As he walked through the ruins of what had once been a major train yard, Peter Hood thought to himself that when the task was done he himself would have long ago retired. Not much remained of the pre-tragedy culture, here, and the local authorities—the political nonentities who had flocked in from Mars and Venus, as the neighboring planets were called—had done little. And yet he admired their efforts.

  To the members of his staff walking directly behind him he said, “You know, they have done the hard part for us; we ought to be grateful. It is not easy to come into a totally destroyed area, as they’ve done.”

  His man Fletcher observed, “They got back a good return.”

  Hood said, “Motive is not important. They have achieved results.” He was thinking of the official who had met them in his steam car; it had been solemn and formal, carrying complicated trappings. When these locals had first arrived on the scene years ago they had not been greeted, except perhaps by radiation-seared, blackened survivors who had stumbled out of cellars and gaped sightlessly. He shivered.

  Coming up to him, a CURBman of minor rank saluted and said, “I think we’ve managed to locate an undamaged structure in which your staff could be housed for the time being. It’s underground.” He looked embarrassed. “Not what we had hoped for…we’d have to displace the locals to get anything attractive.”

  “Yes,” Hood agreed, “they have had a good long time to explore. I don’t object; a glorified basement, if it’s serviceable, will do.”

  “The structure,” the minor CURBman said, “was once a great homeostatic newspaper, the New York Times. It printed itself directly below us. At least, according to the maps. We haven’t located the newspaper yet; it was customary for the homeopapes to be buried a mile or so down. As yet we don’t know how much of this one survived.”

  “But it would be valuable,” Hood agreed.

  “Yes,” the CURBman said. “Its outlets are scattered all over the planet; it must have had a thousand different editions which it put out daily. How many outlets function—” He broke off. “It’s hard to believe that the local politicos made no effort to repair any of the ten or eleven worldwide homeopapes, but that seems to be the case.”

  “Odd,” Hood said. Surely it would have eased their task; the post-tragedy job of reuniting people into a common culture depended on newspapers, particles in the atmosphere making radio and TV reception difficult if not impossible. “This makes me instantly suspicious,” he said, turning to his staff. “Are they perhaps not trying after all? Is their work merely a pretense?”

  It was his own wife Joan who spoke up. “They may simply have lacked the ability to place the homeopapes on an operational basis.”

  Give them the benefit of the doubt, Hood thought. You’re right.

  “So the last edition of the Times,” Fletcher said, “was put on the lines the day the Misadventure occurred. And the entire network of newspaper communication and news-creation has been idle since. I can’t respect these politicos; it shows they’re ignorant of the basics of a culture. By reviving the homeopapes we can do more to reestablish the pre-tragedy culture than they’ve done in ten thousand pitiful projects.” His tone was scornful.

  Hood said, “You may misunderstand, but let it go.

  Let’s hope that the cephalon of the pape is undamaged; we couldn’t possibly replace it.” Ahead he saw the yawning entrance which the CURBmen crews had cleared. This was to be his first move, here on the ruined planet, restoring this immense self-contained entity to its former authority. Once it had resumed its activity he would be freed for other tasks; the homeopape would take some of the burden from him.

  A workman, still clearing debris away, muttered, “Jeez, I never saw so many layers of junk. You’d think they deliberately bottled it up, down here.” In his hands, the suction furnace which he operated glowed and pounded as it absorbed material, converting it to energy, leaving an increasingly enlarged opening.

  “I’d like a report as soon as possible as to its condition,” Hood said to the team of engineers who stood waiting to descend into the opening. “How long it will take to revive it, how much—” He broke off.

  Two men in black uniforms had arrived. Police, from the Security ship. One, he saw, was Otto Dietrich, the ranking investigator accompanying the armada from Centaurus, and he felt tense automatically; it was a reflex for all of them—he saw the engineers and the workmen cease momentarily and then, more slowly, resume their work.

