Chapter II

The alighted passengers strayed slowly across toward the glass and chromium entrance to the Administration Building. The landing lights were cut off, and the airport became a deep pool of quiet shadow in the midst of the towering ramparts of New York's buildings. Most of the structures were two hundred stories high in this queenly city that had been built on the site of the old one destroyed in the final World War of 2132.

Then a woman began to scream. She was standing in the glow of light from the Administration Building, holding out a shaking hand that was already turning silver on the back. People hurriedly backed away from her. She was already in convulsions before the white-garbed attendants from the airport hospital could get her under shelter. A man swore tonelessly, and people kept far apart as they hurried from the field. The Gray Death had struck again!

Most of the passengers took elevators to the upper floors. There they boarded monorail trains that took them to the part of the city where they were bound. Or, if they happened to live near the airport, they simply went along one of the glass-enclosed cross-walks that clung to the outside of the buildings and bridged the streets in graceful curves. Larry Gibson did not go into the Administration Building at all. There would be too many people who might know him, and he dreaded their sneering smiles of recognition. He went out a small gate at the side of the airport, a gate that led to the tenth-floor level.

The lower parts of New York's towering buildings formed the zone of factories and warehouses. There were few lights here at this hour, and the cross-walk was nearly deserted. Larry was looking for a cheap place to stay, to conserve his dwindling resources. It wasn't that Larry was particular about the kind of work that he was willing to do. That stage was far behind him! It was simply that, in this simplex and highly organized civilization of the Twenty-fourth Century, a man couldn't get a job without showing his properly authenticated identity papers. And when a prospective employer saw his papers, it always turned out that there were no vacancies available. There was a hard bitterness in Larry Gibson's eyes as he trudged away from the airport.

After about half a block, Larry turned in at a little place called the Moorings Bar. It was dingy, and smelled of stale beer. Most of the customers were night-shift factory employees, waterfront loafers, and the crews of the water-borne ships that still crawled sluggishly across the ocean with those bulky and cheap commodities that the airliners did not care to handle. Half a dozen roughly clad men leaned on the greasy bar. Larry sat down at a corner table and called for a drink.

So he was back in New York--the city that had been his home before the Stratholiner _Pegasus_ fell into the sea with a loss of a hundred lives two years before! Larry wondered how long he would stay here. Not long. A month, or perhaps six weeks. The latter would be a long time for him to remain in one place nowadays. He had become a wanderer. A rolling stone that gathered neither moss nor worldly goods, nor even much of the peace of mind that he sought. So he passed like a shadow from city to city and from land to land. He made no friends nowadays. Larry Gibson was still a young man, but there was a cold grimness about his face that did not encourage advances.

* * * * *

A radio behind the bar had been playing music, but now the sound abruptly ceased and the television screen went blank. Then the face of a government announcer appeared on the screen. His voice came from the speaker sharp and clear.

"Though the toll of the Gray Death continues to be very heavy, the government of the Confederation is pleased to announce to the peoples of Earth that the mystery of the disease has been solved. It is found to be a new and malignant form of leprosy, caused by some hitherto unknown germ. It has also been found that the proper use of radium can control the disease, when applied by what doctors call the Riesland Method. That is the end of this bulletin."

The radio returned to playing music. The bald-headed bartender grinned broadly.

"Maybe we'll have a chance to go on living after all, boys," he said. "I guess that calls for a drink on the house."

"Aye--the mystery of the Gray Death is removed!" a deep voice behind Larry rumbled with heavy sarcasm. "I could have told them that answer a week ago, if I'd thought the thick-headed fools who run this planet would listen to me! But what they haven't announced is that the Riesland Method calls for a lot of radium, and all Earth's supply is not enough to check this epidemic in time to save the population of the planet!"

Larry turned around to glance at the speaker. It was a man who sat alone at a table by the wall. He was a very tall man, gaunt and gray-haired with a pointed beard that jutted forward at a pugnacious angle. Exceptionally heavy eyebrows gave him a quizzical appearance. His unpressed clothes were badly stained, and rakishly tilted on one side of his head was a slouch hat of a type that had gone out of style many years before. A half-empty bottle of rum stood on the table before him. Somehow he gave the impression of having already consumed what liquor was missing from the bottle, and of having every intention of emptying it before leaving his table.

Well, Larry Gibson reflected with a sardonic grin, _he_ was no one to criticize a man for a little thing like excessive drinking. His own record in that regard had been pretty lurid for the past two years. Just then the other man grasped his bottle firmly in one hand, and his glass in the other, and lurched over to Larry's table.

"Mind if I join you for a bit of conversation, young feller?" he boomed. "Rum, more than any other essence of Bacchus, is a friendly drink that needs to be shared."

Larry looked up at him without cordiality. He had been living alone with his bitterness and frustration for so long that he resented any intrusion on his privacy. Then he suddenly grinned. There was a reckless and irrational gallantry about this gaunt old man that appealed to some part of his own nature that had now been dormant for a long time.

"Sure, sit down," he said.

"Thanks, young feller. My name is Crispin Gillingwater Ripon, and I feel the need of a little company after a hard day trying to recondition a rocket ship with the lousiest collection of shiftless renegades that ever signed on as crew for such a craft."

"What ship is that?" Larry wanted to know.

"The _Sky Maid_."

"Never heard of her," Larry said thoughtfully and slowly.

"You wouldn't! She used to be the _Orion_, but she is now renamed and my ship--subject to a matter of a few liens and some faulty hull insulation and a very good chance of never coming back to port again after I start on my voyage. Have a drink, young feller!"

"The _Orion_!" Larry exclaimed "Why, she was condemned as not air-worthy over a year ago!"

"How else do you think I bought her?" Ripon grinned. "I'll concede that, if the world had shown a proper appreciation for my varied talents, I'd be a millionaire many times over, but I happen to be almost broke. You appear to be a promising lad, young feller. How about signing on for a trip to the Moon?"

"So you're the crazy man who is talking of going to the Moon," Larry grinned. Ripon glowered at him from under his heavy brows for a minute, then grinned in return.

"Be more careful with your language, young feller, or I'll bust this bottle over your head! I may be eccentric, but I'm a lot saner than those pedants who claim the trip can't be made."