I switched to another channel. An equally harried-looking announcer: "--reported by a team of four physicists from the Royal University to have produced a serious concentration of radioactive byproducts in the upper atmosphere. It is hoped that the cloud of dangerous gases will veer southward and pass harmlessly through the Eastern Mediterranean; however, strictly as a precautionary measure, it is essential that every person in this area be placed in a safety zone during the danger period, the peak of which is estimated to come within the next fourteen days. If there is any damage, it will be only local and confined to livestock--for which you will be reimbursed under your Blue Bolt coverage." I switched to another channel. _Local_ damage! Local to the face of the Earth! I tried all the channels; they were all the same. The Company had evidently decided to lie to the human race. Keep them in the dark--make each little section believe that only it was affected--persuade them that they would be under for, at most, a few weeks or months. Was that, I wondered, Defoe's scheme? Was he planning to try somehow to convince four billion people that fifty years were only a few weeks? It would never work--the first astronomer to look at a star, the first seaman to discover impossible errors in his tide table, would spot the lie. More likely he was simply proceeding along what must always have been his basic assumption: The truth is wasted on the people. Zorchi said with heavy irony, "If my guest is quite finished with the instrument, perhaps he will be gracious enough to permit me to resume Aïda." * * * * * I woke Rena and told her about the evacuation. She said, yawning, "But of course, Tom. What else could they do?" And she began discussing breakfast. I went with her, but not to eat; in the dining hall was a small television set, and on it I could listen to the same repeat broadcasts over and over to my heart's content. It was--in a way--a thrilling sight. It is always impressive to see a giant machine in operation, and there was no machine bigger than the Company. The idea of suspending a whole world, even piecemeal, was staggering. But if there had been panic at first in the offices of the Company, none of it showed. The announcers were harried and there was bustle and strain, but order presided. Those long lines of vehicles outside the window; they were going somewhere; they were each one, I could see by the medallion slung across each radiator front, on the payroll of the Company.