  “Yes,” he said to Dietrich. “Glad to see you. Let’s go off to this side room and talk there.” He knew beyond a doubt what the investigator wanted; he had been expecting him.

  Dietrich said, “I won’t take up too much of your time, Hood; I know you’re quite busy. What is this, here?” He glanced about curiously, his scrubbed, round, alert face eager.

  In a small side room, converted to a temporary office, Hood faced the two policemen. “I am opposed to prosecution,” he said quietly. “It’s been too long; let them go.”

  Dietrich, tugging thoughtfully at his ear, said, “But war crimes are war crimes, even three decades, four, later. Anyhow, what argument can there be? We’re required by law to prosecute. Somebody started the war. They may well hold positions of responsibility now, but that hardly matters.”

  “How many police troops have you landed?” Hood asked.

  “Two hundred.”

  “Then you’re ready to go to work.”

  “Were ready to make inquiries. Sequester pertinent documents and initiate litigation in the local courts. We’re prepared to enforce cooperation, if that’s what you mean. Various experienced personnel have been distributed to key points.” Dietrich eyed him. “All this is necessary; I don’t see the problem. Did you intend to protect the guilty parties—make use of their so-called abilities on your staff?”

  “No,” Hood said evenly.

  Dietrich said, “Nearly eighty million people died in the Misfortune. Can you forget that? Or is it that since they were merely local people, not known to us personally—”

  “It’s not that,” Hood said. He knew it was hopeless; he could not communicate with the police mentality. “I’ve already stated my objections; I feel it serves no purpose at this late date to have trials and hangings. Don’t request use of my staff in this; I’ll refuse on the grounds that I can spare no one, not even a janitor. Do I make myself clear?”

  “You idealists,” Dietrich sighed. “This is strictly a noble task confronting us…to rebuild, correct? What you don’t or won’t see is that these people will start it all over again, one day, unless we take steps now. We owe it to future generations; to be harsh now is the most humane method, in the long run. Tell me, Hood. What is this site? What are you resurrecting, here, with such vigor?”

  “The New York Times” Hood said.

  “It has, I assume, a morgue? We can consult its backlog of information? That would prove valuable in building up our cases.”

  Hood said, “I can’t deny you access to material we uncover.”

  Smiling, Dietrich said, “A day by day account of the political events leading up to the war would prove quite interesting. Who, for instance, held supreme power in the United States at the time of the Misfortune? No one we’ve talked to so far seems to remember.” His smile increased.

  Early the next morning the report from the corps of engineers reached Hood in his temporary office. The power supply of the newspaper had been totally destroyed. But the cephalon, the governing brain-structure which guided and oriented the homeostatic system, appeared to be intact.

  If a ship were brought close by, perhaps its power supply could be integrated into the newspaper’s lines. Thereupon much more would be known.

  “In other words,” Fletcher said to Hood, as they sat with Joan eating breakfast, “it may come on and it may not. Very pragmatic. You hook it up and if it works you’ve done your job. What if it doesn’t? Do the engineers intend to give up, at that point?”

  Examining his cup, Hood said, “This tastes like authentic coffee.” He pondered. “Tell them to bring a ship in and start the homeopape up. And if it begins to print, bring me the edition at once.” He sipped his coffee.

  An hour later a ship of the line had landed in the vicinity and its power source had been tapped for insertion into the homeopape. The conduits were placed, the circuits cautiously closed.

  Seated in his office, Peter Hood heard far underground a low rumble, a halting, uncertain stirring. They had been successful. The newspaper was returning to life.

  The edition, when it was laid on his desk by a bustling CURBman, surprised him by its accuracy. Even in its dormant state, the newspaper had somehow managed not to fall behind events. Its receptors had kept going.

