Chapter 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?"

The woman straightened again slowly. "Did you see anything of a man coming this way?"

"Yes. He's in there." Matt nodded toward the messroom. "What did you want with him?"

The woman looked vaguely surprised. "He's mine!" she said. "He ran away!"

* * * * *

Gradually Matt had become aware of a subtle difference that set the woman apart from the others. It was not so much her appearance as the way she carried herself--the set of her head, the level appraising coolness of her green eyes.

Arrogance!

He felt a bristling of hostility. "You've been through the plague?"

The woman nodded, her flame-colored hair glinting golden in the light.

The director thrust himself to the fore. "Won't you come into the messroom? There are hundreds of questions we'd like to ask, Miss ... Miss...."

"My name's Margot," she said. "Margot Drake. Where is this messroom?"

"This way," began the director.

Margot Drake glanced at a wrist watch. "But I must warn you. My girls should have brought up the rocket gun by this time. If I'm not out in half an hour, they'll shell the ship."

Isaac Trigg's jaw dropped. "But, really! That's preposterous!" he sputtered. "Why in heaven's name should they shell us?"

The red-headed woman smiled faintly. "Obviously, you've no idea of the situation today."

"Obviously," Matt agreed. "But we've hope of finding out from you. If you'll just step this way, Miss Drake...."

When the strange white man saw the red-headed woman, he cowered terrified in the opposite corner.

"So there you are, Scobbie," Margot Drake said in a cold voice. "I'll flay the hide off of you for this."

Scobbie snarled like a cornered animal. "I'm not going back!"

Margot turned to the director. "You'll return this man to me, of course."

Trigg sputtered, tugging nervously at his wispy beard. It was Matt again who answered. "If he wants to go, he can go. If he wants to stay, he stays."

"But he's mine!" Margot's green eyes flashed.

Matt said, "We don't recognize the right of anyone to own somebody else."

"You've a lot to learn!"

"That's what I'm waiting for. How did you happen to survive the plague?"

Margot Drake's eyes narrowed. She glanced again at her watch before replying. "The plague didn't kill everyone. A few escaped. In the last days, it was already beginning to wear itself out. For some reason the women were less susceptible than the men. Only a few men survived, but possibly a hundred thousand women."

"Do you mean here in Kentucky?"

"I mean in the world!"

Matt swallowed. Still it was more than he had hoped.

The red-headed woman went on, "Quite naturally, women are dominant. And what few men are left are highly prized. For instance, there are three hundred women in my band--but only two men."

"Lord!" said Matt, "what a life they must lead!" Someone snickered. "Where are you camped?"

"Farther down the creek by the farmhouse."

"How do you live?" Matt inquired.

"Off the fat of the land. We're nomadic. Cars and trailers. There's plenty of gasoline and food for the taking. When a car breaks down, we commandeer another. We're trekking north for the summer. Lake Michigan. We'll head back to Mexico in the winter."

She glanced at her watch again. "If I don't leave now, they'll begin to shell the ship. Will someone unlock the port? And take good care of that man for me. I'll be back for him."

Scobbie, crouched in the corner, growled at her words. Matt and Captain Bascom went with the red-head to open the port.

But when they got there, it was already unlocked, standing open. Moonlight flooded the passage.

Matt swore. Captain Bascom said, "Who did this?" But Margot Drake only smiled slyly.

She slipped down the ladder and paused to wave. "I'll be seeing you soon," she called and, without waiting for a reply, turned and strode lithely toward the wood.

Matt looked around for a gun emplacement. But, if there was one, it was hidden among the trees. He closed the outer and inner ports, locking and sealing them.

"We'd better count noses!" he said, frowning, as they returned to the messroom. "It's damn queer, those ports being open."

A hasty check up revealed that three of the younger men were missing--Sparks and two of the pilots.

Matt said grimly, "The fools! I suppose there's nothing to it but to set a guard at the airlock. And it'll have to be a woman!"