They had all been made aware of what was going to happen several days ago so that they would have some time to recover from the shock and make themselves presentable on television. They had been flown as soon as possible to Oregon and ensconced in rooms at the lodge on the rim. Doob and other scientists, filtering in from all over the world, had set up a kind of war room in a meeting room downstairs, trying to figure out what exactly Mary and Celani and Clarence were going to say. Because that was an essential part of the announcement. No one was really expecting mass panic or chaos. There would be some of that, of course. But billions of people would want to know how they could be useful. And some answers needed to be provided for them.