They did, after accelerating the ship and throwing it into a low, hastily-calculated orbit. At first the destroyers had no word of their work. The news was all about the fierce flare of rebellion in America; though they didn't say so, it must have caught the few Germans there in the throes of departure before the coming doom. An attack on the Long Island colony was in progress, the bridges blown and the East River aflame with burning oil. Then the insanely desperate rebels had found their way onto the island and overwhelmed the settlement. The air crackled with eye-witness accounts of atrocities against the master race. The German leaders were turning the insurrection to account, using it to prepare the minds of their own people to accept the fait accompli of America's extermination.
Then came a pause in the news broadcasts. A German station played music....
Somewhere a group of rulers must be sitting in hasty council, staring unbelievably at the astronomers' reports. Having to believe, and trying to make a decision where there was no more deciding to do, because their future was as immutable as the velocity and direction of the dust cloud in space.
They had to make it public, of course, so that there could be an attempt at evacuation. Twenty-first century Germany was a nation of motors, wheels, and wings, and a day and a half might yet be time for a large part of the population to flee beyond the limits of the dust-fall which would cover Greater Germany from the Rhineland to the Volga. If the exodus was orderly, the radio emphasized again and again....
For the first few hours it was both orderly and successful, according to report. But the announcement of Germany's catastrophe had carried to hidden ears beyond its boundaries, and the word had passed like lightning around the world, telling all nations that the moment of deliverance had come. Four hours afterward, and American station went on the air; and the listeners in the space ship tensed as they heard the English words.
"Three or four thousand air-borne refugees are reported landing on the Florida coast. The local revolutionary authorities have taken steps for their reception.... A dispatch from France states that a refugee column of about twenty thousand Germans was overwhelmed and wiped out, despite defense by armored vehicles, in the vicinity of Lyons.... Similarly we hear from Italy...."