City at Worlds End | Page 6

necessity of lying to her. Now he was even more grateful, because she
would not dream that he might have special information. That way, he could spare her a
little longer, get himself in hand before he told her. "I'll do my best," he told her. "But
until we're sure, I wish you and your aunt would stay in the house, off the street. No, I
don't think your bridge-luncheon will come off anyway. And you can't tell what people
will do when they're frightened. Promise? Yes-- yes, I'll be over as soon as I can."
He hung up, and as soon as that contact with Carol was broken, reality slipped away from
him again. He looked around the office, and it became suddenly rather horrible, because
it had no longer any meaning. He had an urgent wish to get out of it, yet when he rose he
stood for some while with his hands on the edge of the desk, going over Hubble's words
in his mind, remembering how the Sun had looked, and the stars, and the sad, alien Earth,
knowing that it was all impossible but unable to deny it. The long hall of time, and a
shattering force... He wanted desperately to run away, but there was no place to run to.
Presently he went down the corridor to Hubble's office.
They were all there, the twelve men of the staff, and Johnson. Johnson had gone by
himself into a corner. He had seen what lay out there beyond the town, and the others had
not. He was trying to understand it, to understand the fact and the explanation of it he had
just heard. It was not a pleasant thing, to watch him try. Kenniston glanced at the others.
He had worked closely with these men. He had thought he knew them all so well, having
seen them under stress, in the moments when their work succeeded and the others when it
did not. Now he realized that they were all strangers, to him and to each other, alone and
wary with their personal fears.
Old Beitz was saying, almost truculently, "Even if it were true, you can't say exactly how
long a time has passed. Not just from the stars."
Hubble said, "I'm not an astronomer, but anyone can figure it from the tables of known
star-motions, and the change in the constellations. Not exactly, no. But as close as will
ever matter."
"But if the continuum were actually shattered, if this town has actually jumped millions
of years..." Beitz' voice trailed off. His mouth began to twitch and he seemed suddenly
bewildered by what he was saying, and he, and all of them, stood looking at Hubble in a
haunted silence.
Hubble shook his head. "You won't really believe, until you see for yourselves. I don't
blame you. But in the meantime, you'll have to accept my statement as a working
hypothesis."
Morrow cleared his throat and asked, "What about the people out there-- the town? Are
you going to tell them?"
"They'll have to know at least part of it," Hubble said. "It'll get colder, very much colder,
by night, and they'll have to be prepared for it. But there must not be any panic. The
Mayor and the Chief of Police are on their way here now, and we'll work it out with
them."

"Do they know yet, themselves?" asked Kenniston, and Hubble said, "No."
Johnson moved abruptly. He came up to Hubble and said, "I don't get all this scientific
talk about space and time. What I want to know is-- is my boy safe?"
Hubble stared at him. "Your boy?"
"He went out to Martinsen's farm early, to borrow a cultivator. It's two miles out the north
road. What about him, Mr. Hubble-- is he safe?"
That was the secret agony that had been riding him, the one he had not voiced. Hubble
said gently. "I would say that you don't have to worry about him at all, Johnson."
Johnson nodded, but still looked worried. He said, "Thanks, Mr. Hubble. I'd better go
back now. I left my wife in hysterics."
A minute or two after he left, Kenniston heard a siren scream outside. It swung into the
Lab yard and stopped. "That," said Hubble, "would be the Mayor."
A small and infirm reed to lean upon, thought Kenniston, at a time like this. There was
nothing particularly wrong about Mayor Garris. He was no more bumbling, inefficient, or
venal than the average mayor of any average small city. He liked banquets and oratory,
he worried about the right necktie, and he was said to be a good husband and father. But
Kenniston could not, somehow, picture Bertram Garris shepherding his people safely
across the end of the world. He