Part 2

"Watch the wire," said Bascom. The _Argus'_ captain was in the lead. He pointed out a rusted strand of barb wire half hidden by weeds. Ahead of them was an opening in the woods.

It might have been a pasture at one time, but it was overgrown with ironweed and sassafras shoots.

Matt said, "Isn't that a house? There." He pointed. "Straight down the valley. See? In among that clump of trees."

"Yes," Lynn said breathlessly. "We couldn't have seen any lights last night because of the foliage."

"Don't get too hopeful," said Matt.

They trooped eagerly across the pasture and climbed another rusted fence. When they were still fifty yards distant, it became apparent that the house was deserted.

It was a big frame farm house, Matt saw. The front door hung askew. Several panes of glass were gone from the windows, and the yard was overgrown with weeds.

Lynn's mouth drooped with disappointment. Then she squared her shoulders. "Maybe it's just vacant," she suggested hopefully.

Captain Bascom frowned.

Matt said, "There's no use kidding ourselves. Something's happened. We'd better be prepared for some kind of a shock. Maybe, like Isaac suggested, we've landed in a plague area that's been evacuated."

"Well," said Captain Bascom, "we'd better take a look at the house."

They started across the side yard again, when a squeal from within the building halted them. There was the clatter of sharp hoofs. A poland china boar burst out of the front door and across the porch. He was big, almost as big as a pony, and lean as a Georgia razor-back. Two wicked tusks curved upward a good seven inches from his snout. His little bloodshot eyes surveyed the intruders angrily. Then without a sound he charged.

* * * * *

Matt drew a bead directly between and a little above the boar's eyes and squeezed the trigger. The 30-06 kicked viciously. The boar plunged snout-on into the soft earth, squealing eerily. Blood gushed from its mouth. Its feet threshed spasmodically, and then fell still.

Matt could feel his pulse beating high and hot in his throat. He worked another cartridge into the chamber with his bolt. "Nasty-tempered brute!" he said dryly.

Nesbit mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. "That was nice shooting, Matt," he conceded in a queer voice.

Matt glanced at the palaeontologist sharply. Ever since that episode on the observation deck, Nesbit had been avoiding him as much as was possible aboard a spaceship.

Nesbit couldn't forget that he must have appeared rather silly, Matt realized. He shrugged, started for the house with a great deal of caution. The others followed. They went across the porch, peered through the front door.

The room was a mess, Matt saw. Obviously the boar had been lairing in the house. Bones were scattered helter skelter about the floor.

"Those look like human bones," said Captain Bascom.

Matt nodded grimly. "They are. Look. The skulls!" He pointed at a corner.

There were two of them, grinning at them in the morning light that streamed through the glassless windows. The bones had been gnawed, some of them splintered.

"That pig!" said Matt.

Lynn asked, "D'you mean that boar killed them and ate them?"

"I don't know whether he killed them or not. They might have been victims of the plague. But he sure ate them!"

"But pigs...."

"They'll eat a man, even domestic pigs will--and that fellow was wild."

Lynn looked as if she was going to be violently ill.

With a grimace of repugnance, Captain Bascom pushed through the front door. Matt followed him inside. His eye lit on a yellowed corner of paper on the mantel. He crossed swiftly to the fireplace.

"Look!" he said to the others, who were trooping inside. "It's a newspaper! Maybe now we'll find out what's been happening!"

With gentle hands, Matt took the brittle paper from the mantel, unfolded it as they crowded around.

SHEPHERDSVILLE GAZETTE Shepherdsville, Ky. Founded 1827

"Well," he said. "We're in Kentucky!" He glanced at the headlines.

PLAGUE PARALYZES EARTH

"What's the date?" Lynn asked.

"October 19th. Not quite seven months ago."

"Read it aloud, Matt," said Captain Bascom.

PLAGUE PARALYZES EARTH AS WORKERS WALK OUT OF FACTORIES AND POWER PLANTS. CITIES BEING ABANDONED BY HORDES OF FEAR-CRAZED PEOPLE

WASHINGTON (WP)--By yesterday at seven A.M. the plague had struck down over a hundred million people in the United States alone, it is estimated. Hysteria has gripped the world. Men and women refused to go to work for fear of catching the plague from their co-workers.

