Overhead it was nearly dark, and there were low black clouds. "We'd better get going," I ventured. "Looks like rain."
Hammond said nothing, only grunted. He lurched ahead of me toward the narrow street that led back to the branch office, where our transport was waiting.
The distance was easily half a mile. Now I am not terribly lazy, and even in the heat I was willing enough to walk. But I didn't want to get caught in a rain. Maybe it was superstition on my part—I knew that the danger was really slight—but I couldn't forget that three separate atomic explosions had gone off in the area around Caserta and Naples within only a few months, and there was going to be a certain amount of radioactivity in every drop of rain that fell for a hundred miles around.
I started to tell Hammond about it, but he made a disgusted noise and stumbled ahead.
It wasn't as if we had to walk. Caserta was not well equipped with cabs, but there were a few; and both Hammond and myself ranked high enough in the Company to have been able to get a lift from one of the expediter cars that were cruising about.
There was a flare of lightning over the eastern mountains and, in a moment, the pounding roll of thunder. And a flat globule of rain splattered on my face.
I said, "Hammond, let's wait here for a lift."
Surprisingly he came along with me.
If he hadn't, I would have left him in the street.