ned down a residential street. Underfoot the pavement trembled
at a distant blast. They skirted a crack, kept going. Occasional golems
stood in awkward poses or lay across sidewalks. One, clad in black,
tilted awkwardly in a gothic entry of fretted stone work. "I guess there
won't be any church this Sunday," said Brett.

He halted before a brown brick apartment house. An untended hose welled
on a patch of sickly lawn. Brett went to the door, stood listening, then
went in. Across the room the still figure of a woman sat in a rocker. A
curl stirred on her smooth forehead. A flicker of expression seemed to
cross the lined face. Brett started forward. "Don't be afraid. You can
come with us--"

He stopped. A flapping window-shade cast restless shadows on the still
golem features on which dust was already settling. Brett turned away,
shaking his head.

"All of them," he said. "It's as though they were snipped out of paper.
When the Gels died their dummies died with them."

"Why?" said Dhuva. "What does it all mean?"

"Mean?" said Brett. He shook his head, started off again along the
street. "It doesn't mean anything. It's just the way things are."

* * *

Brett sat in a deserted Cadillac, tuning the radio.

"... anybody hear me?" said a plaintive voice from the speaker. "This is
Ab Gullorian, at the Twin Spires. Looks like I'm the only one left
alive. Can anybody hear me?"

Brett tuned. "... been asking the wrong questions ... looking for the
Final Fact. Now these are strange matters, brothers. But if a flower
blooms, what man shall ask why? What lore do we seek in a symphony...?"

He twisted the knob again. "... Kansas City. Not more than half a dozen
of us. And the dead! Piled all over the place. But it's a funny thing:
Doc Potter started to do an autopsy--"

Brett turned the knob. "... CQ, CQ, CQ. This is Hollip Quate, calling
CQ, CQ. There's been a disaster here at Port Wanderlust. We need--"

"Take Jesus into your hearts," another station urged.

"... to base," the radio said faintly, with much crackling. "Lunar
Observatory to base. Come in, Lunar Control. This is Commander McVee of
the Lunar Detachment, sole survivor--"

"... hello, Hollip Quate? Hollip Quate? This is Kansas City calling.
Say, where did you say you were calling from...?"

"It looks as though both of us had a lot of mistaken ideas about the
world outside," said Brett. "Most of these stations sound as though they
might