Chapter 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."

"Not so good as you might think." She tucked a stray black curl into place and sighed. "We've developed a plastic that can be sprayed on in the molten state. When it cools it grows almost as hard as diamond. But...."

"Go on," said Matt. "What's the trouble?"

"We don't have the raw materials."

Matt said, "Oh. What's needed?"

"Aluminum, principally. If we could get trucks through to Louisville, we could get all we need. There were several aluminum plants there before the plague."

"Just a minute." He buzzed the organic lab on the telecaster and got Sawyer. "What's the latest development, Jesse?"

Sawyer passed a chubby hand across his eyes. They were red and swollen with fatigue.

"Bad. Bad. We've distinguished nineteen distinct species, all adaptations of the aquatic form. They reproduce in a rather peculiar form of fission. Instead of dividing in half, they break up into twenty or thirty units at maturity, each unit growing and breaking up into twenty or thirty more. They grow rapidly--and adjust rapidly."

Matt whistled softly. "How much time?"

"Time for what?"

"Before they kill off all bacterial forms of life?"

"They already have!"

"What? But, good Lord, Jesse, surely you're wrong! That can't be true. Why--why, it means we're too late! If all bacterial forms of life are extinct, we're done for!"

"Keep your pants on," said Jesse wearily. "We're preserving about a thousand types of bacteria--algae, amoeba, molds--in airtight containers. Enough to give us a start when we get the fort sealed. Plant life isn't going to last very long though--and neither is animal life. We should lay in a supply of seeds, not to mention breeding stocks of those animals we want to preserve. And in a hurry, too."

Slowly Matt clenched his fist.

"O.K., Jesse," he said. "Thanks. Drop everything else and get to work on a toxic agent that'll destroy the alien amoebas inside the fort."

"Right."

The screen went dead.

Matt realized that Lynn was regarding him in dismay. He grinned at her suddenly. "You win. We'll have to smash those women tomorrow." He turned to Willie Shaw. "Get the engineers to help you design any equipment you need. The fort will have to be sealed from top to bottom, windows and all. What about the basements?"

"We can seal them from the inside."

"And the dome over the roof?"

"Build it up of plastic plates welded together. We'll need an airlock, of course, and all the water will have to pass through the boilers. But how are you going to handle the quantity of material that it'll take? And we don't have a tenth enough workmen."

Matt frowned. "We'll have to put one of the factories in Louisville back into operation, I suppose. But as for workmen...." He paused, running his hand through his crisp black hair. "Why, we'll all have to drop everything else and go to work on this--and that includes those Amazons we captured!"

"But, Matt, how can you make _them_ work?" Lynn's eyes were enormous.

"Did you ever hear of chain gangs?" he asked savagely. "Of slave labor and overseers with blacksnake whips?"

"But, Matt, surely you wouldn't...."

"I'd do anything to get this fort sealed in time! Anything! Is that clear?"

* * * * *

Clang! Clang! Clang! Sparks showered from the anvil as Steve Babcock, stripped to the waist and sweating, his bare chest protected by a black apron, hammered the band of iron. Steve, the square-faced, sandy-haired chief engineer, was the only man who had any practical knowledge of blacksmithing.

Matt watched him silently. The chief's shoulders and arm bulged like gnarled tree burls. The hammer came down--_clang!--clang!_

They had set up the forge in the corridor outside the cells where the twenty-three women were lodged. The chief straightened and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. "All right," he said. "Fetch the first one out."

Matt nodded at Captain Bascom. There were three other men in the corridor, silent and uneasy. They were all armed.

They stiffened as Captain Bascom inserted a key in the lock on Margot Drake's cell door.

The door swung inward. "Come along now," said Matt gruffly. "No fuss."

"Go to hell!" said Margot Drake.

The lithe red-head regarded him defiantly. She was standing beside her cot, small fists clenched, her red hair like a halo about her imperious features.

Matt's mouth thinned, not enjoying the prospect, but he went into the cell. The girl struck at him. He dodged and grabbed her wrist. In a trice they had her out of the cell.

Margot kicked, screamed and called down imprecations on their heads, but to no avail. They hoisted her onto the table and tied her left leg across the anvil.

The chief spit on his hands, a grin cracking his face. "Regular devil, isn't she?"

When they released her, a heavy iron band encircled her left ankle. Panting and exhausted, she flung herself on the cot in her cell. Captain Bascom shut and locked the door.

"O.K.," said the chief. "Bring on the next one."

Captain Bascom opened the next cell in line.

The tang of ozone, engendered by the blue electric-arc furnace was faint in Matt's nostrils, and the peculiar smell of burning iron. He thought grimly of the morrow when the besieging Amazons would have to be liquidated.

They could convoy the trucks through the Amazon's lines with a couple of the tanks that were stored in the basement. But he dismissed the plan as soon as it presented itself. That way, they would have to divide their strength, using precious manpower to guard the workers when they needed everyone to convert the fortress into a sealed bastion against the alien life form.

The girl on the table yelled sharply. Matt glanced at her. She was a statuesque blonde. The iron, he realized, must have been too hot and burned her ankle.

The chief flicked the sweat out of his eyes.

"Fetch the next one," Matt heard him say.