It was late afternoon by the time Wales got the car clear of the metropolitan area, out of the congested evacuation traffic. And it was soft spring dusk by the time he crossed the Delaware at Stroudsburg and climbed westward through the Poconos. The roads, the towns, were empty. Here and there in villages he saw gutted stores, smashed doors and windows--but no people. As the darkness came, from behind him still echoed the boom-boom of thunder, ever and again repeated, of the endless ships of the Marslift riding their columns of flame up into the sky. By the last afterglow, well beyond Stroudsburg, he looked back and thought he saw another car top a ridge and sink, swiftly down into the shadow behind him. Wales felt a queer thrill. Was he being followed? If so, by whom? By casual looters, or by some who meant to thwart his mission? By the society of the Atonement? He drove on, looking back frequently, and once again he thought he glimpsed a black moving bulk, without lights, far back on the highway. He saw only one man that night, on a bridge at Berwick. The man leaned on the rail, and there was a bottle in his hand, and he was very drunk. He turned a wild white face to Wales' headlights, and shook the bottle, and shouted hoarsely. Only the words, "--Kendrick's World--" were distinguishable. Sick at heart, Wales went by him and drove on. CHAPTER III All that night, his car rolled across an unlighted, empty world. Wary of the great thruways, he followed the lesser roads. And every village, every town, every hillside or valley farm, was dark and silent. All this area that included Pennsylvania had been evacuated two years ago, and the people of these houses were now living the new life in the sprawling new cities on another planet. Twice Wales stopped his car and cut the motor and lights, and waited, listening. Once he was sure that he heard a distant humming from far back along the highway, but it fell silent, and though he waited with gun in hand, no one came. So each time he drove on, but he could not rid himself of the conviction that someone followed him secretly. With morning, his spirits lifted a little. He was only an hour's drive from the old Pennsylvania-Ohio line where the town of Castletown was. And there, if anywhere, he must find the trail to Lee and Martha Kendrick. Kendrick, to the world, had become identified with the asteroid that was plunging ever nearer in its fateful orbit. It had, from the first, been called Kendrick's World. Kendrick, if anyone could, might convince those who had begun to doubt Doomsday. If Kendrick could be found.... Wales drove down a winding hillside road into the town of Butler, ten minutes later--and ran smack into a barricade. The moment he saw the cars drawn up to block the highway, he tried to swing around fast. But he wasn't quick enough. A voice said, "Kill the motor and get out."