"I thought we came here for a conference," I protested. "And I don't know whether you know about it, but there's been a Village-wide electric power failure and I'm being blamed, according to Bill Bart."
"Holy cow! When did you hear that?"
"On your radio just now. Furthermore, he says the whole town is gripped in 'superstitious terror.'"
"That could be true," McGill answered. "Most people haven't progressed beyond the Dark Ages. Look what happened with Orson Welles' broadcast about the Martians."
"Maybe we ought to leave town for a while." Molly said. "We could go to Oyster Bay or somewhere." Then she glanced up. "What's that noise?"
Outside, I now noticed, mingled with the soughing of the wind, a susurrus of many voices. We went to the lab windows. A crowd of two or three hundred people was standing in the campus, staring up at the sky over us.
"What are they looking at?" McGill asked. "No one can possibly know we're here."
I started to lean out of the window, twisting up my head to see what it could be.
"Don't do that, Alec! They'll see you!" McGill warned, and I pulled my head in.
"Can we get on the roof?" I asked, but Molly suddenly said, "Look who's here." Three squad cars drove up and several policemen got out.