While on the Advanceship the Knougs continued to prepare for D-Day.
CHAPTER II
Three days later, on D-Day minus thirty, the Advanceship began to move eastward, seeding down advancemen toward strategic centers in North America.
Towns with big post offices.
And then on over the Atlantic toward other continents.
Parr was the first advanceman to land. The coat tails of his conservative double breasted suit fluttered gently as he fell; air, streaming by, fretted his hair. Except for the anti-grav pack strapped to his back, he could easily have been mistaken in a more probable setting for an Earthman.
Minutes later his feet touched the ground with scarcely a jolt. He peeled out of the anti-grav pack, pushed the button on its disintegrator time fuse and dropped the pack. He lit a cigar and blew smoke toward the cold bright stars.
He walked from the weedy lot to the nearest bus stop. No one else was waiting. Darkness had concealed his descent. He sat down, stared stolidly at the darkened filling station on the opposite corner.
When he was halfway through the cigar the Los Angeles Red Bus came by and he stood up, boarded it, fumbled in his pocket for change.