[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories October 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
In the year 2200 A.D., Solar News Company became the biggestcorporation in the nine planets. In the year 2220, Solar built theHeptagon, so called not because it was seven-sided but because itcovered seven solid blocks, housed seven hundred thousand employees,and on its seventieth floor had a spacefield big enough to handle afair-sized interplanetary patrol boat.
In the early part of the Twenty-Third Century, war had been eliminatedfor so long that international affairs no longer had the deepsignificance they had had in the Twentieth Century. Controls were sorigid there had not been any startling development in economics orscience for over a century, with the single exception of time-travel.
People everywhere on Earth had finally resigned themselves to taking iteasy, and so Solar News was just about on the rocks when alongcame time-travel, and Smullen, the sharp-eyed vice-president of Solar,foresaw a chance to put Solar in the clear again.
The Time Travel Section soon became the most important part of themorning telepaper, and by the year 2220 had become about ninety percent of Solar News. Inasmuch as nothing happened in the now,people were fascinated by what had happened in the past, especiallywhen they could read those events told by current eyewitnesses.
By the year 2229, Stieve Andro had become one of Solar's two hundredace reporters, and by December of that year he was regarded so highlythat he was transferred to the block that housed the MorningTelepaper division. There he was sent to the wing that containedthe all-important Time Travel Section; they referred him to thesixty-second floor that was occupied by the Early Twentieth CenturyDepartment, and finally he was ushered to a suite where he wouldconduct the "Three Hundred Years Ago Today" feature.
Stieve was very happy. He had the choice run of the Solar System and hewas making almost as much as the best-paid truck driver in Manhattan.But by March 13, 2230, Stieve was a very discouraged ace. He sat backin the milkweed-stuffed chair and adjusted his hydraulic desk until hisfeet were exactly the right height. Then he scowled at Orig Prem.
Secretly Stieve was proud of Orig, who had just recently come from thechromium-platers. Orig was old-fashioned by some standards. He was a2219 model, and the following year Roborporation had brought out theirandroid models.
"You look good," said Stieve. "I may be reactionary, but I much preferyou, with your steel plates, to the androids with their synthetictissue that looks like flesh but isn't. You may be too tough for me tokick you where you need it most, but at least you don't fool me intothinking that you feel it. Besides, they haven't got the bugs out ofthe androids yet.
"Medlock over in Time-Stream Traffic had one whose psychological relaysgot mixed up so that he sat all day in the middle of the Thirty-SixHundred B.C. time channel. Medlock had sneaked out to watch them workon the Pyramid of Cheops (Medlock has his doctor's degree in Sidewalkengineering, you know) and he was stuck there and couldn't get backon account of this dummy balking in the time-channel, and by the timeMedlock got it out of the Egyptian sun, he was so thirsty he could evendrink water."
"I'm glad you like me, sir," said Orig Prem's staccato metallic voice."I'd not be one to belittle competition, sir, but I think I have a goodmany useful years left before you junk me.