Last Call for Doomsday!

Wales saw men around him become savage beasts, shooting, looting, killing in frantic hysteria. Men without hope, they awaited the—
A deep shudder shook Jay Wales. He wished now he hadn't had to come back here to Earth this last time. He wanted to remember the old world of man as it had been, not as it was now in its dying hour.
It seems impossible that it will really happen, said Hollenberg, the docket captain.
He wasn't looking at Earth. He was looking beyond it at the glittering stars.
Wales looked too. He knew where to look. He saw the faint little spark of light far across the Solar System.
A spark, a pinpoint, an insignificant ray upon the optic nerves—that was all it was.
That—and the hand of God reaching athwart the universe.
It'll happen, said Wales, without turning. September 27th, 1997. Four months from now. It'll happen.
The rocket-ship was suddenly convulsed through all its vast fabric by the racking roar of brake-jets letting go. Both men exhaled and lay back in their recoil-chairs. The thundering and quivering soon ceased.
People, said Hollenberg, then, are wondering if it really will. Happen, I mean.
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—