The last flash came into this office at 8:20 A.M. yesterday from the WP. Since then, all wires have been dead....

Matt's voice trailed off.

"Go on." Lynn urged in a frightened voice.

As yet, the germ virus has escaped detection. But Dr. Edward Collins, Ph. D., Sc. D., of the Palomar Observatory, who discovered Nova Centauri a week before the plague struck in the Chilean village of Puquois, has advanced the theory that the disease is caused by life spores too small to be detected in the electronic microscope.

Dr. Collins calls attention to the theory that life reached Earth as minute spores borne along on light waves. He also pointed out the coincidence of Nova Centauri. Although the star burst over two hundred years ago in a great super Galaxy in the region of Centaurus, the light of the explosion has just reached Earth. If malignant life spores were carried on the exploding light rays of Nova Centauri, then it would account, Dr. Collins maintains, for the fact that the plague struck almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe....

Again Matt's voice trailed off.

The five men and the girl eyed each other in awed consternation.

III

"Malignant life spores!"

Captain Bascom's deep set black eyes were troubled, frightened. "Here, give me the paper, Matt. We'd better take it back to the ship with us."

He turned to Sawyer. "You're the biologist, Jesse. What do you think?"

Sawyer was a fat bald man with popping green eyes. He said, "Ed, I don't like to make a snap judgment. We haven't seen much yet. But it's possible, of course.

"The theory is that life spores, propelled by light rays, lodged on Earth a few million years ago. The conditions were favorable, and they multiplied, developed.

"The result of our expedition to Mars favors the theory somewhat. The same spores must have bathed the entire solar system, but conditions were too unfavorable for life on the other planets.

"After all, life is a fermentation, a festering on the surface of a planet. The other planets were highly antiseptic. But Earth couldn't repel the parasitic growth!"

"What a horrible theory!" Lynn burst out.

Matt asked, "If that's the case, then Mars must have been smothered in the life spores this time, too. Why didn't we catch the plague?"

The biologist said, "We were sealed in the _Argus_ or our space suits all the time. The spores couldn't get at us."

"But isn't there a chance we might catch the disease now?"

"If there is," said the biologist with a shrug, "we've already been exposed. There's nothing we can do about it."

An uneasy silence possessed them. Matt was conscious of a faint wind rustling the tree leaves outside.

"Suppose we look around," he said at length.

Almost reluctantly, they followed him back through the house. Dirty dishes were piled on the dining room table, more dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. Dirt and dust lay thick on everything.

They climbed the stairs. Matt pulled the first door open. A strong fetid stench met his nostrils. He hastily shut it.

"There's another one in there," he said. "The pigs couldn't get to the body, I suppose."

"Let's get out of here!" Lynn pleaded. "We've seen enough!"

Matt saw that they all appeared pale and sick. He wasn't feeling too robust himself. "O.K. Let's go!"

They stumbled down the steps and out the back door. There was a pump in the yard and, a hundred yards or so from the house, a large weathered barn. They advanced cautiously toward it.

A cow had died in one of the stalls, starved to death. There was also a large truck and a sedan. A cat, wild as any rabbit, shot suddenly across their path and scooted under one of the stalls.

Matt ignored it as he went to the car. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "The fuel gauge registers three-quarters full. We can cover a lot of ground in the car."

"Do you suppose it's in running order?" Captain Bascom asked.

Matt shrugged. "We can see. It's an old-type internal combustion engine." He glanced down at the wheels. "Those are foam rubber tires. They're O.K. The motor shouldn't have rusted, protected like this."

He slid behind the wheel. The key was in the ignition; he switched it on and pressed the starter button. The motor ground and then burst into noisy sputtering life.

"Get in," he said.

They all bundled into the sedan. Matt backed out of the barn, turned around and drove cautiously along the rutted drive.

They passed the house and reached a dirt road in front. "Which way?" asked Matt.

Captain Bascom said, "Left. Away from the hills."

Matt nodded and turned into the dirt road. He had to drive slowly, because in places there were wash-outs, and the road was grown up with weeds. A narrow game trail ran down the center, but that was the only evidence that the road had been used.

They passed other silent, deserted farm houses.

