blown out, and solid steel behind it. Altamont cut two more
holes sidewise, one on either side of the blown-out place, and fired a
charge in each of them, bringing down more concrete. He found that he
hadn't missed the door, after all. It had merely been concreted over.

A few more shots cleared it, and after some work, they got it open.
There was a room inside, concrete-floored and entirely empty. With the
others crowding behind him, Altamont stood in the doorway and
inspected the interior with his flashlight; he heard somebody back of
him say something about a most peculiar sort of a dark-lantern. Across
the small room, on the opposite wall, was a bronze plaque.

It carried quite a lengthy inscription, including the names of all the
persons and institutions participating in the microfilm project. The
History Department at the Fort would be most interested in that, but
the only thing that interested Altamont was the statement that the
floor had been laid over the trapdoor leading to the vaults where the
microfilms were stored. He went outside to the radio.

"Hello, Jim. We're inside, but the films are stored in an underground
vault, and we have to tear up a concrete floor," he said. "Go back to
the village and gather up all the men you can carry, and tools.
Hammers and picks and short steel bars. I don't want to use explosives
inside. The interior of the crypt oughtn't to be damaged, and I don't
know what a blast in here might do to the film, and I don't want to
take chances."

"No, of course not. How thick do you think this floor is?"

"Haven't the least idea. Plenty thick, I'd say. Those films would have
to be well buried, to shield them from radioactivity. We can expect
that it'll take some time."

"All right. I'll be back as soon as I can."

The helicopter turned and went windmilling away, over what had been
the Golden Triangle, down the Ohio.

Altamont went back to the little concrete bunker and sat down,
lighting his pipe. Murray Hughes and his four riflemen spread out, one
circling around the glazed butte that had been the Cathedral of
Learning, another climbing to the top of the old library, and the
others taking positions to the south and east.

Altamont sat in silence, smoking his pipe and trying to form some
conception of the wealth under that concrete floor. It was no use.
Jim Loudons probably understood a little more nearly what those books
would mean to the world of today, and what they could do