"Yes. His theory of a monopolist of despotism has given our department some wild goose chase headaches."
The Director nodded, pressed a buzzer on his desk. A young man entered the office a moment later, receiving the picture and a few terse words before departing. "It shouldn't take long," the Director told Tedor. "Did you also know that the Hadriens, father and daughter, are non-temps?"
"No. I didn't."
"Yes, non-temps."
The non-temps, Tedor knew, were a growing cult which insisted time-travel was an evil both from the point of view of the ages visited and of the age doing the visiting. They had gathered considerable data to prove their point, and although Tedor never looked into it thoroughly, some said they put up a convincing though completely impractical argument.
"We've got our hands full with Hadrien and his followers, just as you have," said the Director. "You can't argue with their figures, but sometimes figures don't tell the entire story. Ten years ago, the non-temps will tell you, the population of Earth was one billion, far smaller than it was in the past because of a sensible policy of eugenics. Today the population is somewhat short of a billion, they say, and the census verifies it.
"Ten years ago, they continue, a quarter of a million people commuted into time daily to work in the various ages, sleeping here but working and vacationing else-when. Today the figure has grown to three quarters of a billion, and it's still increasing.
"And seventy-five million people have vanished into the past. They simply preferred the past ages and broke all relations with the present. But that's the problem of you Agents, not us."
"Don't I know it!" Tedor said.
"The non-temps say this is a dangerous trend. They further maintain it is our own fault. We provide no real culture of our own, no sense of belonging. We gear everything to the past ages, converting our own world to a sort of administration center and nothing more. We work in the past, receive our raw materials in the past; our art forms more and more are concerned with other times, other places. We do nothing to encourage living in our own century."