City at Worlds End | Page 8

had all come through time with them.
"They, and all food and fuel, must be rationed," Hubble was saying. "Proclaim it as an
emergency measure."
Mayor Garris seemed to feel a little better at being told what to do. "Yes. We'll do that at
once." Then he asked, timidly, "Isn't there any way of getting in touch with the rest of the
country?"
"The rest of the country," Hubble reminded him, "is some millions of years in the dead
past. You'll have to keep remembering that."
"Yes-- of course. I keep forgetting," said the Mayor. He shivered, and then took refuge in
the task set him. "We'll get busy at once."
When the car had borne the two away, Hubble looked haggardly at his silent colleagues.
"They'll talk, of course. But if the news spreads slowly, it won't be so bad. It'll give us a
chance to find out a few things first."
Crisci began to laugh, a little shrilly. "If it's true, this is a side-splitting joke! This whole
town flung into the end of the world and not even knowing it yet! All these fifty thousand
people, not guessing yet that their Cousin Agnes in Indianapolis has been dead and dust
for millions of years!"
"And they mustn't guess," Hubble said. "Not yet. Not until we know what we face in this
future Earth."
He went on, thinking aloud. "We need to see what's out there, outside the town, before
we can plan anything. Kenniston, will you get a jeep and bring it back here? Bring spare
gasoline, and some warm clothing, too. We'll need it out there. And Ken-- bring two
guns."




Chapter 3
-- dying planet

Kenniston walked back down Mill Street, toward the garage where he had left his car a
billion years ago when such things were still important. He knew they kept a jeep there
for road service, and he knew also that they would not have any need for it now because
there were no longer any roads. He wished he had a topcoat. At the rate the air was
chilling off it would be below zero by nightfall.
Quite literally, he began to feel as though he were walking in a nightmare. Above him
was an alien sky, and the red light of it lay strangely on the familiar walls of brick. But
the walls themselves were not altered. That, he decided, was the really shocking thing--
the drab everyday appearance of the town. When time and space gape open for the first
time in history, and you go through into the end of the world, you expect everything to be
different. Middletown did not look different, except for that eerie light.
There were a lot of people on Mill Street, but then, there always were a good many. It
was the street of dingy factories and small plants that connected Middletown with the
shabby South Side, and there were always buses, cars, pedestrians on it Perhaps the
bumbling traffic was a bit more disorganized than usual, and the groups of pedestrians
tended to clot together and chatter more excitedly, but that was all.
Kenniston knew a number of these people, by now, but he did not stop to talk to them. He
was somehow unwilling to meet their eyes. He felt guilty, to know the truth where they
did not. What if he should tell them, what would they do? It was a terrible temptation, to
rid himself of his secret. His tongue ached to cry it out.
There were people like old Mike Witter, the fat red-faced watchman who sat all day in
his little shack at the railroad crossing, with his small rat-terrier curled up by his feet. The
terrier was crouching now, shivering, her eyes bright and moist with fear, as though she
guessed what the humans did not, but old Mike was as placid as ever.
"Cold, for June!" he hailed Kenniston. "Coldest I ever saw. I'm going to build a fire.
Never saw such a freak storm!"
There was the knot of tube-mill workers at the next corner, in front of Joe's Lunch. They
were arguing, and two or three of them that Kenniston knew turned toward him.
"Hey, there's Mr. Kenniston, one of the guys at the Industrial Lab. Maybe he'd know!"
Their puzzled faces, as they asked, "Has a war started? Have you guys heard anything?"
Before he could answer, one asserted loudly, "Sure it's a war. Didn't someone say an
atomic bomb went off overhead and missed fire? Didn't you see the flash?"
"Hell, that was only a big lightning flash."
"Are you nuts? It nearly blinded me."
Kenniston evaded them. "Sorry, boys-- I don't know much more than you. There'll be
some announcement soon."

As he went on, a