I lay blearily watching the tiny figures flickering around the screen, not so much forgetting all the things that were on my mind as knowing what they were and that they existed, but lacking the strength to pick them up and look at them. The opera seemed to concern an Egyptian queen and a priest of some sort; I was not very interested in it, though it seemed odd that Zorchi should watch it so eagerly. Perhaps, after all, there was something to his maudlin self-pity--perhaps I really did think of him as a monster or a dog, for I was as uneasy to see him watching an opera as I would have been to see an ape play the flute. I heard trucks going by on the highway. By and by it began to penetrate through the haze that I was hearing a _lot_ of trucks going by on the highway. I had no idea how heavily traveled the Naples-Caserta road might be, but from the sound, they seemed nearly bumper to bumper, whizzing along at seventy or eighty miles an hour. I got up stiffly and walked over to the window. I had not been far wrong. There was a steady stream of traffic in both directions--not only trucks but buses and private cars, everything from late-model gyromaxions to ancient piston-driven farm trucks. Zorchi heard me move, and turned toward me with a hooded expression. I pointed to the window. "What's up?" I asked. He said levelly, "The end of the world. It is now official; it has been on the television. Oh, they do not say it in just so many words, but it is there." I turned to the television set and flicked off the tape-relay switch--apparently the opera had been recorded. Zorchi glared, but didn't try to stop me as I hunted on the broadcast bands for a news announcer. I didn't have far to hunt. Every channel was the same: The Company was issuing orders and instructions. Every man, woman and child was to be ready within ten days for commitment to the clinic.... I tried to imagine the scenes of panic and turmoil that would be going on in downtown Naples at that moment. * * * * * The newscaster was saying: "Remember, if your Basic Blue Bolt policy number begins with the letters A, B or C--if it begins with the letters A, B or C--you are to report to the local first aid or emergency post at six hundred hours tomorrow. There is no danger. I repeat, there is no danger. This is merely a precaution taken by the Company for your protection." He didn't really look as though there were no danger, however. He looked like a man confronted by a ghost.