Changes

== Aftermath ==

== Aftermath ==

Whether Mouch, Ferris, and Taggart even reached a hospital, the novel does not say. Ferris would doubtless learn later that [[Robert Stadler]] had rashly attempted to seize control of [[Project X]] for himself, had found [[Cuffy Meigs]] already occupying the project site, and had then struggled with Meigs over the controls. The result had been a full detonation that had laid waste to a two-hundred-mile-diameter disk of [[Iowa]] countryside and cut the [[Taggart Bridge]] in half.

Whether Mouch, Ferris, and Taggart even reached a hospital, the novel does not say. Ferris would doubtless learn later that [[Project X]] had destroyed itself and a two-hundred-mile-diameter disk of [[Iowa]] countryside, and cut the [[Taggart Bridge]] in half. Ferris might have connected the disappearance of [[Robert Stadler]] from New York, three days before, to the Project X disaster. Or he might not. Ferris was not the best judge of character, and Robert Stadler never gave anyone a clue, during his life, that he would take any such initiative.

One may infer that various citizens' [[militia]]s strove with the various criminal gangs that were running rampant throughout the land and asserted themselves as the new force for law and order. Either Ferris and the others fell into the hands of one of those gangs (in which case they were probably killed out of hand), or they fell into the hands of one of the militias. In which case that militia held them for eventual trial by a reconstituted Federal judiciary, either before [[Judge Narragansett]] or at least before a court that operated under rules that Judge Narragansett, as [[Chief Justice of the United States]], made and enforced. Floyd Ferris would probably have been defiant to the last and dared the court to impose the maximum penalty. Whether he would have actually suffered that penalty is impossible to infer reliably.

One may infer that various citizens' [[militia]]s strove with the various criminal gangs that were running rampant throughout the land and asserted themselves as the new force for law and order. Either Ferris and the others fell into the hands of one of those gangs (in which case they were probably killed out of hand), or they fell into the hands of one of the militias. In which case that militia held them for eventual trial by a reconstituted Federal judiciary, either before [[Judge Narragansett]] or at least before a court that operated under rules that Judge Narragansett, as [[Chief Justice of the United States]], made and enforced. Floyd Ferris would probably have been defiant to the last and dared the court to impose the maximum penalty. Whether he would have actually suffered that penalty is impossible to infer reliably.

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== Typology ==

== Typology ==

Floyd Ferris is, of course, a major [[Literary type#Villain|villain]] in the novel. He is also a [[Literary type#Allegorical types|type]] of any [[science|scientist]] who willfully places his talents in the service of the government and not only understands the full implications of such a policy, but fully embraces them.

Floyd Ferris is, of course, a major [[Literary type#Villain|villain]] in the novel. He is also a [[Literary type#Allegorical types|type]] of any [[science|scientist]] who willfully places his talents in the service of the government and not only understands the full implications of such a policy, but fully embraces them.