Chapter 2 Summary

This chapter begins in a deserted building, which we learn was deserted after World War Terminus. The narrator tells readers more about this war, discussing how this building's owner has likely emigrated and how a once busy suburb of San Francisco is now empty. We also learn that no one "remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won." The narrator describes a nuclear winter scenario with dust and fallout blocking the sun, and how people were surprised when animals began dying.

This surprise was followed by the rapid development of a colonization program for other planets. While war machines were adapted to ferry humans to other planets, humanoid robots (androids) were built to perform labor and were used as an incentive to get people to emigrate from Earth. The narrator notes that emigration was a popular choice for...