Edmond Hamilton

“ From town to town the Brotherhood of Atonement marched, those weak, crazed minds unhinged by the coming of Doomsday. Brighton Falls they had burned, and Sharon, and God knows how many other deserted towns. And now it was the turn of Castletown to be a sacrifice and an atonement....
He wanted to turn and flee from that mad, oncoming parade. But he did not. He crouched, watching, and he felt Martha, beside him, shivering.
"Jay, if they have Lee—he might be with them!" ”

“ He paused, and then he said, "We're going over to New York. We're going to have Kendrick tell his story to all the millions still on Earth, and it's a story that two of your own men will back up. We're going to try to get every last soul off Earth before Doomsday. But if we don't—"
"If you don't?" sneered Fairlie.
"You'll know it," said Wales, and now he was shaking. "Because you, Fairlie, will not leave Earth till every last soul is evacuated. If any human being faces Doomsday here, you'll face it right with him." ”

“ All the millions who had lived around these shores had left Earth long ago, and their cities were dark and still. Only the downtown tip of Manhattan still showed patterns of lighted windows, where the ceaseless activities of Operation Doomsday centered.
Wales rowed on, and then rested his oars a moment and turned and peered ahead in the darkness. He saw a lofty shadow now against the stars, and knew that it was the great Statue. He lifted the oars again, rowing now with infinite care to make no sound. ”

“ Then, with Martha beside him, Wales drove fast up the steep streets southeast.
"Jay—look!" she cried, when they reached a crest. She was looking back. He stopped the car, and looked back with her.
The whole downtown section of Castletown blazed high toward the stars. The wind whirled sparks away in burning clouds, and a great pall of smoke lay toward them.
Southward from the center of town moved a river of torches. And from those streets, only now just kindling, above the crackle of flames came the distant boom of the Brotherhood drums, and their rising and falling chant. ”

“ Kendrick seemed to have got control of himself. He talked feverishly as Wales tried keys.
"There's still time before Doomsday, isn't there?" he pleaded. "Still time to get everybody off Earth? It isn't too late?"
"I think there may be time enough," Wales said. He got the shackles unlocked, and helped Kendrick to his feet. "But we've still Fairlie to reckon with."
Kendrick broke into raging curses, and Wales stopped him sharply. "Cut it, Lee. I feel exactly the same way about it but we've no time for hysteria. It'll be tricky trying to get to Fairlie in his own stronghold, over in New York. ”

“ After a silence the Secretary had added, "You go back to Earth, Wales. You find Kendrick. You find out what's slowing down Evacuation. We've got to speed up, man! There's over twelve million people still left on Earth."
And here he was, Wales thought, in a rocket-ship speeding back to Earth on one of the endless runs of the Marslift, and he still didn't know why Evacuation had slowed, or what Lee Kendrick's disappearance had to do with it, and he'd have precious little time to find out. ”

“ Wales felt a sharp, poignant emotion. He asked himself, as a world had been asking for five years, Why did it have to be?
There was only one answer. Far out in the dark lonesomeness of the solar system, far beyond man's new Martian colonies, the thousands of asteroids that swung in incredibly intricate and eccentric orbits—they were the answer. They had been shuttles, weaving fate's web.
Kendrick had been the first to see it, to note the one big asteroid whose next passage near Jupiter would make its eccentricity of orbit too great. ”

“ He remembered Fairlie's grim face as he'd spoken broodingly of how hard a life it would be on Mars, with every one of Earth's millions there. He remembered the bitterly contemptuous way in which Fairlie—and Bliss and Chaumez and Holst—had spoken of the looters, the ignorant resisters, the crazy folk, whom it would be difficult to evacuate from Earth.
"Only fanatics would want to trap millions on Earth—" He, Wales, had said that. He'd been thinking then of the Brotherhood. But suppose there were other and more terrible fanatics? ”

