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_Feb. 25, 2631_: Dear Diary: What shall I do? How like that sneaky,
underhanded physicist to be studying historical force lines in the
Roman era, without mentioning it to me. Myers came into lunch today
fairly frothing with what can only be described as childish excitement
and alarm. It seems he had discovered a hole in the time-fabric in the
year 65, although he hasn't so far been able to place its exact time
and location (this is, of course, my sixteen Christians) and he tried
to frighten us all with lurid talk about a possible time collapse or
distortion that might well end the human race--if the hole was not
found and plugged. This is, of course, the most utter nonsense. Time
collapse, indeed! But I can take no chances on his discovering what
actually happened, and so I realized right away that I had to plug the
hole.
The idea of putting back my Romans is, of course, unthinkable. They
are beginning to respond in a most interesting manner to some spatial
relationship tests I have been giving them. Therefore I cleverly
sounded out Myers to find the necessary factors to plug the hole.
I gather that any sixteen men would do, provided they conformed to
the historically important characteristics of the Roman group. This
sounded simple when he first said it, but since then the problem has
been growing in my mind. For the important characteristics are clearly
that they be all Christians who are willing to die for their faith. I
might easily find such a group in Roman times but in order to hide the
gap my replacements will make I will have to take them from some other
era--one Myers is not studying. I have only a day or two at most. Oh,
dear diary, what shall I do?
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