Hackett emerged from his moody silence.
"Where you from, boy?"
"Iowa, sir."
"It's better out there?"
"Well, sir, really not. They're hungry, too. But there does seem a bit more room."
"Like for some of our people?"
"I didn't mean that, sir. They're moving folks out in fact. That's why I'm here. Grandpa had this farm, but they took it. They took 'em all and threw 'em together with automation. For better production, they claimed. Nobody's allowed back but the damned button-pushers." He spoke bitterly. "They said the rest of us would get in the way of the machines."
"In the towns where do they live?"
"Well, the empty factories mostly. Like here, they're all closed down, you know, except the ones on the Space Program."
He did not speak again until they had crossed the sagging, rust-coated George Washington Bridge. Looming out of a great signboard high on the Palisades a space-helmeted Uncle Sam pointed an imperative finger at their approach: