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 toward shaping the world of the future. There was a library at Fort Ridgeway, and it was an excellent one—for its purpose. In 1996, when the rockets had come crashing down, it had contained the cream of the world's technological knowledge—and very little else. There was a little fiction, a few books of ideas, just enough to give the survivors a tantalizing glimpse of the world of their fathers. But now—
A rifle banged to the south and east, and banged again. Either Murray Hughes or Birdy Edwards—it was one of the two hunting rifles from the helicopter. On the heels of the reports, they heard a voice shouting: "Scowrers! A lot of them, coming from up the river!" A moment later, there was a light whip-crack of one of the long muzzle-loaders, from the top of the old Carnegie Library, and Altamont could see a wisp of gray-white smoke drifting away from where it had been fired. He jumped to his feet and raced for the radio, picking it up and bringing it to the bunker.