one fifty nine, fifty eight, fifty seven_--It came to a stop in front of
their bungalow, at exactly Minus Two Hours, Twenty One Minutes, Fifty
Four Seconds. The driver called out in Spanish:

"Doctor Richardson; Doctor Pitov! Are you ready?"

"Yes, ready. We're coming."

They both got to their feet, Richardson pulling himself up reluctantly.
The older you get, the harder it is to leave a comfortable chair. He
settled himself beside his colleague and former enemy, and the jeep
started again, rolling between the buildings of the living-quarters area
and out onto the long, straight road across the pampas toward the
distant blaze of electric lights.

He wondered why he had been thinking so much, lately, about the Auburn
Bomb. He'd questioned, at times, indignantly, of course, whether Russia
had launched it--but it wasn't until tonight, until he had heard what
Pitov had had to say, that he seriously doubted it. Pitov wouldn't lie
about it, and Pitov would have been in a position to have known the
truth, if the missile had been launched from Russia. Then he stopped
thinking about what was water--or blood--a long time over the dam.

The special policeman at the entrance to the launching site reminded
them that they were both smoking; when they extinguished, respectively,
their cigarette and pipe, he waved the jeep on and went back to his
argument with a carload of tourists who wanted to get a good view of the
launching.

"There, now, Lee; do you need anything else to convince you that this