THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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moment they stood in the sunset light, looking down on the lower terrace
as they finished their cigars.

Senta's was mostly outdoors, the tables under the open sky. The people
gathered below were looking at the sunset, too; Litchfielders loved to
watch sunsets, maybe because a sunset was one of the few things economic
conditions couldn't affect. There was Kurt Fawzi, the center of a group
to whom he was declaiming earnestly; there was his mother, and Flora,
and Flora's fiancé, who was the uncomfortable lone man in an excited
feminine flock. And there was Senta herself, short and dumpy, in one of
her preposterous red and purple dresses, bubbling happily one moment and
screaming invective at some laggard waiter the next.

They threw away their cigars and started down the long, motionless
escalator. Conn Maxwell, Hero of the Hour, marching to Destiny. He
seemed to hear trumpets sounding before him.