"Most of our gang went out to try and get home. We're all bachelors and we figured it was up to us to stay." He ran a hand through his hair. "Who is it, Mac? Who hit us?"
"Martians," said Win.
"Venusians," said Rob Pope.
"Who are all these guys, Mac?"
"Scientists from Project Star." The three radio men opened their eyes respectfully. "Pounce onto it, will you!" roared Mac. "We've got to get out. We've got to learn what's happened to the world!"
CHAPTER IX
"Hi, Mac," said a weary voice. "This is Johnny Gibbons, in Frisco. No, they haven't been here, but they've hit half the big cities on the continent. Just heard that Mexico City's flat as a—my brother and his wife were in Mexico City. Vacation. Get away from it all."
"Cheers, Mac," said a deep sad voice. "Roscoe Toddy here. They bombed Chicago. Funny thing: some professors at Northwestern University here in Evanston turned their detectors on Chicago and couldn't get a whiff of radioactivity. Must be a new kind of A-bomb, or X-bomb, or GD-bomb or something."
"Mac," babbled a voice that verged on screaming lunacy, "Mac, you ought to see it. There's nothing left at all, not a thing, not a house or a tree, not a person in the whole place, nothing but waste, waste, Jesus, death all over, I tell you the universe has gone mad!" They never learned where this voice came from, or what city was gone.