in the front, and she neither greeted the passenger nor looked
around.

"They don't make cars like this anymore," the farmer called over the
growl of the ancient gasoline engine and the grind of gears. "You can
have them new atomics with their loads of hot isotopes under the seat.
Ain't safe, I say--eh, Martha?"

The woman with the sun-baked neck quivered her head slightly. "A car
like this was good enough for Pa, an' I reckon it's good enough for us,"
she drawled mournfully.

Five minutes later the car drew in to the side of the road. "Reckon you
can walk it from here," the farmer said. "That's Hauptman's road just up
ahead."

He helped Hogey out of the car and drove away without looking back to
see if Hogey stayed on his feet. The woman with the sun-baked neck was
suddenly talking garrulously in his direction.

It was twilight. The sun had set, and the yellow sky was turning gray.
Hogey was too tired to go on, and his legs would no longer hold him. He
blinked around at the land, got his eyes focused, and found what looked
like Hauptman's place on a distant hillside. It was a big frame house
surrounded by a wheatfield, and a few scrawny trees. Having located it,
he stretched out in the tall grass beyond the ditch to take a little
rest.

Somewhere dogs were barking, and a cricket sang creaking monotony in the
grass. Once there was the distant thunder of a rocket blast from the
launching station six miles to the west, but it faded quickly. An
A-motored convertible whined past on the road, but Hogey went unseen.

When he awoke, it was night, and he was shivering. His stomach was
screeching, and his nerves dancing with high voltages. He sat up and
groped for his watch, then remembered he had pawned it after the poker
game. Remembering the game and the results of the game made him wince
and bite his lip and grope for the bottle again.

He sat breathing heavily for a moment after the stiff drink. Equating
time to position had become second nature with him, but he had to think
for a moment because his defective vision prevented him from seeing the
Earth-crescent.

Vega was almost straight above him in the late August sky, so he knew it
wasn't much after sundown--probably about eight o'clock. He braced
himself with another swallow of gin, picked himself up and got back to
the road, feeling a little sobered after the nap.

He limped on up the pavement and turned left at the narrow drive that
led between barbed-wir