"Talk!" he suddenly screamed at her. "Let's talk! Talk to me—"

But the superficial things slipped away and she couldn't remember any of them. She wanted to take him in her arms, but she couldn't do that now because it wasn't real. She couldn't talk about all those meaningless things. Maybe now nothing would be enough to satisfy Kelsey's hollow fear.

With Gloria, with all of them, Alice knew that Kelsey had always been alone. More alone, more horribly alone, than she had ever been. For Kelsey had nothing inside of him to keep him company, or to sincerely share with another.

He had no love in him.

She tried to comfort him, but he was on his knees, shivering and whimpering. Then he tried to beat his way out through the door. She pulled him back and he fell sobbing on the floor, squirming and rubbing his hands and his face into the floor as though to get some feeling of life from it.

The trembling of the walls and floor continued, very gently as though even that was somehow being polite, as though even that was trying to make things not so discomforting.

Kelsey was whining and sobbing. "I've got to get out—get out. There's a shelter—a communal shelter. The project place—people—lots of people—"

"All right," she said. "Let's take a chance, if you want to. We'll go to that other shelter—with people in it."

But when they got to the top of the stairs and stepped into the living room, the lights went on, the Tevee came to color-sound-life again.

The air-raid warning was over.

A smiling face materialized out of the wavery lines.

"The threat of the air-raid is over. Due to our wonderful cooperative spirit, the enemy's cowardly attack accomplished little except the minor destruction of a few scattered points. We're sure now that anyone who has not ordered our Cozy-Corner Air-Raid Shelter will do so without further delay! It comes equipped, remember, with three-dimensional Tevee. There is the illusion of real people—"

Over fifty million air-raid shelters were sold within an hour.

But Alice wasn't concerned about that. She gave Kelsey a sedative and put him to bed, and then she went to her dark closet and stood in it until 

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