I understood; I knew the purpose of the project. I'd understood it for some time, of course, but now it had been put into words. For several seconds I sat nodding slowly, Danziger waiting for me to say something. Finally I did. "Why? Why do you want to?"

He slouched back in his chair, one long arm hooked over its back, and shrugged a shoulder. "Why did the Wrights want to build an airplane? To create jobs for stewardesses? Or give us a way to bomb Vietnam? No, I think all they really had in mind was to see if they could. I think it's why the Russki scientists shot the first satellite into orbit, no matter what supposed purposes they advanced. For no other real reason than to see if they could, like kids blasting a firecracker under a tin can to see if it'll really go up. And I think it was reason enough. For their scientists and ours. Impressive purposes were invented later to justify the horrible expense of these toys, but the first tries were just for the hell of it, boy, and that's our reason, too."

It was okay with me. I said, "Fine, but why Win-field, Vermont, in 1926? Or Paris of 1451? Or the Dakota apartments in 1894?"

"The places aren't important to us." He took the half cigar from his mouth, looked at it distastefully, and put it back. "And neither are the times. They're nothing but targets of opportunity. We're not especially interested in the Crow Indians. Of 1850 or any other time. But as it happens, there are some thousands of federally owned acres of Montana land still virtually untouched, unchanged from the 1850's. For four or five days at most the Department of Agriculture will undertake to close the road through it — no cars or Greyhound buses — and to keep the jets out. They can also provide a herd of approximately a thousand buffalo. If we could have the area for a month we wouldn't need the simulation down on the Big Floor. As it is, our man will get used to it here, and — we hope — be ready to make the most of the few days we'll have in the real location.

"As for Winfield — " he nodded toward the wall photograph. "It's just a very small town in an area of played-out farmland, virtually abandoned when we got it. For forty years the town was slowly dying, gradually losing population. For the last thirty of those years hardly anyone wasted money modernizing and trying to fight the inevitable. It's an old story in parts of New England; the ghost towns aren't all in the West. This one was more isolated than most, so we bought it through another agency simply as a target of opportunity. Supposedly to build a dam on its site."

Danziger grinned. "We've closed off the road into it, and now we're restoring it; God, it's fun! The reverse, for a change, of running a freeway through the heart of a fine old town or replacing a lovely old place with a windowless monstrosity; it would drive the destroyer mentalities insane with frustration, but our people are having a wonderful time." He sat smiling like a sailor talking about his all-time-best shore leave.

"They're ripping out all the neon, they'll tear out every dial phone, unscrew every frosted light bulb. We've carted out most of the electrical appliances already: power lawn mowers and the like. We're removing every scrap of plastic, restoring the buildings, and tearing down the few new ones. We're even removing the paving from certain streets, turning them back into lovely dirt roads. When we're finished, the bakery will be ready with string and white paper to wrap fresh-baked bread in. There'll be little water sprays in Gelardi's store to keep the fresh vegetables cool. The fire engine will be horse-drawn, all automobiles the right kind, and the newspaper will begin turning out daily duplicates of those it published in 1926. We're working from an extensive study and collation of photographs and town records, and when we're finished I think forgotten little Winfield will once more be the way it was in 1926; now what do you think of that?"

I was smiling with him. "Sounds impressive. And expensive."

"Not at all." Danziger shook his head firmly. "It will cost, all told, only a little over three million dollars, less than the cost of two hours of war, and a better buy. All this for the benefit of one man; you saw him this morning out on the Big Floor."

"The man on the porch of the little frame house."

"Yes; it's a duplicate of one in Winfield. In it, as well as he can, John is doing his level best to work himself into the mood of living in Winfield, Vermont, in the year 1926. Then, when he's ready and when we are, for about ten days — the longest period that is practical — some two hundred actors and extras will begin walking the restored streets of Winfield, driving the old cars, sitting out on the porches if it's warm enough. They'll be told it has to do with an experimental movie technique; hidden cameras catching their impromptu but authentic actions, which must be maintained at all times when outdoors. Among the two hundred — all those having actual dealings with John — will be some twenty-odd people from the project. We hope John will be mentally ready to make the most of those brief ten days." Chewing his cigar stump, the old man sat staring across his office at the huge photograph on the wall.

Then he looked at me again. "And that's the purpose of all our constructions down on the Big Floor. They're preparatory: temporary substitutes for the real sites because they're either not available yet or not available for a long enough time. There aren't many thousand-year-old buildings anywhere, for example, but one of them is Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The actual site will be given to us for less than five hours, between midnight and dawn of one night only. Electricity and gas to be turned off on the Île de Cite and along the Right and Left banks within eye range of the cathedral. And we'll be allowed to stage-set the immediate area. It's the best we could arrange — through the State Department — with the French government. They think it's being done for a movie. We even prepared a full shooting script to show them; realistically bad, which I expect convinced them. No one in the project has a great deal of hope for this particular attempt; there will be only a matter of hours in which to make it, not nearly enough, I'm afraid. And it's reaching a long way back; could anyone really achieve a sense of what it was like? I must doubt it, but still I have hope. We do the best we can, that's all, with the sites we discover."

Danziger stood, and beckoning me to follow, he walked to the covered table. "And now, except for countless details, you know what this project is. I've saved the best for last: your assignment."

He pulled the dust cover from the table and exposed a model, three-dimensional and beautifully made. From a body of white-capped green water a wooded island rose to a peak. Facing the island across a strait, a slanted cliff rose from a boulder-strewn beach. Above the rock face of the cliff grew timber, and among the trees stood a white house with a railed veranda.

"We're building this down on the Big Floor." Danziger touched the peak of the wooded island. "This is Angel Island in San Francisco Bay; it is state and federally owned. Except for a long-abandoned immigration station and an abandoned Nike site, both hidden by trees, the island looks now as it looked at the turn of the century when this house" — he touched its tiny roof — "was new. It was the first house built here, and it took the best view, nearest the water. The actual house still exists, and except from its rear windows you can't see the newer houses around it. And Angel Island blocks off the Bay bridges. So the site is as it was except for modern shipping and power boats passing through the strait. For two full days and three nights we can have the strait as it was, including two cargo sailing-ships and some smaller ones." Danziger smiled at me and put a big heavy hand on my shoulder. "San Francisco has always been a charming place to visit. But they say the city that was lost in the earthquake and fire of 1906 was particularly lovely, nothing like it on earth anymore. And that, Si — San Francisco in 1901 — is your assignment."