  CURB LANDS FROM CENTAURUS TRIP DECADE LONG,

  PLANS REBUILD, CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION

  Ten years after the Misfortune of a nuclear holocaust, the inter-system rehabilitation agency, CURB, has made its historic appearance on Earth’s surface, landing from a veritable armada of craft—a sight which witnesses described as “overpowering both in scope and in significance.” CURBman Peter Hood, named top coordinator by Centaurian authorities, immediately set up headquarters in the ruins of New York City and conferred with aides, declaring that he had come “not to punish the guilty but to re-establish the planet-wide culture by every means available, and to restore.

  It was uncanny, Hood thought as he read the lead article. The varied news-gathering services of the homeopape had reached into his own life, had digested and then inserted into the lead article even the discussion between himself and Otto Dietrich. The newspaper was—had been—doing its job; nothing of news-interest escaped it, even a discreet conversation carried on with no outsiders as witnesses. He would have to be careful.

  Sure enough, another item, ominous in tone, dealt with the arrival of the black jacks, the police.

  SECURITY AGENCY VOWS “WAR CRIMINALS” TARGET

  Captain Otto Dietrich, supreme police investigator arriving with the CURB armada from Proxima Centaurus, said today that those responsible for the Misfortune of a decade ago “will have to pay for their crimes” before the bar of Centaurian justice. Two hundred black-uniformed police, it was learned by the Times, have already begun exploratory activities designed to.

  The newspaper was warning Earth about Dietrich, and Hood could not help feeling grim relish. The Times had not been set up to serve merely the occupying hierarchy; it served everyone, including those Dietrich intended to try, and each step of the police activity would no doubt be reported in full detail. Dietrich, who liked to work in anonymity, would not enjoy this. But the authority to maintain the newspaper belonged to Hood.

  And he did not intend to shut it off.

  One item on the first page of the paper attracted his further notice; he read it, frowning and a little uneasy.

  CEMOLI SUPPORTERS RIOT IN UPSTATE NEW YORK

  Supporters of Benny Cemoli, gathered in the familiar tent cities associated with the colorful political figure, clashed with local citizens armed with hammers, shovels and boards, both sides claiming victory in the two-hour melee which left twenty injured and a dozen hospitalized in hastily-erected first aid stations. Cemoli, garbed as always in his toga-style red robes, visited the injured, evidently in good spirits, joking and telling his supporters that “it won’t be long now,” an evident reference to the organization’s boast that it would march on New York City in the near future to establish what Cemoli deems “social justice and true equality for the first time in world history.” It should be recalled that prior to his imprisonment at San Quentin.

  Flipping a switch on his intercom system, Hood said, “Fletcher, check into activities up in the north of the county; find out about some sort of a political mob gathering there.”

  Fletcher’s voice came back, “I have a copy of the Times, too, sir. I see the item about this Cemoli agitator. There’s a ship on the way up there right now; should have a report within ten minutes.” Fletcher paused. “Do you think…it’ll be necessary to bring in any of Dietrich’s people?”

  “Let’s hope not,” Hood said shortly.

  Half an hour later the CURB ship, through Fletcher, made its report. Puzzled, Hood asked that it be repeated. But there was no mistake. The CURB field team had investigated thoroughly. They had found no sign whatsoever of any tent city or any group gathering. And citizens in the area whom they had interrogated had never heard of anyone named “Cemoli.” And there was no sign of any scuffle having taken place, no first aid stations, no injured persons. Only the peaceful, semi-rural countryside.

  Baffled, Hood read the item in the Times once more. There it was, in black and white, on the front page, along with the news about the landing of the CURB armada. What did it mean?

  He did not like it, not at all.

  Had it been a mistake to revive the great, old, damaged homeostatic newspaper?

  From a sound sleep that night Hood was awakened by a clanging from far beneath the ground, an urgent racket that grew louder and louder as he sat up in bed, blinking and confused. Machinery roared; he heard the heavy rumbling movement as automatic circuits fitted into place, responding to instructions emanating from within the closed system itself.

  “Sir,” Fletcher was saying, from the darkness; a light came on as Fletcher located the temporary overhead fixture. “I thought I should come in and wake you. Sorry, Mrs. Hood.”

