose." He seemed amused. "You can say that again," I said. There were more rumblings of static on the line. "Well, since you're so determined," said Zon Twenty, "one more word of advice. The dictator and all his followers were afterwards imprisoned by what populace remained. Small wonder, since they were mainly responsible for all the carnage. It was a pretty horrible thing. They were slowly and most savagely tortured continuously for nearly two decades. So if you mean to be there, at Great Slave Lake, I suggest you arrange to be on the right side."