Over New York there hung in the sky a new moon, big and red and
terrifying.
Once it had been a mere track, on an astronomical photo, a figure in a
calculation. Once it had been a threat, but an abstract one. Now it was
real at last. Week by week, it had grown from a spark to a speck to a
little moon, and now Kendrick's World was rushing in fast toward the
fatal rendezvous with its bigger, sister world.
Wales sat at his desk in the office high in the UN tower, and looked
out the window at the skyscrapers looming strange in the bloody light.
There was a great silence everywhere. The frantic thunder of the
Marslift was stilled at last. The last-but-one rockets had left at
dusk, and now as night advanced it seemed that the whole Earth was
hushed and waiting.
He felt a weariness that smothered all happiness of success. For they
_had_ succeeded, in these four frantic months. After Lee Kendrick had
told his story to the world, after the plotters who had ruthlessly
condemned millions "for the good of the race" had been exposed and
arrested, those millions of dubious folk had suddenly felt the full
panicky shock of truth, had realized at last that Doomsday was real.
They had poured into New York, in fear-driven mobs that could hardly be
handled. And Wales, as the hastily appointed new Evacuation Marshal,
had felt in his soul that it was too late, that some would surely be
left.
He had reckoned without that quality in human beings that draws their
greatest strength out of peril. The Marslift had been speeded up,
speeded up farther, speeded up until rocket-crews fainted of fatigue at
their posts. But it had, at last, been done....
The door opened, and Martha came across the office to where Wales sat
hunched and weary with his hands spread out on the empty desk.
"It's time, Jay," she said. "Lee and the others are waiting."
He looked slowly up at her. "We got them all off," he said.
"Yes. We got them all off."
"About one thing," he said, "Fairlie was right. It'll be hard on Mars
for us, harder because of all those last millions. But I don't think
anyone will ever complain."
He thought of the people who had streamed through New York, into the
Marslift rockets, these last weeks and days.
He thought of Sam Lanterman and his people from Pittsburgh, and
Lanterman complaining, "Hell, I got to own a whole city and what
happens--I get scared out of it! Oh well, I guess it won't be so bad
out there."
Martha touched his shoulder gently. "Come, Jay."
He got to his feet and walked heavily with her to the lift.
They went down through the silent, empty building to the empty street.
Empty, except for the car in which Kendrick and the two others waited,
looking up silently at the crimson face of the thing that was coming
fast, fast, toward Earth.
The car bore them fast through the empty streets, and the lifeless
metropolis fell behind them and they rushed across a countryside
already wearing a strange and ominous new aspect, to the Spaceport.
The last rocket waited, a silvery tower flashing back the red light
from the sky. They got out of the car and walked toward it.
Hollenberg had won the honor of being the last rocket-captain to leave
Earth. But he did not look as though he enjoyed that honor now.
"We're ready," he said.
Wales asked, "Is Fairlie aboard?"
Hollenberg nodded grimly. "Aboard, and locked up. He was the last
evacuee taken on, as per orders."
They stood, looking at each other. It came to Wales what was the
matter. They stood upon Earth, and it was the last time that they might
ever stand upon it.
He said harshly, "If we're ready, let's go."
The rocket-ship bore them skyward on wings of flame and thunder, and an
Earth empty of man lay waiting.
* * * * *
A million miles out in space, they watched from the observation port.
They could see the planetoid only as a much smaller, dark mass against
the blue, beautiful sphere of Earth.
"One minute, fifteen seconds," said Kendrick, in a dry, level voice.
Martha sobbed, and hid her face against Wales' shoulder, and he held
her close.
"Thirty seconds."
And all Wales could think of was the cities and their silent streets,
the little houses carefully locked and shuttered, the quiet country
roads and old trees and fields, with the red moon looming over them,
coming down upon them, closer, closer--
"She's struck," said Kendrick. And then, "Look--look--"
Wales saw. The blue sphere of Earth had suddenly changed, white steam
laced with leaping flames enwrapped it, puffing out from it. Giant
winds tore the steam and he glimpsed tortured continents buckling,
cracking, mountains rising--
He held Martha close, and watched until he could watch no more, and
turned away. Kendrick, with his telescope set up, was talking rapidly.
"The continental damage isn't too bad. The seas are all steam now, but
they'll condense again in time. Terrific volcanoes, but they'll not
last too long. In time, it'll cool down--"
In time, Wales thought. In their time? Maybe not until their children's
time?
He looked ahead, at the red spark of Mars, the world of refuge. It
would be hard living on Mars, yes, for all the millions of men. But
there were other worlds in space, and they had the knowledge and the
ships. He thought they would go farther than Mars, much farther. He
thought that they could not guess now, how far.
But someday, they or their children would come back to old Earth again.
Of that, he was very sure.