The Creature from Beyond Infinity

CHAPTER XV Under the Plague

It was nearly an hour later when Court finally finished his story and learned from Li Yang and Scipio their own tale. Luckily both understood Latin. When Court's knowledge of the language failed, he pieced it out in Greek, which Scipio knew.

"I am familiar with all the tongues spoken around the Middle Sea—the Mediterranean," the huge Carthaginian stated. "This English of yours sounds like a hybrid language, a mixture of Latin, Greek, Goth, and Zeus knows what else. However, I will learn it. We had a saying that those in Helvetia had best do as the Helvetians do, though all they generally did was freeze."

Scipio chuckled deep in his barrel chest.

"We have a saying that jackasses bray at inopportune moments," said Li Yang blandly. "Therefore, hold your tongue, Scipio, while we make some plans." He sighed ponderously. "So Ardath is dead, eh? Eheu, he was a wise man, and a good one. Also I have lost my lute, so I grieve."

"I scarcely knew Ardath," Scipio confessed, "though he saved my life, of course. But the nymph-girl, Jansaiya—I needed only a glimpse of her to lose my heart and soul." The gargoyle face twisted in pained memory. "What had we best do, Court?"

"Get out of New York. After that, we can make our plans. I want to get back to my laboratory. But first—well, come along."

Court rose and led the others into the corridor. Li Yang shivered as the chill wind rustled under his scanty gown.

"The world has grown colder," he mourned. "Not even on the Northern steppes did I feel such a knifelike blast."

Court was unavailingly pressing the elevator buttons.

"Guess they're not working," he said wryly. "That means we'll have to walk all the way down. It'll keep us warm, anyway. Watch out for any Carriers."

Scipio shook his head as the three hurried down the stairs.

"I do not understand this Plague. Civilizations change, of course. New gods and new magics spring up. But what you tell me of this Plague smacks of the vrykrolokas, the vampire."

The others had no breath for talking. Scipio continued to muse aloud as they descended. When they reached the street, though, he was the only one who was not panting.

"Zeus, Apollo, Kronos, and Neptune!" he roared, staring up at the skyscrapers. "Surely the gods must have reared these buildings!"

"Did gods build the Nilotic pyramids?" Li Yang asked with breathless irony. "Men learn always, and always they build higher. But my poor toes will be frozen!" He danced about grotesquely in the slush. "You are a hardy race, Court, to walk about in these skimpy togas." Court was glancing about swiftly.

"Come in here," he said.

He hurried toward a nearby shop. He had seen that the window was broken, and a burglar alarm was clanging loudly from within. That explained the medley of noises he had heard from the hospital. Hundreds of burglar alarms, all over New York, were screaming. The mobs must have looted during their flight. This men's clothing shop had certainly been looted, judging by its appearance. Court could understand why property rights didn't mean much just now.

He guided Li Yang and Scipio to the various departments, and helped them outfit themselves with suitable clothing.

"Breeches and boots will be best, I think," he suggested. "We may have hard going. Pick out large-sized boots or you'll blister your feet in an hour."

It was difficult to find clothing that fitted the gigantic Carthaginian, and even harder to equip Li Yang, but at last the task was finished. Completely clothed, even to fleece-lined gloves, the three returned to the street.

Now they needed food and drink. Down the avenue a little way was an Automat. Court led them into it, pausing at the entrance to examine a motionless, shrunken body that lay there.

It was the corpse of a man, emaciated and pallid, frozen rigid. It was oddly shriveled, which Court recognized as the stigmata of Plague victims. Though the man had certainly been dead since the evacuation of New York, there was no sign of decomposition.

"Draining of vital energy means absolute sterility, no germs or microbes—that's logical," Court muttered.

At least there would be no danger of a pestilence. He smiled crookedly. Pestilence?

There was nobody to be harmed by it, anyway.

A radio in the Automat was humming noisily. Court hesitated, still inhibited by a lifetime of conditioning. But he went to the change desk, and appropriated a handful of nickels.

Supplying the others with trays, he carefully selected foods that appeared still edible. The coffee spigot ran a tar-colored, icy fluid. But it was somewhat better than the sour milk and stale water.

Court went to the radio and adjusted it. Then he joined the others at one of the round little tables.

"News," he said, nodding at the box that was strange to them. "I'll translate."

