"Is this a class, Mr. Ellenby?"
"Of sorts," he told her. Behind him Madson snorted, flipping his Keats to dry the pages. They started off together.
"Well," said Vera-Ellen, "I like Nature and I like ... human beings. And I don't feel ruined at all. Where's the argument?"
"What about the bombs?" Madson demanded automatically. "By man our physicist here means Technology. Whereas I mean—"
"Oh, the bombs," she said with a shrug. "What sort of job do you think I should get in New Angeles?"
"Well ..." Madson began.
"Say, I'm getting hungry," she raced on, turning to Ellenby.
"So am I," he agreed.
They looked at the road ahead. A jagged hill now hid all but the tips of the spires of New Angeles. On the top of the hill was a tremendous house with sagging roofs of cracked tiles, stucco walls dark with rain stains and green with moss yet also showing cracks, and windows of age-blued glass, some splintered, flashing in the sun, which tempted Ellenby to whip out his spectroscope.
Curving down from the house came a weedy and balding expanse that had obviously once been a well-tended lawn. A few stalwart patches of thick grass held out tenaciously.