In Pasadena, they told him a diesel railway engine had been successfully decontaminated and put into operation. Airtight packing boxes had been designed for the wheels to keep them from being freshly affected by the dust remaining in the air. It was planned to operate a train from the metropolitan area to the great farming sections to the east and north. A few essential manufactures had also been revived, mostly in the form of machine shops to decontaminate engine parts.
Negotiations were under way to try to move the great wheat and other grain stocks of the Midwest down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Coast cities. Oldtime sailing vessels, rotting from years of disuse, were being rebuilt for this purpose.
Ken found it hard to envision the Earth stirring with this much life after the destruction that had passed over it. In the civilized areas, it was estimated that fully two-thirds of the population had perished. Only in the most primitive areas had the comet's effect been lightly felt. Yet, around the world, the cities were stirring again. Food for the surviving was being found. The hates and the terrors were being put away and men were pulling together again to restore their civilization.
Maria came to the radio shack to tell him dinner was ready. He invited her to join him for a moment. "It may be possible for you and your father to return to Sweden much sooner that we thought," he said.
Maria shook her head. "We aren't going back, now. We've talked about it and decided to stay. It's as Papa always said: Where so much happens to you, that's the place you always call home. More has happened to us in a year here than in a lifetime back there."
Ken laughed. "That's a funny way to look at it, especially after the kind of things that have happened to you here. Maybe your father is right, at that."
"All our friends are here now," she said.
"All I can say is that it's wonderful," Ken said with a rising surge of happiness in him. "I mean," he added in sudden confusion, "I'm glad you've decided this is the best place to live."
He changed the subject quickly. "Dad's even talking of trying to start up a kind of college here again. We wouldn't have the buildings, of course, but it could be done in houses or somewhere else. He says he's been thinking a lot about it and considers it would be our greatest mistake to neglect the continuance of our education. So I guess you can finish school right here.
"Personally, I think all the professors out there trying to be dirt farmers just got tired after a couple of days of plowing and decided something would have to be done about that situation!"