"Static is becoming increasingly troublesome as the Plague grows," the radio blared. "The electrical energy emitted by She Carriers interferes with broadcasting. European shortwave transmission is impossible. The transoceanic cables have failed. From Washington, D.C., comes the latest European news, brought by Clipper across the Atlantic.

"The Plague seems to have concentrated its force so far in the Western Hemisphere, though its strength is increasing gradually in Europe. Ports are crowded as mobs try to storm their way on to ships outward bound. There is a feeling that on the high seas is safety. This is untrue."

"The Hozima Maru, a passenger ship, was today washed upon the coast at Point Reyes, above San Francisco. Spectators reported that the only living beings aboard were several Carriers."

In grim undertones Court translated.

"The Eastern Seaboard is still being evacuated," the voice went on. "The United States is under martial law. As yet the Plague remains a mystery, though all over the world, scientists are working night and day to check it. A scientific congress has been called at The Hague, to convene tomorrow at noon. .,

"We are still receiving reports about the mysterious golden airship which first appeared in Central Park, New York, two weeks ago. Since then it has landed eight times, always in a sparsely populated area. Unconfirmed reports state that men and women have been forced to enter the ship. Two hours ago, according to San Francisco's station KFRC, the ship landed on the Berkeley hills."

Court's voice rose excitedly as he translated. Scipio sat back with a grunt, and the Oriental pursed his red lips.

"So Thordred's still on Earth." Li Yang rubbed his fat hands together. "Good! Court, there are marvels of science in that golden ship, all the wonders of Ardath's great civilization. If you can get your hands on them—"

Court frowned. "As soon as Thordred finishes recruiting the people he needs to start a new life on a different planet, he'll vanish forever. The worst of it is, he's drained my mind, taken all my knowledge. Everything I know, I share with him now. But I've got to get back to my Wisconsin lab.

"I have apparatus there that will enable me to construct a weapon or two that might give me a chance against Thordred. But till I get to the lab, I can't even locate the golden ship.

'Then why do we wait here?" Scipio thrust back his chair and stood up, towering incongruously in the gleaming shininess of the Automat. "Let us hurry!"

They went out. Behind them the radio blared:

"Shall keep broadcasting as long as we are able. The city is entirely evacuated. We are barricaded in this station, and shall remain here until our power fails, or until. . This is WOR, Newark, New Jersey. All listeners are warned to leave their homes immediately and—"

Fifth Avenue lay silent under a white mantle. Snow had fallen within the past twenty-four hours. The sky, however, was blue and cloudless. Singularly eerie was the silence that lay over New York, made more horrible by the mutter of radios and the distant jarring of alarms. These, too, would die when the power failed.

There were bodies in the streets, most of them white-mounded hummocks under the snow. Hundreds of automobiles had been wrecked. A huge bus lay on its side beside an overturned garbage truck.

Twice they saw Carriers—shining, pallid ovals of glowing radiance—floating toward them. Each time Court led his companions into buildings and through a roundabout course of passages and stairways that led them to safety.

"The subway might be safer," he mused, "but there may be Carriers down there. And the power's still on, of course."

Court did not mention his fear of the carnage he might discover underground. Yet curiously the Plague had left little horror in its wake. It was far too fantastically unreal. The bombs and shrapnel of war would have left blood and ruin. But this… There was only white silence, and bodies that were less like corpses than cold statues of marble.

"Here." Court halted by a parked automobile. "No, there's no gas." He frowned, after a glance at the dashboard gauge. "Come on."

Scipio was peering into a window. Abruptly he kicked nigh, and the glass fell in clattering shards. The Carthaginian reached through the gap and brought out a cavalry saber in its scabbard.

It's light enough," he grunted, balancing the weapon in his hand. "But it's sharp. We may need this."

He fastened it to his belt, while Li Yang was peering down the street.

"Court!" the Oriental called. "What is it?"

"A Carrier—"

"I see it."

Swiftly Court guided his companions around the corner. They turned west from Fifth Avenue into Fifty-eighth Street. Half a block down, they paused at sight of two more Carriers coming toward them.

Court glanced around. On his right was a street blocked with a mass of automobile wreckage. The tower of Rockefeller Plaza rose into the sky. On his left was the entrance of an office building. But through the glass doors, Court could see that the lobby was strewn with bodies, struck down as they had tried to escape the onrushing Plague.

Court wondered with a strange twinge of pity, how many of them had been ready for death. Probably none.

