uroras and noctilucent clouds and below the ozone layer.
Still no signals of any kind on any frequency.

At last Ken leveled off in the troposphere, at an altitude of five
miles. A placid, swollen sun rode into view while they flashed west-ward
over the Atlantic in a straight and lowering course that would take them
over New York. The momentous--even though aborted--flight was over. Each
tiniest mechanism of the _Latecomer_ had functioned perfectly. Ken took
a deep breath at the sheer pleasure of normal gravity. Man held the key
to the planets, at least--if the psychologists could figure some way to
nullify the soul-shattering fear imbued by deep space. Or had he and
Carol reached the maximum distance life could tolerate? Was that the
foreseen emergency, withheld from them lest it sap their
carefully-nurtured morale? He felt a vague, gnawing worry about the
silence of earth's transmitters.

New York would supply the answer. Over New York the cacaphony of blaring
broadcasts would practically tear the receivers from their moorings.

And New York did yield an answer--of sorts. With Long Island in visual
range, and not a sound or a picture on any wave length which Carol's
flying fingers tuned in at maximum volume, Ken dipped below legal
ceiling to drag the city.

Then his reactions galvanized him to motion of a speed outstripping his
thoughts. Hardly hearing Carol's gasp of dismay, he snapped the coccoon
tight about them like a sprung trap, blasted the ship's nose to a
skidding vertical and spurted away from the yawning craters of New York
City at five Gs.

* * * * *

He leveled off in ozone over Canada and relaxed the couch.
Unbelievingly, he looked at Carol. She looked back at him, wide-eyed.

"Listen, Carol--we can't both be crazy the same way. You tell me exactly
what you saw."

"Well--everything had been bombed."

"What else?"

"There--there wasn't any movement or people or--"

"_What else._"

"There--oh, Ken, there were _trees growing in the craters_!"

Some of the tenseness left his features. "Okay, honey. Now we know a
little bit. The war came and went and there's not an active transmitter
in the world. Somebody knew it was coming, even before we left, so they
want us to land at a hideout in Oregon. There'll be a landing strip
there--they've had more than a month to build it since I was at the
Caves, and it only took a day for the whole war, for the radiation to
clear