This time two women passed. They smiled, bowed, went on.
"Maybe you're the mayor of this town or something—at least an alderman."
"They wouldn't smile, honey! Anyway, there are three things we'd better figure. How to get money, how to get food, how to get the equipment. Any ideas?"
"We should've searched the house for a wallet or something. Or maybe these people don't believe in money—maybe they use a different system altogether."
"It's possible, of course, and—good night!" Doug was staring suddenly upward. There had been a low rumbling sound which within seconds had ascended the decibel scale to a throbbing roar. A great, tapering thing of silvery metal with no hint of wing-surfaces was bolting skyward, and Doug knew somehow that the sky was not its limit. The roar and scream of suddenly-split atmosphere subsided, and in moments, the vertically-climbing craft was out of sight. "They've done it here, Dot! I'd bet the bottom dollar I don't have that we've seen our first space-liner!"
"Could I have been right, Doug? The future, I mean?"
"I don't know, Dot.... I don't know."
There were towering buildings less than a half-mile from them of a simplicity and beauty that left no time for talk. The city was suddenly before them—a sparkling thing, unmarred by eye-stumbling bits and pieces—a flawless, symmetrical sweep toward the heavens that momentarily stupefied credulity. Traffic ramps soared from street-level in gently-curving ribbons above spacious quiet parks; sound was muffled to near-inaudibility, and the illusion of a great fairy kingdom was unmarred by the confusion of advertising posters, marquees, store front lettering, or the raucous stampede of elbowing mobs....
"I wonder how they illuminate at night," Doug was saying. "I wonder what they—my God, Dot, look up—all over. Where is it?"
Far above, the sky seemed gradually to darken into an ever-deepening shadow of blackness. But the sun—She couldn't find the sun!