  “I’m awake,” Hood muttered, rising from the bed and putting on his robe and slippers. “What’s it doing?”

  Fletcher said, “It’s printing an extra.”

  Sitting up, smoothing her tousled blonde hair back, Joan said, “Good lord. What about?” Wide-eyed, she looked from her husband to Fletcher.

  “We’ll have to bring in the local authorities,” Hood said.

  “Confer with them.” He had an intuition as to the nature of the extra roaring through the presses at this moment. “Get that LeConte here, that politico who met us on our arrival. Wake him up and fly him here; we need him.”

  It took almost an horn- to obtain the presence of the haughty, ceremonious local potentate and his staff-member; the two of them in their elaborate uniforms at last put in an appearance at Hood’s office, both of them indignant. They faced Hood silently, waiting to hear what he wanted.

  In his bathrobe and slippers Hood sat at his desk, a copy of the Times’ extra before him; he was reading it once more as LeConte and his man entered.

  NEW YORK POLICE REPORT CEMOLI LEGIONS ON MOVE

  TOWARD CITY, BARRICADES ERECTED, NATIONAL GUARD

  ALERTED

  He turned the paper, showing the headlines to the two Earthmen. “Who is this man?” he said.

  After a moment LeConte said, “I…don’t know.”

  Hood said, “Come on, Mr. LeConte.”

  “Let me read the article,” LeConte said nervously. He scanned it in haste; his hands trembled as he held the newspaper. “Interesting,” he said at last. “But I can’t tell you a thing; it’s news to me—you must understand that our communications have been sparse, since the Misfortune, and it’s entirely possible that a political movement could spring up without our—”

  “Please,” Hood said. “Don’t make yourself absurd.”

  Flushing, LeConte stammered, “I’m doing the best I can, summoned out of my bed in the middle of the night”

  There was a stir, and through the office doorway came the rapidly-moving figure of Otto Dietrich, looking grim. “Hood,” he said without preamble, “there’s a Times kiosk near my headquarters—it just posted this.” He held up a copy of the extra. “The damn thing is running this off and distributing it throughout the world, isn’t it? However, we have crack teams up in that area and they report absolutely nothing, no road blocks, no militia-style troops on the move, no activity of any sort.”

  “I know,” Hood said. He felt weary. And still, from beneath them, the deep rumble continued, the newspaper printing its extra, informing the world of the march by Benny Cemoli’s supporters on New York City—a fantasy march, evidently, a product manufactured entirely within the cephalon of the newspaper itself.

  “Shut it off,” Dietrich said.

  Hood shook his head. “No. I…want to know more.”

  “That’s no reason,” Dietrich said. “Obviously, it’s defective. Very seriously damaged, not working properly. You’ll have to search elsewhere for your worldwide propaganda network.” He tossed the newspaper down on Hood’s desk.

  To LeConte, Hood said, “Was Benny Cemoli active before the war?”

  There was silence. Both LeConte and his assistant Mr. Fall were pale and tense; they faced him tight-lipped, glancing at each other.

  “I am not much for police matters,” Hood said to Dietrich, “but I think you could reasonably step in, here.”

  Dietrich, understanding, said, “I agree. You two men are under arrest. Unless you feel inclined to talk a little more freely about this agitator, this apparition in the red toga.” He nodded to two of his police, who stood by the office doorway; they stepped forward.

  As the two policemen came up to him, LeConte said, “Come to think of it, there was such a person. But—he was very obscure.”

  “Before the war?” Hood asked.

  “Yes.” LeConte nodded slowly. “He was a joke, a clown. As I recall, and it’s difficult…a fat, ignorant clown from some backwoods area. He had a little radio station or something over which he broadcast. He peddled some sort of anti-radiation box which you installed in your house, and it made you safe from bomb-test fallout.”

  Now his staff member Mr. Fall said, “I remember. He even ran for the UN senate. But he was defeated, naturally.”

  “And that was the last of him?” Hood asked.