"People in Castletown been gone two years," Lanterman said promptly. "To Mars—the damn fools!" And he suddenly laughed uproariously.
More and more worried, Wales said, "She wrote me she wasn't going to leave till I came."
"You're not one of those Evacuation Officials, are you?" Lanterman asked shrewdly.
"A lot more likely he comes from Pittsburgh," said the dark young man.
Wales, sensing an increasing suspicion and danger, thought his safest bet was honest indignation. He said loudly,
"Look, I don't know what right you have to stop me when I'm trying to reach my girl! I'm not an Evac official and I don't know what all this talk about Pittsburgh means. Who made you the law around here?"
"Son," said Lanterman softly, "there isn't any law any more. The law left here when all the people left—all except a few who wouldn't be stampeded off Earth by a lot of moonshiny science nonsense."
Wales said, as though himself dubious, "Then you don't think there's really going to be Doomsday, like they say?"
"Do you think so?"
Wales pretended perplexity. "I don't know. All the big people, the Government people and all, have told us over and over on the teevee, about how Kendrick's World will hit the Earth—"