Part 4

"Good," said Matt. He snapped the televisor off, just as a dull boom sounded in the distance.

"There goes one of the bridges," Isaac said nervously.

Matt cut in the walkie-talkie strapped to his back. "Captain Bascom. Captain Bascom."

"Check," came Bascom's voice through earphones.

"How is the moving coming along?"

"Fine. We have three trucks shuttling between the ship and the freight hall. Everyone's turned to." Matt glanced at his watch; they'd been at the fort two hours.

"Arm the women with rifles," he told the captain. "Put Lynn in charge. Have them bring our captives to the seventeenth floor. There's a brig here where we can lock them in. Is Lynn handy?"

"She's right here."

"Let me speak to her."

"Right."

There was a silence; then Lynn's voice came clear and small. "That you, Matt?"

"Yes," he said. "Now listen carefully. I'm putting you in charge of the women. You're to bring those Amazons we captured to the seventeenth floor of the fort. If any of them show fight, shoot them!"

He heard her gasp. "But, Matt...."

"Shoot them!" he interrupted fiercely. "We can't afford to take chances--and there's plenty more where they came from!"

There was a pause, then Lynn said, "Yes," in a strained voice.

Matt clicked off the walkie-talkie. He realized Isaac was regarding him with a queer expression.

Matt said, "Damn it, Isaac, we _can't_ afford to take chances. There are nineteen of those Amazons locked in the messroom. They'd like nothing better than to get the upper hand. They're mean, Isaac. Mean as cats that have run wild!"

"You're right, of course," Isaac agreed. "But to order them shot down if they...."

A second dull boom interrupted him as another bridge across Salt River was blown by Barren, the third assistant engineer.

A buzzer on Matt's walkie-talkie began to whir softly. He clicked it on. The voice of Sawyer, the fat biologist whom he had sent to fortify the highway bridge, sounded in his ear.

"Sawyer reporting. Two cars coming from the direction of Louisville."

"Scouts?" Matt asked.

"I think so."

"Are you dug in yet?"

"We have one machine gun set up and barbed wire strung across the bridge. We can hold them."

"Let them get on the bridge," said Matt. "Then shoot up the cars. See if you can't put them out of commission."

"Very well. They're coming onto the bridge now--slow." There was a silence. Then Matt heard Sawyer say, "Hold your fire." Again there was a silence that stretched on and on. Matt could feel his nerves tighten like violin strings. After an interminable period, Sawyer said, "Now!" Obviously, he was turned away from the mouthpiece because his voice was faint.

Matt's fists clenched as the distant rattle of a machine gun reached his ears. There was a second burst, and a third.

"We knocked out one car," Sawyer's voice sounded suddenly in Matt's ear. "The other got away."

"Too bad," said Matt. "But that still gives us about six hours before they can bring up the main body."

There was a loud boom from the direction of the river. "What was that?" Matt snapped.

"Barren. He just blew the railroad bridge. That's the last one except the one we're guarding."

"O.K.," said Matt. "Hang on."

"Don't leave me stuck out here in case they cross at Shepherdsville and come up behind us. I don't want to be cut off."

"Don't worry," said Matt. "I'm sending a scout car up the highway toward Elizabethtown. They'll warn us in plenty of time if they come that way."

He snapped the radio off and turned to Isaac. "Well, we may as well wait here until Lynn fetches our captives," and lit a cigarette.

* * * * *

By dark they had all the vital stores and their personal goods transferred from the _Argus_ to the fort. The nineteen women from Margot Drake's band were locked in the jail. The second assistant engineer had dismantled key parts of the rocket ship so that it couldn't be moved. And what was left of the bodies of the former personnel of the fort were being removed from the top floors by a special detail of space-suited men and dumped into the river.

Matt himself had seen to it that their defenses were in order. Floodlights illuminated the grounds. The machine guns were oiled and ammunition belts stacked handily.

At seven o'clock, he called in Jesse Sawyer. "Take up the machine gun," he ordered, "and let the bridge go. It isn't practical to hold it any longer. I'm calling in the scout car from Elizabethtown."

"Good," came Sawyer's relieved voice. Matt detected a note of excitement in it. "Good. I've something important that I want you to see, Matt. Is the microscope set up?"

