“That is one of the problems. You remember I said there were two problems. The other problem is that there exist vast segments of our population who face no future other than lifelong privation. You find great masses of these unfortunates in the ghettos of the larger cities and other pockets of them scattered throughout rural areas, and still others, single examples of bad fortune, almost everywhere. It has seemed to me that some of these people could be sent by time travel to certain virgin areas of the past where they would have a chance to help themselves. So far as my thinking has gone, I see them as a new generation of pioneers transported to a new land where, with some land to call their own, with the natural resources undestroyed, they might be able to fashion for themselves a better life. I am painfully aware that many of these people would not make good pioneers. Their poverty and dependence, their bitterness toward society, their self-pity may have robbed them of any possibility of standing on their feet. Perhaps, no matter where you put them, they’d be no better off than they are now …”
“But at least,” I said, “you’d be getting them out of our hair.”
The senator glanced sharply at me. “Young man,” he said, “that was unfair and perhaps unworthy of you.”
Courtney said, “You make it all sound easy, but it wouldn’t be. It would cost a lot of money. You couldn’t just tuck these people out of the way somewhere in another time and say to them, now you’re on your own. Government and society would still have to bear some responsibility. You’d have to see to it that they had a decent start. And I would suspect a lot of them would not want to go, many of them would refuse to go. There’d be some advantages, of course. You’d reduce the welfare load and I wonder if that is not what you’re counting on for support when you get, around to announcing your plan. But in all conscience, you can’t reduce welfare costs simply by throwing people into a howling wilderness and telling them you’ve washed your hands of them.”
The senator nodded. “Courtney, you’re making me sound like an ogre. You can’t believe I failed to have these factors you have mentioned very much in mind The program, if there were to be such a program, would have to be carefully worked out. The initial cost probably would exceed any savings in welfare by several times over. The humanitarian aspects of the move would have to be of equal weight with the economic aspect. I have talked with no one yet — no one, except you three. Before I move, I need some answers from you. It seems me that by certain astute moves you people have this time-travel business sewn up neatly. You are offering it as a service. You have made a business of it. I have the strong personal feeling that it should be viewed as a public utility, subject to rules and regulations. But, by operating it from your so-called Mastodonia, you appear to have effectively removed any such possibility. I have no idea if the concept of Mastodonia would stand up in court…”
“We are convinced it would,” said Courtney. “My feeling is, it will never be contested.”
“You’re bluffing now,” said the senator. “You are making lawyer talk. I have a feeling that it will. But that matters neither here nor there. What I seek from you is some indication of how sympathetically you would view such a program and how much cooperation we could expect from you.”
“We can’t give you an answer,” said Courtney in his best grave, gray lawyer tone. “We would have to see some concrete proposals and have a chance to study them. You realize that you would be asking us to commit to your purposes vast time areas, thus forcing us to give up our option of granting licenses for their use by others.”
“I realize that,” said Freemore. “When one comes down to it, that is the nub of the situation. Could you possibly view going along with my proposed program as a public contribution, a gift to society? Needless to say, if you demanded the kind of fees I suppose you could ask of others, the program would be doomed.
It would never get off the ground. My proposal would cost enough without piling license fees to Time Associates atop the budget.”
“If you are asking us to search our consciences,” said Courtney, “that we are quite willing to do. But at this juncture, we’re not prepared to give you a commitment.”
The senator turned to me. “If such a program were decided upon,” he said, “where in the past would be the best place to site it? Right here? Right in Mastodonia?”
Rila beat me to it. “Not Mastodonia,” she said.
We’re homesteading it. We will not give up this place,”
TWENTY-SIX
The first safari group arrived shortly after noon.
It was made up of two heavy trucks, three four-wheel drives and a crew of perhaps twenty-five men. The equipment had been flown into Minneapolis on a cargo plane, with some of the crew riding along. A company plane had flown in those not on the cargo flight, including the three clients. From Minneapolis the safari had driven to Willow Bend. At the front gate, they had been besieged by newspapermen and camera crews.
“The press conference, if that is what it could be called, delayed us a full hour and was exasperating,” said Percy Aspinwall, the man in charge. “However, I couldn’t cut it short and had to be as gracious as possible. The folks back in New York want maximum publicity.”
“What you went through today,” I told him, “will be nothing to what will happen when you come out; especially if you bring out a few good heads.”
“Steele, I’m glad of this chance to talk with you,” he said. “I’d hoped we could get together for a while.
You can tell me something of what to expect when we go in. You are one of the three people who have been in the Cretaceous.”
“I was there scarcely more than a day,” I told. him.
“We saw a lot of fauna. The place crawls with strange animals, and not all look the way our paleontologists have said they did. You saw the film Rila made?”’
“Yes. Good job. In ways, a little terrifying.”
“Then you’ve seen most of what we saw. You’re carrying big rifles?”
“Six hundreds. The same as you.”
“One thing,” I said. “Don’t wait too long to allow your clients to make the kill. If there’s something coming at you and you can’t be sure, clobber it. What kind of clients do you have?”
“Steady people,” said Aspinwall. “Getting a bit older than I’d like, but all of them have hunted before. In Africa, before the game fields there went sour. They have field experience, they won’t get rattled, they’ll-perform. Jonathon Fridley and his wife, Jessica. She brought down one of the biggest tuskers I have ever seen. Fridley is chairman of a steel company. The third one is Horace Bridges. President of a chemical conglomerate. Solid people. All three of them.”
“Then you shouldn’t have too much of a problem.”
“No. If I have to get in on a kill, they’ll understand.”
“Senator Freemore wants to go along. Has he talked with you?”
“He collared me almost immediately. I told him no way. I can’t take the responsibility. I’d like to accommodate him, but I can’t stick my neck out. He didn’t like it. He got a little nasty. But I can’t take along hitch-hikers. However, if you’d like to go …”
“No, thanks,” I said. “There’ll be other safaris coming along. I should stay here. Besides, I’ve been there.”
“They’re getting the rigs lined up,” he said. “I have to leave. Nice talking with you.”
I stuck out my hand, “Aspinwall,” I said, “good luck.”
I stood and watched them go, the vehicles moving along, one behind another, each one in turn blanking out as they hit the time road. Rila drove Courtney and the senator back to Willow Bend. The senator was pouting. I went down to the crab-apple grove looking for Catface; found him roosting in a tree at the west end of the grove. I told him one of his time roads was being used and that in the next few days, the others would be put to use. I asked if that pleased him and he said it did. It was a little awkward talking with him. The only way I could do it was to ask him questions that he answered yes or no by blinking. So after a time, I quit trying to carry on a conversation and just stood there, looking at him and feeling friendly toward him. He looked back at me, half grinning in what I suppose was a friendly fashion.