He heard the soft-shoe rhythm all the way down the corridor, out of the hospital, and clear back to the city.
Clocker's bank balance was sick, the circulation of his tip sheet gone. But he didn't worry about it; there were bigger problems.
He studied the newspapers before even giving himself time to think. The news was as bad as usual. He could feel the heat of fission, close his eyes and see all the cities and farms in the world going up in a blinding cloud. As far as he was concerned, Barnes and Harding and the rest weren't working fast enough; he could see doom sprinting in half a field ahead of the completion of the record.
The first thing he should have done was recapture the circulation of the tip sheet. The first thing he actually did do was write the story of his experience just as it had happened, and send it to a magazine.
When he finally went to work on his sheet, it was to cut down the racing data to a few columns and fill the rest of it with warnings.
"This is what you want?" the typesetter asked, staring at the copy Clocker turned in. "You sure this is what you want?"
"Sure I'm sure. Set it and let's get the edition out early. I'm doubling the print order."
"Doubling?"
"You heard me."