The ship might have set there in the field, forgotten for months, if a neighbor hadn't stopped by that evening. He saw the ship and asked questions and carried the news away with him. It was the first thing that had happened in months which was at least neutral, and he stopped at three houses to talk about it. He was tired of talking about death.

Three days later, they trudged into Max Carr's farm, some of them coming from as far as twenty miles away. A dozen men and women stood in the field and stared at the ship. Max Carr and his wife joined them.

"Big, huh?" one of the men said, but no one answered him. They were a small community in which everything had been said.

Two more men came along the road, their dragging feet kicking up little spurts of dust, and turned into the field. After fifteen minutes, another arrived. It was when he drew near the ship that it happened.

There was a loud click from somewhere inside the ship and a crack appeared in the side as a panel slid back. Soon there was an opening, large enough for a man to enter or leave. It was dark within. But no one came from the ship, nor was there a single step taken nearer it. The small group stood and waited.

"People of Earth," said a harsh voice from the ship, "you have just come through a war and there are few of you left alive. There is little hope for any of you, for the radioactivity is spreading over the entire face of your planet. This ship has come to invite those of you who are not sick to establish a colony on the planet which you call Venus. You may pick one of your group to represent you. If he is not already a victim of radiation, he will be permitted to enter this ship and learn more of this plan."

The voice cut off with an audible click.

The men and women in the field shuffled about in indecision. They stared at each other in fear. Who among them was not sick? There was doubt on every face and in everyone the thought that it would be better not to know. Then the self-searching ended as though by common consent, with every eye swinging to a man who stood apart from the group.

Clyde Ellery was a scientist, one of the few to escape the death of their own making. On vacation, high in a mountain retreat, he had seen the sky turn angrily red, had watched the pall of smoke. He had hurried back, but there was nothing to do. There was no place that the Geiger counter did not purr its message, and all he could do was mark the dividing 

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