“ No wonder Evacuation was going off schedule, thought Wales! Letting people play the fool like this—
A flashlight beam flared beside him, a man's face peered at his uniform, and a loud voice bellowed close to his ears, "Look, everybody! It's an Evacuation Officer!" ”

“ He said, "Then you and your pals aren't working for the Brotherhood? Then it wasn't the Brotherhood that took Lee Kendrick, after all?"
"They're maniacs!" said Pudgy, again. "For Christ's sake, Wales, are you going to let them burn us alive?"
Wales stooped, grabbed the man by the throat. "It's not the Brotherhood who took Kendrick, then. All right—who was it? Who wants to see millions of people trapped on Earth? ”

“ Wales switched off the instrument and took it away. He went out on the parapet, and waited in the darkness with the Venn gun in his hands.
Martha and Kendrick came out, and as another Marslift ship flamed up across the sky, he saw that her face was white and strained.
She said, "Don't kill him, Jay."
He said, without turning, "The Evacuation has been delayed, and there may not be enough time to make up that delay. We may not get everyone off Earth in time. And every one of those who are left to face Doomsday will have been killed by Fairlie and his pals." ”

“ An Earth almost de-populated lay quiet, awaiting the coming of the destruction from space. Yet men who did not believe in that destruction, men in little bands, were, with the passing of all law, contending for the possession of the great evacuated cities.
Lanterman stood up. "Well, what about it, Wilson? You want to join up with us and take Pittsburgh away from Bauder? Man, the loot there'll be—liquor, cars, food, everything!"
Wales knew he had no real choice, that even though it was a maddening interruption to his search for Kendrick, he must pretend to accede. ”

“ For the first time, Wales looked at him sharply. "People where?"
Hollenberg nodded toward the window. "On Earth. Every run we make, we hear it. They say—"
And here it was again, Wales thought, the rumors, the whispers, that had been coming out to Mars, stronger and more insistent each week.
There in the crowded new prefab cities on Mars, where hundreds of millions of Earth-folk were already settling into their new life, with millions more supposed to arrive each month, the rumors were always the same.
"Something's wrong, back on Earth. The Evacuation isn't going right. ”

“ He well remembered the first stupefaction with which the world had received the announcement, after Kendrick's calculations had been proved beyond all doubt.
"No force available to us can destroy or swerve an asteroid so big. But in five years, we should be able to evacuate all Earth's people to Mars."
Kendrick, Wales thought now, had been able to give Earth the years of advance warning that meant escape, the years in which the tens of thousands of great rocket-ships could be built and the Marslift get under way. If mankind survived, it would be due to Kendrick's warning. ”

“ Wales had often wondered what Lee Kendrick had felt like when the first knowledge came to him, when the first mathematical formulae of doom came out on the calculator printing-tape. Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, spelled out in an equation. An electronic computer, passionately prophesying the end of man's world....
"In five years, the eccentricity of the asteroid Nereus will bring it finally across Earth's orbit at a point where it will collide with Earth. This collision will make our planet uninhabitable." ”

“ Well, if they get caught on Earth, it'll be the craziest, most ignorant and backward part of the population that we'll lose."
Fairlie said wearily, "Our job is not to lose anybody, to get them all off no matter who or what they are."
Then he said to Wales, with a faint smile, "Sorry if we seem to be griping too much. I expect your job on Mars hasn't been easy either. Things are pretty tough there, aren't they?"
"They're bound to be tough," said Wales. "All those hundreds of millions, and more still coming in. But we'll make out. We've got to." ”

“ Workers and their families from the midwest, lumbermen and miners from the north, overweight businessmen, women, children, babies, dogs, birds in cages, a shuffling, slow-moving mass of humanity walking aimlessly up and down the streets, waiting their call-up to the buses and the spaceports and the leaving of their world.
Evacuation Police in their gray uniforms were plentiful, and to Wales' surprise they were armed. Only official cars were in the streets, and Wales noticed the frequent unfriendly looks his own car got from faces here and there in the throngs. ”

