Cadillacs, driving horses and oxen and even goats. They came for days in an endless stream of plodding humanity, clutching personal possessions, carrying precious bags of seeds, driving livestock before them. Men and women and squawling children. Some wore scars where they could be seen, great livid welts that gave mute testimony to the progress of man; others bore their scars unseen. All were silent and looked away quickly if they met another's eye.

The doors of the ships opened and the recorded voice from the smaller ship told them to enter the other ships, taking with them their seed and their animals. In listless streams they poured through the nearest doorways, and some came out of one door and some from another. Some entered holding a bag of seed and came out holding two. There were husbands and wives who went in holding hands and came out by different doors. As they left the ships, they stood where the voice directed them. Slowly one group grew, one or two at a time adding to its numbers, while the other swelled out over the field.

Those in the smaller group looked to the larger and there were many who saw a beloved, a husband or wife, a child or parent, standing among the rejected. A hand that a moment before had gripped another now clutched the limp throat of a bag filled with dying seed. There were some who gazed across the field, then looked briefly through a mist of sadness and longing at the shimmering ships before stepping across to volunteer for death with those they could not leave. There were others who looked across to the larger group and turned away to weep, but stayed where they were.

For several days the sorting of seed and equipment, animals and people, continued. The two camps became little tent villages with smoldering fires. Thin rays of light, unseen during the day, soft blue at night, reached out from the ships between the two groups. Those from the smaller group could pass through the rays, but when two men tried to sneak in among the chosen they were stopped as though by a brick wall. Others tried going around the fingers of light late at night, but the rays curved and drove them back. None of the rejected left, but camped there in silent resignation. One place was the same as another, and they had nothing to do but wait.

Clyde Ellery worked day and night, helping to form the lines, carrying children and packages, seeing that the campers had enough to eat. He almost forgot himself in the pressing needs of the exodus.

On the third day, the smaller ship again shot into the sky and vanished 

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