Once Lynn gave a low cry and pointed to the crest of a rise where a magnificent stallion with his band of mares was outlined against the bright blue May sky.

"Horses," said Matt. "They've run wild."

The dirt road wound on and on, coming at length to a black asphalt highway. A sign across the highway read:

LOUISVILLE 14 MILES

"Louisville?" said Nesbit. "That's a fair-sized city. Million and a half population."

Lynn frowned. "It's in Kentucky, isn't it?"

"Yes. On the Ohio, about a hundred and fifty miles downriver from Cincinnati."

"What time is it?" Matt asked Captain Bascom.

The captain glanced at his watch. "Twenty-three after ten. We've got time."

"Mark this road," Matt warned them. "We want to be able to find our way back."

"I've been making a map in my notebook," Lynn informed him.

"Good girl."

He turned into the highway and speeded up. There were no cars anywhere, except one in the ditch with a grinning skeleton in the front seat.

The houses were closer and after a few miles they passed through a small town. The sign at the edge of town read:

OKALONA POP. 766 SPEED LIMIT 20 MILES PER HOUR

There was no one in the streets, no one in the houses. They passed a grocery store through whose broken glass show windows they could see shelves and shelves of canned goods. The telephone poles were festooned with wires like tangled broken cobwebs.

Matt suddenly slammed on the brakes. The car squealed to a stop before a hardware store.

"What's wrong?" Lynn cried.

"Nothing. It just occurred to me that an ax might be a handy thing to have along." He jumped out of the car and went through the gaping door.

The store inside was thick with dust and cobwebs. Leaves had eddied across the floor from a broken show window. He found the axes, selected a medium-sized, double-bitted one, scooped up three more and returned to the car.

Just before he climbed back inside, he glanced up and saw the buzzards. There must have been a hundred of them, sweeping in lazy spirals like grotesque black gliders.

"Turkey buzzards!"

Captain Bascom asked, "What did you say?"

"I said, turkey buzzards. They're thick up ahead."

"Oh," Bascom said. Then he added thoughtfully, "Maybe we'd better roll the windows up."

A half mile further on, a tree had fallen across the road, and the axes proved their worth. As soon as they had chopped the trunk free and dragged it out of the way, they went ahead.

Louisville had almost swallowed the little town of Okalona. A mile beyond the fallen tree, a large sign loomed up beside the highway.

WELCOME TO LOUISVILLE THE GATEWAY TO THE SOUTH POP. 1,567,000

The vultures, Matt noticed, were thicker than ever. They sat on the eaves of the houses peering down into the street or rose flapping into the air ahead of them.

A faint fetid odor tainted the atmosphere, and it grew stronger and stronger as they penetrated deeper into the city. It seeped through the closed windows, strangling them.

Lynn said, "I can't stand much more of this."

"Neither can I," Captain Bascom agreed.

Matt said, "Suppose we turn around and go back. I think we've seen enough for today. If we have to come into the city, we can use the space suits."

"Yes," said Captain Bascom, "Let's get back. By all means. I--I.... Please excuse me, gentlemen, I'm making an ass of myself. But I left a wife and two children in Detroit. I...." His voice choked up.

Matt saw that tears were trickling down the Captain's gaunt cheeks, and looked away in embarrassment.

* * * * *

Back at the ship, the director received Captain Bascom's report stoically. They were in Trigg's office aboard the _Argus_--the five men and the girl who had made the dash into Louisville and back.

Matt sank into a chair, watching the director's face narrowly as he read the copy of the Shepherdsville Gazette. Matt felt tired, discouraged, listless. The repeated shocks of their discoveries had been insidious. He was appalled suddenly by the catastrophe which seemed to have engulfed the whole world.

He felt a small hand slip into his. It was Lynn. She summoned a smile. The girl looked washed out and frightened. Her blue eyes were enormous.

After a while Trigg folded the paper, looking intently from face to face.

"I think," he said, "we had better call a meeting. There are some vital problems we must face. I--I have expected something like this ever since we landed last night."

_Last night?_ Matt thought. _Only last night. It seems like a year ago._

"When do you want to call the meeting?" Captain Bascom asked.

"After the evening meal. We are in a peculiar position. We may be the only human survivors!"