"Not ours," said Matt, "but the fort has some of the finest-equipped laboratories I've ever seen. You can use the one here. What have you found?"

"I'll be there in a jiffy. Show you then. But it's big, Matt. It's big. I'll want you and Isaac in the laboratory. Yes, and Frazer, too." The radio clicked off.

A frown furrowed Matt's brow. What the hell had Sawyer stumbled across? He had never heard the biologist so urgent before. And Sawyer wasn't an excitable person.

He wondered why he wanted Frazer, Isaac and himself all in the laboratory?

Suddenly it struck him. Frazer was the biochemist. Isaac, besides being the director, was the expedition's zoologist, and he himself was the botanist!

It was not long before the three men were in the organic laboratory. Jesse Sawyer entered, wheezing and dabbing at his moon face with a handkerchief. Matt noticed that he was carrying a specimen jar in his other hand.

"What have you found, Jesse?" Matt began, but the fat man waved him to silence.

"Not so fast. I want a look at this under the microscope first. Then I want all of you to see it, before I say anything. Where is the microscope? Oh, here."

With trembling hands he began to prepare a slide. Matt watched him fascinated, noting the deftness of the biologist's pudgy fingers. At length, perspiring freely, Sawyer put his eye to the microscope, making several adjustments. He drew in his breath sharply.

The jar that he had been carrying, Matt saw, was filled with some liquid that radiated a pale yellow light. Was it phosphorescing? He ran his hand through his coal black hair, his blue eyes narrowed.

"I thought so!" Sawyer muttered. "I thought so. Come here, Frazer. Take a look."

The biochemist rose, looked through the microscope. "Well, I'll be damned!" he ejaculated. "Where did you get that specimen?"

"Never mind. Isaac, you and Matt come see what you think."

When it came Matt's turn to put his eye to the aperture, he could distinguish nothing at first. Then he made out dozens of minute amoeba-like organisms squirming in the specimen on the slide.

Their resemblance to amoebae, he saw, was only superficial. Each one of the minute organisms was glowing like a very small incandescent light. He glanced up in bewilderment.

"Well," said Sawyer, "What do you make of them? Are they plant or animal?"

"Where did they come from?" Matt asked.

"The river. That's a specimen of river water." The fat man pointed at the bottle. "I tell you, Salt River and the Ohio are alive with these organisms. Have you ever seen anything like them before?"

The three men shook their heads.

"What do you think, Jesse?" Matt asked the biologist.

"What do I think? I think they're the first evolutionary step of the life spores that invaded Earth!"

"The life spores?"

The fat man nodded emphatically, crinkling an extra chin. "An alien life form starting up the evolutionary ladder. I'm positive that they're neither plant nor animal...."

"Then what are they?" Matt interrupted.

Jesse Sawyer shrugged fat shoulders. "I don't know. I want Frazer to analyze them if he can."

"An alien life form!" said Matt speculatively. "Two dominant life forms on the same planet...." He broke off as the eerie wail of sirens rent the building.

"The Amazons! They're here!" he cried.

From the northeast corner of the building there came the staccato roar of a machine gun.

"The roof!" Matt cried and dashed for the elevator.

The four men ran out on the landscaped roof. They made hurriedly for a tight knot of men and women at the opposite rail.

Megaphones roared suddenly as Captain Bascom called through them: "Don't approach any closer! We've machine guns trained over the grounds!"

His voice was the voice of a giant through the electric megaphones.

Matt reached the rail and peered down. "Where are they?" he asked.

"There!" Lynn cried, pointing. Thirty stories below, Matt could see the grounds lit by the flood lights as bright as day. At the edge of illumination, he could make out tiny shadowy figures.

Suddenly, someone grasped his shoulder.

"Never mind the women," he heard Sawyer's voice grate in his ear. "Look at the river!"

Matt raised his eyes. Salt River and the mile-wide Ohio were broad glowing ribbons of light.

"The alien amoebas!" he gasped.

VII

For moments, Matt Magoffin stared silently at the luminous rivers. Then he turned to Lynn.

"Where's Captain Bascom?"

"On the second floor--in charge of the machine guns."

"Is there a telecaster up here?"

"Yes. Over there. Here, I'll show you." She led him back to the elevator house to a telecaster set just inside the door.

Matt buzzed the second floor headquarters and told Captain Bascom to fire a second burst over the women's heads.

