eat enemy groups had hesitated. And
then each, unknown to the other, had decided it could risk one last
gigantic and decisive attack without exceeding the danger point. It had
been planned to strip off the cobalt cases, but someone forgot and then
there wasn't time. Besides, the military scientists of each group were
confident that the lands of the other had got the most dust. The two
attacks came within an hour of each other.

After that, the Fury. The Fury of doomed men who think only of taking
with them as many as possible of the enemy, and in this case--they
hoped--all. The Fury of suicides who know they have botched up life for
good. The Fury of cocksure men who realize they have been outsmarted by
fate, the enemy, and themselves, and know that they will never be able
to improvise a defense when arraigned before the high court of
history--and whose unadmitted hope is that there will be no high court
of history left to arraign them. More cobalt bombs were dropped during
the Fury than in all the preceding years of the war.

After the Fury, the Terror. Men and women with death sifting into their
bones through their nostrils and skin, fighting for bare survival under
a dust-hazed sky that played fantastic tricks with the light of Sun and
Moon, like the dust from Krakatoa that drifted around the world for
years. Cities, countryside, and air were alike poisoned, alive with
deadly radiation.

The only realistic chance for continued existence was to retire, for the
five or ten years the radiation would remain deadly, to some well-sealed
and radiation-shielded place that must also be copiously supplied with
food, water, power, and a means of air-conditioning.

Such places were prepared by the far-seeing, seized by the stronger,
defended by them in turn against the desperate hordes of the dying ...
until there were no more of those.

After that, only the waiting, the enduring. A mole's existence, without
beauty or tenderness, but with fear and guilt as constant companions.
Never to see the Sun, to walk among the trees--or even know if there
were still trees.

Oh, yes, she realized what the world was like.

* * * * *

"You understand, too, I suppose, that we were allowed to reclaim this
ground-level apartment only because the Committee believed us to be
responsible people, and because I've been making a damn good showing
lately?"

"Yes, Hank."

"I thought you were eager for privacy.