* * * * * He went back along the dark street to the main boulevard, where the little white route signs glimmered faintly. He looked for the car, but did not see it. Shrugging, Wales started along the highway. He couldn't be too far from the big Evacuation Thruways. He had gone only a few blocks in the dark, when lights suddenly came on and outlined him. He whirled, startled. "Mr. Wales," said a voice. Wales relaxed. He walked toward the lights. It was the car, and the driver in the UN uniform, parked back in an alley. "I thought you were back at the spaceport by now," Wales said sourly. The driver swore. "I wasn't going to run away. But no use tackling that crowd. Didn't I warn you? An Evacuation uniform sets them crazy." Wales got in beside him. "Let's get out of here." As they rolled, he asked, "When I left Earth four years ago, there didn't seem a soul who doubted Doomsday. Why are these people doubtful now?" The driver told him, "They say Kendrick's World is just a scare, that it's not going to hit Earth after all." "Who told them that?" "Nobody knows who started the talk. Not many believed it at first. But then people began to say, 'Kendrick was the one who predicted Doomsday--if he really believed it, _he'd_ leave Earth!'" "What did Kendrick say to that?" "He didn't say anything. He just went into hiding, they say. Leastwise, the officials admitted he hadn't gone to Mars. No wonder a lot of folks began to say, 'He _knows_ his prediction was wrong, that's why he's not leaving Earth!'" Wales asked, after a time, "What do you think, yourself?" The driver said, "_I'm_ going out on Evacuation, for sure. So maybe Kendrick and the rest are wrong? What have I got to lose? And if the big crash does come, I won't be here." Dawn grayed the sky ahead as the car rolled on through more and more silent towns. It took to a skyway and as they sped above the roofs, the old towers of New York rose misty and spectral against the brightening day. In the downtown city itself, they were suddenly among people again. They were everywhere on the sidewalks and they were a variegated throng. Workers and their families from the midwest, lumbermen and miners from the north, overweight businessmen, women, children, babies, dogs, birds in cages, a shuffling, slow-moving mass of humanity walking aimlessly up and down the streets, waiting their call-up to the buses and the spaceports and the leaving of their world. Evacuation Police in their gray uniforms were plentiful, and to Wales' surprise they were armed. Only official cars were in the streets, and Wales noticed the frequent unfriendly looks his own car got from faces here and there in the throngs. He didn't suppose people would be too happy about leaving Earth.