The rattling burst of the machine guns answered. A hail of lead tore through the branches in the distance, thudding against walls in the town of West Point across the highway.

"They're sending us an emissary under a white flag," came Captain Bascom's voice.

"We won't parley!" said Matt flatly. "Not tonight. Tell them to stay clear and we'll talk to them in the morning."

In a moment, Captain Bascom's voice was relaying Matt's decision through the electronic megaphones. Matt got back to the rail in time to see the figures disappearing beyond the circle of light.

He turned away, getting a chance to survey the roof for the first time. It was not flat, but in the shape of a vast amphitheatre. Apartments were built like penthouses all around the outer edge, ringing a park-like area in the center, where a grove of trees were growing on the edge of a dry-leaf-cluttered swimming pool. There were walks, now leaf-strewn, and the ivory gleam of statuary amid the shrubbery. Broad marble stairways led up to the roofs of the penthouse where he stood.

These, too, were landscaped, except for the four corners where the anti-aircraft guns pointed their snouts skyward like sentinels. A helicopter, like a monstrous deformed gadfly, was squatting on the sward atop the opposite penthouse.

Matt stepped back into the elevator house and called Captain Bascom.

"Post sentinels," he ordered. "Four. One at each corner. And relieve them every two hours."

"Right," said Captain Bascom. "Anything else?"

"No. That's all, except that you'd better get some rest."

"The same goes for you," the captain suggested. "You look fagged out."

Matt nodded and turned away, conscious suddenly of fatigue dragging at his limbs. Hunger gnawed at his belly. He remembered that he hadn't eaten since breakfast.

He felt someone tug at his sleeve. It was Lynn beside him in the moonlight.

"Come along, Iron Man," she said. "You may not know it, but you've been going on nervous energy."

But Matt did know it. He allowed her to lead him down one of the stairs descending to the park.

"What about the bodies?" he asked.

The girl shivered. "They've been moved out of all the penthouses, and some of the apartments put in shape. I've picked us out one."

"Us?" said Matt and grinned wearily. "Oh. What about the floor below?"

"They haven't got to those yet, nor the other two floors."

They reached the park. The grass was shaggy, the shrubs beginning to send out untrimmed shoots. Dead leaves cluttered everything.

"We'll have to groom these grounds," he said. "Can't live like savages."

"Relax!" she said, urging him into one of the lavish apartments. "This is home. How do you like it?"

Matt's tired eyes took in the sea green carpet, the glowing walls, the inviting chairs and sofas--especially the sofas. With a sigh, he stretched himself full length on a rose brocaded lounge and closed his eyes.

Lynn regarded him fondly and leaned over to kiss his eyelids. "Now wait just a minute," she said. "I've made coffee and sandwiches. I'll be right back."

It was fifteen minutes before she reappeared. She was carrying a tray on which a silver coffee pot steamed, flanked by a plate of sandwiches. She had combed out her yellow hair and slipped into a wicked black negligee that did things to the slender almost girlish figure beneath it.

A gentle snore greeted her at the threshold.

Lynn stopped, regarding the sleeping Matt with a grim expression. Then very deliberately she set the tray down, seized his heels and dragged him off the couch. He hit the floor with a thump and struggled, still half-asleep, to his feet.

"If you're going to sleep, Romeo, you might as well use the bed."

"Bed?" said Matt groggily. "Where?"

"In there." She pointed toward a low doorway at the left.

And Matt went.

* * * * *

Matt awoke the next morning alone, but a vague smell of perfume lingered, and the pillow next his was crushed. The sound of whistling came through the doorway.

He sprang out of bed, to discover that he was clad in a pair of his pajamas, of a pale robin's-egg blue--and raised his eyebrows.

He lit a cigarette and prowled about the luxurious chamber, opening doors and drawers. His clothes were hanging in one closet, but the other was full of fluffy feminine apparel. The same condition prevailed in the chests; one holding his own shirts, ties, socks; the other crammed with lacy underthings.

He ran his hands through his rumpled hair, blue eyes gleaming with interest. At length he went into the bath and showered and shaved. There was only one thing that troubled him.

The water that poured from the shower glowed like a spray of light with the minute phosphorescent organisms!

The alien amoebas had even invaded the subterranean pools.

