[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
weird adventure, and had been pronounced fit. And of all his
people he seemed to toil the most conscientiously.
The Venus project. Soon the Children of Men would be
masters of that youthful, sunward planet. The green plains
and jungles, and the blue skies of Venus. Soon! Soon! Soon!
Zar was full of dreams of adventure and brutal pleasure.
Periodically the rocket craft of the Itorloo sallied forth
from the cities to stamp out the fresh growth of the invaders.
The oxygen-impregnated substance of their forms flamed in
desert gullies, and along the rims of shrivelled salt seas,
where the spore plants were trying to renew their civilization.
Most of them did not get a chance, even, to approach matu-
rity. But because even one mature survivor could pollute the
Earth with billions of spores, impossible to destroy otherwise,
the purification process must be carried through.
Spring again, and then midsummer. The spaceships were
almost ready to leap Venus-ward on the great adventure.
The generators, meant to spread life-destroying emanations
over the crust and atmosphere above, stood finished and
gleaming in the white-domed caverns that housed them.
Zar looked at the magnificent, glittering array in the
spaceship construction chamber of his native community
with pride and satisfaction.
"Tomorrow," he said to a companion, a fierce light in his
eyes.
The othgr nodded, the white glare of the atomic welding
furnaces lighting up his features, and betraying there a wolf-
ish grin of pleasure.
"Tomorrow," Zar repeated, an odd sort of vagueness in
his tone.
5
Kaw had long ago rejoined his tribe. Life, during those
recent months, had been little different from what had been
usual in the crow clans for thousands of years. For purposes
of safety, Kaw had led his flock into a desert fastness where
patrolling Itorloo fliers were seldom seen, and where only a
few spore plants had yet appeared.
His first intimation that all was not well was a haunting
feeling of unease, which came upon him quite suddenly one
day just before noon. His body burned and prickled uncom-
fortably, and he felt restless. Other than these dim evidences,
there was nothing to betray the invisible hand of death.
Emanations, originating in the generators of the Itorloo,
far underground. But Kaw was no physicist. He knew only
that he and his fellows were vaguely disturbed.
With Teka, his mate, and several of their companions, he
soared high into the sky. There, for a time, he felt better. Far
overhead, near the Sun's bright disc, he glimpsed the incan-
descent streamers of Itorloo vessels, distant in space. And
preseritly, with little attention, he saw those vessels there
were five in the group turn back toward Earth.
The advance in the strength of the deadly emanations was
slow. Vast masses of rock, covering the upper crust of the
planet in a thin shell, had to develop a kind of resonance to
them before they could reach their maximum power.
By nightfall Kaw felt only slightly more uncomfortable.
By the following dawn, however, he was definitely droopy
and listless. The gradual, worldwide process of purification
advanced, directed at the invaders, but promising destruction
to the less favored native life of Earth, too.
Four days. Huddled in a pathetic group in a ruined struc-
ture of antiquity, Kaw's tribe waited. Their features were
dull and ruffled, and they shivered as if with cold. Some of
them uttered low, sleepy twitterings of anguish.
That evening Kaw watched the pale Moon rise from a
battered window embrasure. He was too weak to stand, but
rested slumped forward on his breast. His eyes were rheumy
and heavy-lidded, but they still held a savage glitter of de-
fiance, which perhaps would burn in them even after they
had ceased to live and see. And Raw's clouded mind could
still hazard a guess as to the identity of the author of his
woes. Brave but impotent, he could still scream a hoarse
challenge inspired by a courage as deathless as the ages.
"Itorloo! Itorloo! "
Some time before the first group of spaceships, headed for
Venus, had been recalled to Earth, Zar, assigned to the second
group, which had not yet entered the launching tubes, had
collapsed against his instrument panels.
His affliction had come with a suddenness that was utterly
abrupt. Recovering from his swoon, he found himself lying
on a narrow pallet in the hospital quarters of the city. His
vision was swimming and fogged, and he felt hot and cold by
turns.
But he could see the silvery tunic'd figure of the physician
standing close to him.
"What is wrong?" he stammered. "What is it that has
happened to me? A short time ago I was well!"
"Much is wrong," the physician returned quietly. "And
you have not really been well for a long time. A germ dis-
ease a type of thing which we thought our sanitation had
stamped out millenniums ago has been ravaging your brain
and nerves for months! Only its insidiousness prevented it
from being discovered earlier. During its incipient stages the
poisons of it seem actually to stimulate mental and physical
activity, giving a treacherous impression of robust health.
And we know, certainly, that this disease is extremely con-
tagious. It does not reveal itself easily, but I and others have
examined many apparently healthy individuals with great
care. In each there is the telltale evidence that the disease
is not only present, but far advanced. Hundreds have col-
lapsed as you have. More, surely, will follow. It is my belief
that the entire race has been afflicted. And the plague has
a fatal look. Panic has broken out. There is a threatened
failure of power and food supplies. Perhaps an antitoxin can
be found but there is so little time."
Half delirious, Zar could still grasp the meaning of the
physician's words, and could understand the origin of the
disease.
He began to mutter with seeming incoherence: "The
changing Earth. Reptiles. Mammals. Men Succession
Nature "
His voice took on a fiercer tone. "Fight, Itorloo!" he
screamed. "Fight!"
Cruel he was, as were all his people, but he had pluck.
Suddenly he arose to a sitting posture on his bed His eyes
flamed. If his act represented the final dramatic gesture of
all the hoary race of man, still it was magnificent. Nor were
any tears to be shed, for extinction meant only a task com-
pleted.
"Fight!" he shouted again, as if addressing a limitless
multitude. "Fight, Itorloo! Study! Learn! Work! It is the only
hope! Keep power flowing in the purification generators if
you can. The old records of the explorations of Mars those
plants! Their approach to problems is different from our own.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]