--The fact did not strike home till they were stopping over at Idlewild and saw uniformed men and machine-gun emplacements. In the coffee shop, Arch asked the counterman just how bad things really were. "Rough," he answered. "See this?" He flipped back his jacket, showing a homemade capacitite pistol in a holster. "Oh, look now--" "Mister, I live in Brooklyn. I don't get home till after dark, and the police cordons don't go closer than six blocks to my place. I've had to shoot twice already in the past couple months." "Bandits?" "In gangs, mister. If I could work somewhere closer to home, I'd be off like a shot." Arch set down his cup. Suddenly he didn't want any more coffee. _My God_, he thought, _am I responsible for that?_ A smaller plane carried them to Boston, where they caught a bus for Westfield. The driver had an automatic rifle by his seat. Arch huddled into himself, waiting for he knew not what; but the trip was uneventful. The town didn't seem to have changed much. Most of the cars were converted, but it didn't show externally. The drug store still flashed neon at a drowsy sidewalk, the Carnegie library waited rather wistfully for someone to come in, the dress shop had the same old dummies in the window. Elizabeth pointed at them. "Look," she said. "See those clothes?" "They're dresses," said Arch moodily. "What about them?" "No style change in six months, that's all," said Elizabeth. "It gives me the creeps." They walked along streets banked with dirty, half-melted snow, under a leaden sky and a small whimpering wind. Their house had not changed when they entered, someone had been in to dust and it looked like the home they remembered. Arch sank tiredly into his old armchair and accepted a drink. He studied the newspaper he'd bought at the depot. Screaming headlines announced revolt in Russia--mass uprisings in the Siberian prison camps--announcements from the Copenhagen office of the Ukrainian nationalist movement--It all seemed very far away. The fact that there were no new dress styles was somehow closer and more eerie. A thunderous knock at the door informed him that Culquhoun had noticed their lights. "Mon, it's guid to see ye again!" The great paw engulfed his hand. "Where've ye been a' the while?" "Can't tell you that," said Arch. "Aweel, you'll permit me to make my own guesses, then." Culquhoun cocked an eye at the paper. "Who do they think they're fooling, anyhow? We can look for the Russian bombers any day now." Arch considered his reply. That aspect had been thoroughly discussed at the project, but he wasn't sure how much he could tell. "Quite possibly," he said at last. "But with their internal troubles, they won't be able to make many raids, or any big ones--and the little they will be able to throw at us should be stopped while they're still over northern Canada."