"My sleeping beauty!" Lynn greeted him when he entered the breakfast room.

Matt eyed her appreciatively. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was wearing a crisp blue smock. The mouth-watering smell of frying ham and eggs invaded his nostrils.

"Breakfast ready?"

"Yes, my somnolent lord. There also have been six calls for you." She ticked them off on her fingers. "Isaac Trigg; then Captain Bascom. Then Isaac Trigg again. After that Sawyer called; then Isaac Trigg. Finally, Isaac Trigg called to say he was on the way up."

He said, "Let's eat."

"Aren't you curious?"

"Yes. But I'm also hungry. Can't you tell me while we eat?"

She sat down. "Sawyer called to let you know that Frazer has analyzed the amoebas."

Matt looked at her sharply. "Well, what did he find?"

"They aren't carbon life at all. They're silicon life!"

Matt stared at her in disbelief. Theoretically, of course, it was quite possible. Silicon had the ability to form complex molecules very closely akin to carbon compounds. Somehow, though, he had never seriously considered life manifesting itself in anything but carbon-based protoplasm.

The girl went on before he could ask any questions. "Sawyer also said that although they had examined sample after sample of the water, they were unable to find a trace of the normal microscopic organisms usually present.

"Apparently the silicon life has completely destroyed all the carbon base forms!"

Matt put down his fork with a clatter. "That sounds serious!"

The girl frowned. "It struck me as ominous, but I couldn't see exactly how."

Matt said, "Minute aquatic life feeds on the microscopic forms. Small fish, minnows, and other fry, feed on the smaller aquatic creatures. The minnows in turn supply food for larger species. It's a chain. Destroy the first link and you destroy the whole chain. In weeks our waters will be devoid of carbon-based life in any form!"

Lynn said, "Oh!" in a frightened voice.

A buzzer interrupted them.

"That must be Isaac," said the girl and pressed a button releasing the front door.

Isaac Trigg, the director, came in, looking haggard and unshaven. Matt thought Isaac was beginning to appear perpetually haggard.

The director took a seat and combed his beard nervously with his fingers.

"What's on your mind, Isaac?" Matt asked.

"Those women!"

Matt frowned. "How so?"

"Frankly, Matt, they're raising hell. They demand that they be released."

"Let them demand."

"Well, what are you going to do with them?"

Matt said, "That must be decided later." He cast a sidelong glance at Lynn. "At the moment, it's more important that we get organized."

"Yes," agreed the director, "but some of the men are--er--anxious that the prisoners' fate be settled. In fact one or two were inclined to take it into their own hands. Nesbit's in back of it."

Matt's jaw set. He smashed his fist on the table so that the cups danced. "Oh, no! We're not going to have those women running loose inside the fort. They'd be worse than a Trojan horse any day.

"We've got work to do. And until we get settled, those women stay behind bars."

Isaac swallowed. "I'm in complete accord. After all, I'm beyond the age when women mean anything to me, but Nesbit--"

"Then that's settled!" said Matt emphatically and went on with his breakfast.

All at once a low buzzing began to sound. "Door?" Matt asked.

Lynn shook her head. "Televisor." She threw a switch in the wall behind her and a small inset screen glowed into life. Captain Bascom's square visage filled the screen.

"So you're finally up," he began without preamble. "You're none too soon. The delegates from the women's camp are on their way with a white flag."

"How many?" Matt asked.

"Four."

"O.K.," said Matt. "Let them in and lock them in the brig. I'll talk to them later."

Captain Bascom looked shocked. "But they're coming with a white flag to parley...."

"I don't care if they're coming with angels. The more we capture, the less are still outside opposing us. Throw them in the jail with the others."

VIII

It took the small group of survivors a week to adjust to their new surroundings. During that time they explored the fort and began taking an inventory. The laboratories were the first to be put back into use. The greatest activity centered around the organic lab where the biochemist, the biologist, and Isaac Trigg were immersed in the study of the alien amoebas.

Matt Magoffin had converted the large front room of his and Lynn's apartment into an office. He had been confronted with a thousand problems clamoring all at once to be solved. He had ended by obstinately refusing to tackle more than one at a time.

At the moment he was regarding Lynn rather balefully over his desk. "It's intolerable!" she was saying. "This being under siege by a couple of hundred women. We can't send an expedition out of the fort. We can't leave the place...."