Matt said, "Surely--someplace--_someone_ escaped the plague. It's inconceivable that it wiped out the entire species."

"Species have been wiped out before," Trigg reminded him grimly. "But there is a chance, of course, that isolated communities have survived. That's one thing I want to take up at the meeting. The possibility of contacting any survivors."

Matt realized the director was regarding Lynn grimly.

"Until we do establish contact with other communities," Trigg went on, "we'll have to assume that we are alone...."

"What are you driving at?"

"Survival!"

Matt's eyes narrowed, and he ran his hand through his crisp black hair. "Go on," he said.

"Survival of the race. There are nine women. But only seven are young enough to bear children."

Lynn's eyes were enormous. She said, "What do you mean, Isaac?" in a tight voice.

"I mean," rejoined the director, "that you'll be expected to bear children--lots of children--and the sooner you get about it, the better!"

IV

Matt Magoffin kept his seat after the evening meal, as the conference was scheduled to be held in the messroom right away. He had broken out a pack of cigarettes and was smoking--a long-deferred luxury.

There had been more talking than eating at the tables. Everyone, Matt realized, must have the facts pretty well assimilated. He saw the director rising and turned to face him.

"I think everyone here," Isaac Trigg's voice plunged abruptly into the meeting, "is acquainted with the disaster that has befallen Earth. Are there any questions now?"

No one said anything.

"Very well," said Trigg, tugging at his beard. "As I see it, we have four aims to consider.

"First, trying to establish contact with any survivors. Second, securing our own continued existence. Third, the survival of the race." He paused and frowned, then added, "And lastly preserving our heritage of knowledge." He came to a stop, his eyes on their tense faces. "Does anyone wish to add anything?"

No one did.

"Very well," said Trigg. "Suppose we take up the last item first. We are all specialists in some branch of science. Together we cover the extant field of knowledge rather thoroughly. Louisville is near. It has a large library and there is a fine technical school with laboratories and a library of its own. Those books should be preserved. It might even be advisable for us to move to the campus.

"Expeditions can be sent to other cities to cull the cream of their shelves. We should set ourselves to instruct the children--"

"What children?" Barb Poindexter interrupted. She was the psychiatrist, a plump brown-haired woman with ample curves.

"Your children. You aren't over thirty-three, Miss Poindexter." The director made rapid mental calculations. "You should be able to produce a minimum of seven children."

Miss Poindexter gasped, regarded the grinning men in horror and got very red.

"No occasion to be embarrassed," said Trigg. "Most natural thing in the world."

He glared about the audience. No one seemed inclined to dispute his assertion, so he went on.

"This is all very sketchy. Our plans will have to be elastic. We should, I believe, continue to live in the ship until we can thoroughly explore the neighborhood. According to Captain Bascom, there is an abundance of canned food. We won't starve.

"There is, though, the danger of contracting the plague. I am rather hazy on that subject. So I am going to turn you over to Dr. Lewis."

Cam Lewis stood up. She was a tall, raw-boned blonde, handsome, self-assured and groomed to the last degree. She said in a crisp voice: "To the best of our information, the plague struck seven months ago and wiped out civilization. There is a better than even chance that it has run its course.

"If, as Jesse Sawyer thinks"--she smiled at the fat biologist--"the plague was caused by a cloud of life spores from outer space, then the spores might have adjusted to this environment and are no longer malignant...."

Matt leaned forward and asked, "Do you mean, Cam, that these life spores may have begun to evolve into something else?"

"Why not?" came the biologist's terse answer.

Matt glanced around. Jesse Sawyer hadn't risen. He was sprawled in his chair, his bald crown gleaming.

"Evolution," he said with a wave of his pudgy hand, "isn't static. The spores could have developed in the human body into microscopic organisms. Parasitic, probably. But when the humans died they had to adapt themselves to a different environment. They might still be with us but have lost the faculty of feeding off animal tissue or whatever they attacked." He shrugged his heavy shoulders. "That's all speculative, of course."

"Anyway," said Cam brightly, "we've all been exposed. There's nothing we can do but wait and see if the black spots develop." And she sat down.

