d foresaw such
things as earthquakes, fires, floods, volcanic eruptions and violent
storms. They set up special teams for handling these disasters,
evacuating people and removing valuable property beforehand.

This explained why, as we looked ahead, we saw fewer and fewer deaths
occurring from these tragedies. The growing efficiency of the rescue
services worked wonders--which were part of the future, as you'd expect,
not successful attempts to change it--although there were always a small
number of deaths, mainly the kind of people who never used to pay any
attention to the news, didn't look at road signs, and the like.

Some of them belonged to the crowd who opposed Bilbo Grundy's fabulous
invention. They were strictly a minority but, as is usually the case,
they were a pretty noisy and outspoken bunch. They were a mixed lot,
too, made up of people who had foreseen their deaths or personal
disaster, those who had lost their jobs through the invention, a number
of cranks who habitually were against everything, plus a few, like
myself, who just didn't feel easy about the Projector.

I couldn't see that time travel was evil or sinful the way some of them
described it and I never attended any of their protest meetings, but I
did sympathize with them to a certain extent. Everyone called them the
'Diehards' and the stock remark was that they should look into the
future to see if their movement was going to be a success before they
got too involved in it.

That drove them wild.

* * * * *

Marge spent a lot of time with her Projector. The device was very
popular with women, mainly, I guess, because it was the absolutely
perfect fortune-telling device and it was much more fun than either
video or visiphone conversations.

I put my own Grundy Projector away in the basement shortly after I got
married and I never used it any more. To my way of thinking, it made
life pretty dull. I had just been married and I was also starting to get
ahead at my job--Mr. Atkins had put me in charge of a whole department
full of accounts analyzers. I went around with all sorts of wild plans
and dreams of a rosy future for us. I hoped someday to form my own
company and I was also interested in finding a better place to live. The
dome housing development was only temporary as far as I was concerned
and I wanted something bigger for when we could afford a family.

I suppose we all have those dreams of success