The sign at the edge of town, unintentionally ironic now, went past him. It had been a long way from here, Wales thought, to the Rocket Service school out west, a long way farther to Mars, and yet here he was, after all these years, back again.
His own boyhood home was here but there was no reason at all to visit it. He was glad there was no reason, he was glad now that his parents had died before Doomsday came.
He turned off the highway. The campus of Westpenn College was on the hills east of Castletown. The buildings were dark and silent. On the loftiest eminence, the dome of the Observatory shouldered the stars. There was no light there, either.
Wales drove past the campus to the big, square, old-fashioned Kendrick house. It was dark and quiet as everything else. He stopped his car, made sure of the pistol in his jacket pocket, and ascended the steps.
He felt, after all these years, like a ghost coming back to a dead town, to a dead world. Impatient of fancies, he pushed at the front door and it swung quietly inward.
Wales flashed his light around the hall inside. Then he began going through the rooms.
Over an hour later he was back in the front hall, disappointed and baffled. He had found no one in the house, and no evidence that either Lee or Martha had been here recently.
As he stood, anxious and frustrated, Wales suddenly noticed a smear of red on the inner side of the white-painted front door.
He flashed his light on it. Two words were written in lipstick on the door, in a feminine hand. "The Castle." Nothing more.