It was an unfortunate remark, Matt thought. Isaac Trigg, he noticed, was looking haggard when he rose. The director said, "Sparks is still broadcasting, trying to reach any radio station that might be in operation...."

Matt interrupted, "But it's possible, Isaac, that there are communities without a radio."

"Yes," agreed Trigg. "We're not in a position, though, to send out extended exploration parties. That'll have to wait--"

Suddenly, Barb Poindexter screamed!

She was sitting close to the starboard passage. Matt whirled around, his eyes almost starting from his head.

A gaunt, half-naked man crouched in the doorway!

* * * * *

For seconds an absolute silence gripped everyone in the room. The man continued to crouch there, a frightened expression in his sunken eyes. He was barefooted and clad only in the ragged remnants of a pair of trousers.

And there was an iron collar about his neck from which a short length of chain dangled!

Matt stared at it in disbelief.

Suddenly, the man seemed to hear something. His expression of fright intensified. He took a half-step into the room, clasping his bony hands before him.

"Please, sirs, please! Don't let them get me. Oh, my God, don't let them take me back!"

"Eh?" said the director.

Matt asked, "Let who get you?"

"The women! Listen! You can hear them. They're trailing me up the ravine like a pack of hounds. Oh, my God, don't let them take me...."

"Shut up!" said Matt. "How can we hear anything with you squalling?"

The man stopped talking. In the silence, Matt could hear a faint yelping. It did sound something like an excited pack of hounds. And yet there was a weird bloodcurdling overtone that was half human.

Matt could feel the hair rising on the back of his neck like the hackles of a dog.

"That's them! That's them!" The half-naked man screamed. He dropped to his knees. "Don't let them catch me. Look!" He turned around. Livid scars striped his back. Whip scars.

Matt sprang to his feet. "Get the rifles!" he cried over his shoulder, and ran from the room.

Armed with his rifle and a powerful spotlight, Matt dashed down the passage and brought up panting at the open air lock. It was night, but there was a full moon. The scrub pine and oak reared up on either hand, black and silver.

The ululating cries were closer now, ringing up the valley. He could see lights flashing back and forth in the trees as the pack cast about for the fugitive's trail in the dark.

Matt stood in the round port, the passage behind him jammed with the curious members of the expedition.

All at once, the shouting below fell silent, the lights winked off.

"What is it? Do you see anything?" Trigg called nervously.

"Nothing." Matt realized that he was silhouetted against the light in the passage. "Turn off the lights."

In an instant they blinked out. Matt found that he could see better. He could make out the black circle charred bare by the jets when they had landed, the ringing wall of pines.

"There's something moving in the trees!" he informed the others. He could feel a shudder pass over them. "Where's that man?"

Lynn answered, "Back in the messroom, gibbering. Barb's trying to get sense out of him, but he seems terrified of her."

Matt caught a flash of white from the trees below and stiffened.

Then, dainty as a wolf, a woman stepped into the bare moonlit circle surrounding the _Argus_. She threw back her head to stare up at the towering spaceship. She was dressed in boots and breeches, but they couldn't conceal her sex.

"Hey, you up there!" she called in clear ringing tones. "Who are you?"

"The National Cosmographic Society's Expedition to Mars," Matt replied cautiously.

There was a vague stirring from the black wood, but no other figures appeared.

"You mean you've just returned from Mars?" the woman asked.

"Yes."

"Lower a ladder. I'm coming aboard."

Matt, who had caught the dull gleam of moonlight on metal, said, "Leave your rifle at the edge of the wood."

The woman hesitated; then she leaned something against a tree. Matt gave the signal; the ladder slowly descended and came to rest. He saw the woman take hold of the rungs and begin to climb.

"Give me a hand," she said.

He extended his hand and she grasped it. He was surprised at the strength of her grip as she hoisted herself to the deck and straightened. She gave him a penetrating look from narrowed eyes and then flung her glance over the faces blocking the passage. She was as tall as he was, Matt realized, with hair cropped short about her face.

Matt said, "The lights!" and swung the port shut at the same instant, shooting the bolts.

The woman crouched like an animal. Then the lights came on. Her hair, Matt saw, was red as flame, her eyes green and oblong. She licked her lips.

"Who are you?" Matt asked bluntly. "Why were you prowling around the ship?"