He came to himself abruptly. There was no time for philosophizing. The Carriers were closing in upon them from both sides. Scipio pointed to the side street.

"There. We can climb over."

"Wait!" Court's sharp command halted the others on the curb. "Here's a car."

A large, black sedan was parked a few feet away. Two bodies lay near it—a man's and a woman's. The girl, scarcely more than a child, lay in a pitiful little huddle on the running-board, her blond hair whitened with snow. The man, a bulky, dark young fellow, lay with his face in the gutter, a cigar still drooping from one corner of his mouth.

But the keys were in the ignition. Hastily Court sprang into the car, turned the key and pressed the starter. He really expected no response. To his surprise, the battery painfully turned the cold engine over.

Court dared waste no more time. He glanced around. With a gasp of relief, he saw that the shining bodies of the Carriers had halted. They were at least a hundred feet away, and there might still be time.

He kept his foot down on the starter. The motor caught and abruptly died. Viciously he manipulated the choke.

"Get ready to run!" he warned.

But again the motor caught, and Court gunned it with great care. The echoes boomed out thunderously in the canyon or the street. Li Yang and Scipio sat tensely beside Court, more afraid of this noisy invention than the incomprehensible Carriers.

"They are coming toward us, Scipio reported in an undertone, feeling for his saber. "I shall get out and hold them back till—"

"No!" Court let out the clutch. "Stay where you are."

The car jerked into motion. There was a sickening moment when the motor sputtered, coughed, and almost stopped.

Court jammed down the gas, heard the exhaust pipe crack open with a deafening roar. Then they were plunging forward…

But the Carriers were ominously close. Into Court's mind came a weird, illogical thought—"Pillars of fire and smoke." Was that it? It didn't matter, for two of them, directly ahead, were gliding toward the car.

He spun the wheel, skidded on the slushy pavement. He shot between the two monsters, missing them by a hair's breadth. The sedan rocketed on, gathering speed.

Court swallowed hard and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Narrow squeak… This is a one-way street," he added with wry humor, "and we're going the wrong way. But I doubt if we'll get a ticket."

They crossed Sixth Avenue, then Seventh, and turned left on Broadway. Court headed for the Holland Tunnel. Before he reached the tube, he sighted a tangle of wreckage which told him that route was closed. Hastily he turned north along the Hudson, hoping he could get through at the George Washington Bridge.

The ice-bordered river flowed past silently, unruffled now by any boats. In the distance, the Jersey Palisades were traceries of frost. No smoke at all rose on the skyline.

"Gods!" Scipio observed. "This is a world of wonders, Court. What is that?"

"Grant's Tomb," said Court. "Let's see what the radio says."

He switched it on, but got only static. He turned the switch off, for he did not know the battery's strength. He had almost a tankful of gas, he saw, and was grateful for that. Yet it would not take him to Wisconsin.

He would take the straight western route toward Chicago, and then cut northwest, unless he could find an airplane. But in this disorganized area, Court doubted whether one would be available. They all must have been commandeered.

The bridge was open. They shot across, disregarding the glaring speed-limit signs.

Court found the highway he wanted. He sped on, seeing no sign of Me. He was reminded of the last time he had driven across the Wisconsin hills, with Marion at his side. It almost seemed as though nothing had happened since then, for the landscape was still incongruously peaceful. Only one thing betrayed the existence of the Plague—the occasional wrecks seen beside the highway, and the absence of traffic. An airplane startlingly roared overhead against the blue.

But Marion was not here. Court realized that he missed her. She was the perfect complement for his mind, the ideal assistant. There was something else, too, but Court subconsciously steered away from the thought, refusing to let himself realize why he missed Marion so profoundly. He could see her clearly, a slim brown-eyed girl…

Rot! Such thoughts wasted time, and there was no time to waste. Sitting beside Court now, crowded uncomfortably in the front seat, Scipio and the huge Li Yang writhed uneasily. They typified the whole new set of factors which Court must integrate into the problem facing him. His mind began to work at lightning speed. Analyzing, probing, discarding— swiftly he went over the problem as he drove the car instinctively through New Jersey.

Scipio crawled over into the back seat and went to sleep. Li Yang stretched luxuriously, holding out his plump fingers to the car heater.

"Great magic," he said with satisfaction. "Not that I believe in magic, but the word is a handy one."

The sedan thundered westward.