“ And that would not be easy, judging from what Pudgy had said.
Wales had driven into an alley in deserted Jersey City, and had dragged their bound prisoner into an empty store.
"Now," said Wales, "we're going to leave you here."
"Tied hand and foot?" cried Pudgy. "Why not kill me and get it over with? This town is closed out, I could yell all day and nobody would hear me. I'll starve! No one will ever come—"
"We'll come, and free you," Wales said. "After we've got Kendrick off that island. But of course, if we fail, if they get us, then we'll never be back. ”

“ Instantly, Wales shot him. He shot to kill.
The man dropped. Wales raced on up the steps, hoping that the brief burst of his Venn gun would not have been heard in the rocket-roar.
But a door above swung open, and light spilled out from inside the base of the giant Statue. Two men appeared in the doorway, drawing pistols.
"What—" one cried.
Wales fired, a prolonged burst. He had no intention whatever of taking extra risks by sparing life. These men, and the men they worked for, would have taken the lives of millions. There was no mercy in him. ”

“ What in the world had come over these people? At first, five years ago, it had been difficult to convince many that an errant asteroid would indeed ultimately crash into Earth. Kendrick's first announcement had been disbelieved by many.
But when all the triple-checking by the world's scientists had confirmed it, the big campaign of indoctrination that the UN put on had left few skeptics. Wales himself remembered how every medium of communication had been employed.
"Earth will not be destroyed," the UN speakers had repeated over and over. "But it will be made uninhabitable for a long time. ”

“ And the rest, with Lanterman's skiff leading, moved under oars down along the riverside.
Now Wales glimpsed lights—a few dim, scattered gleams. With a shock, he saw big, black towers against the stars, and realized they were the skyscrapers of downtown Pittsburgh.
Their skiffs shot in, bumped and stopped. The men piled out, onto a cobbled levee that slanted up from the river.
Lanterman's voice rang out. "We've got 'em cold, with most of their men chasing Harry across the river! Come on! But remember—don't shoot anyone unless they show fight! Most of 'em'll join us, later." ”

“ Wales, watching Pudgy narrowly, saw him mop the sweat off his brow. "Fairlie told us, that they weren't going to be able to get everybody off Earth before Doomsday. He said it was impossible, there was bound to be millions would get left. He told us that he and some of the other officials in key places in the Evacuation had decided that since they were going to have to leave people, it'd be better to leave a lot of crummy hillbillies and share croppers and ignorant trash. He said they'd only make things tougher for everyone on Mars, anyway. ”

“ Wales thought that however ignorant he might be in some ways, Lanterman was a born leader. No wonder that people who had been bewildered and lost in doubts followed the red-faced man.
Two men with Venn guns hurried into a building at the corner of Liberty. A minute later, from a third-floor window, they suddenly let go. The searchlight went out.
"Come on!" yelled Lanterman. They poured out into the wide avenue and raced along it, keeping on the sidewalks on either side. ”

“ Wales made another attempt for information. "I've heard of this Brotherhood of Atonement," he said. "Are you with that outfit?"
Lanterman swore. "That bunch is crazy. No sense to 'em at all. Hell, no, we're not Atoners."
Wales said, slowly, "Well, looks like if I and my girl decide to stay, we'd better be in your bunch. Sure, I'll join."
Lanterman clapped him on the back. "You'll never regret it, Wilson. I've got some big ideas. Those that stick with me will get more'n their share of everything. Pittsburgh is only the start." ”

“ Wales said, "You're so sure, just who should live and who should die. You felt such a big man, making secret decisions like that, didn't you? Fairlie, who knows what's best for everybody. You and your pals liked that feeling, didn't you? ”

“ If Pudgy's story was true, Fairlie was the enemy. Fairlie was the man who had sent hunters after him. And it would be so easy for the Evacuation Marshal, with his regional authority, to have Wales proclaimed an outlaw on some phony charge, and set every Evacuation Police post around New York looking for him.
They dared seek aid of no one. If Kendrick was a prisoner on the little island, they must attempt the rescue themselves. ”