The crowd nodded soberly. Clocker wished he had a cigarette and his wife. In her right mind, Zelda was unswervingly practical and she would have had some noteworthy comments to make.
"This is the task we must work together on," said Dr. Harding forcefully. "Each of you has a skill, a talent, a special knowledge we need for the immense record we are compiling. Every area of human society must be covered. We need you—urgently! Your data will become part of an imperishable social document that shall exist untold eons after mankind has perished."
Visibly, the woman in the housecoat was stunned. "They want to put down what I can tell them?"
"And tailoring?" asked the little man with the pin-cushion vest. "How to make buttonholes and press clothes?"
The man who looked like a banker had his chin up and a pleased expression on his pudgy face.
"I always knew I'd be appreciated some day," he stated smugly. "I can tell them things about finance that those idiots in the main office can't even guess at."
Mr. Calhoun stood up beside Dr. Harding on the rostrum. He seemed infinitely benign as he raised his hands and his deep voice.
"Friends, we need your help, your knowledge. I know you don't want the human race to vanish without a trace, as though it had never existed. I'm sure it thrills you to realize that some researcher, far in the future, will one day use the very knowledge that you gave. Think what it means to leave your personal imprint indelibly on cosmic history!" He paused and leaned forward. "Will you help us?"
The faces glowed, the hands went up, the voices cried that they would.