"And they can't batter their way in," he interrupted. "It's stalemate."

"But...."

"Never mind the buts! There are other things more important to consider."

"What?" Lynn's expression was set in indignant lines. "All the specialists have made lists of the things they consider vital--books, instruments and raw materials. There's a good photographic lab here, but no means of manufacturing film, lenses or cameras. I want the material to make our own equipment. Everyone else is in the same boat. And what happens? We're under siege by a lot of paranoic women, and we can't stir a foot beyond the gates. Maybe you think other things are more important. But I'd like to know what?"

"Look out the window," he said dryly.

A puzzled expression crept across Lynn's features. She twisted in her chair and gazed out on the park-like roof garden.

The grass had been cut, shrubs trimmed, leaves and debris raked. Water sparkled in the swimming pool. A fountain gurgled.

"But what...." She paused, wrinkled her nose. "It doesn't look so green as when we first came! It's beginning to turn brown!"

"And this is May," he informed her. "It should be the greenest month."

"But I don't see...."

"I sent down a specimen of the soil to be analyzed yesterday. Sawyer said the alien infestation has spread to the earth. Not the exact same species as the organism in the water--a variation--an adaptation!"

"But I still don't see...."

He said grimly. "Do you remember how the amoebas killed all other microscopic life forms in the water? The same thing is happening in the soil.

"Plants depend to a large extent on the work of microbe like organisms that convert minerals into a form that they can assimilate. With those organisms dead, the vegetation is starving to death!"

The girl's eyes widened in horror. "But, Matt, every form of life depends directly or indirectly on vegetation--even us!"

"Even us," he echoed in a grim voice. "But maybe we can make an island out of this fort. Willie Shaw is experimenting with an aluminum oxide glass to seal us in. Silicon wouldn't do. The engineers are drawing plans for an air-conditioning unit that will destroy the alien amoebas. We are going to enclose the roof in a glass dome.

"We can't destroy the alien protozoa all over the world. But we can destroy them inside the fort."

"A hot-house culture!" The girl's shoulders slumped. "So that's to be the future of the human race. If we survive at all!"

"That's about it," he said.

* * * * *

Through the windows, he saw four men bearing down on his office. Hi Nesbit, the young palaeontologist, was in the lead.

"Here comes trouble," said Matt. He pushed back from his desk and stood up just as the four men entered.

Nesbit's lean jaw was thrust out; he planted himself squarely in front of Matt. Matt found himself aching to take a sock at that inviting jaw but he restrained himself.

"Well," he said, "why aren't you at work?"

Nesbit looked slightly taken aback; then he recovered himself. "Look here, Matt, we've had enough of this shilly-shallying about the women. You don't care, we know; you've got Lynn. But some of us aren't so fortunate...."

Matt knocked him sprawling.

There was a shocked silence from the others as Nesbit toppled over a chair and hit the floor with his shoulders.

The palaeontologist scrambled to his feet, his black eyes insane. He started to swing, but Matt hit him in the mouth. Nesbit reeled back, his mouth spilling blood.

"Damn you," said Nesbit. "I'll kill you for this!" He picked up a metal chair.

Matt watched the younger man like a hawk as he closed in. There was murder in Nesbit's eyes, heightened by the blood from his mouth.

Without warning, Matt kicked Nesbit's feet out from under him and then kicked him in the temple. The palaeontologist went out like a candle.

Matt didn't trouble to give Nesbit a second glance, but looked up swiftly at the three men who had accompanied the palaeontologist.

"Any more objections?"

Their faces were sick. Matt realized that the physical violence had shocked them unutterably.

"Get on back to work, then!" he snapped. "And take that crazy trouble-maker with you."

They picked up Nesbit silently and were starting to leave when Matt stopped them.

"I'll have my eye on you," he said, "so walk softly. As for the women, that's to be decided at the general assembly--tonight. Now get the hell out of here!"

At three o'clock, Willie Shaw dropped in at Matt's office, nodded at Lynn who was transcribing notes, and sat down in front of the desk. Willie Shaw was a small dark woman of thirty-five, the expedition's chemist. She was living with Alex Gist, the astro-physicist.

Matt said, "Hello, Willie. How's the work coming?"

"It's done," the woman replied. "That's what I came to see you about."

"Good."