THE WORLD JONES MADE

CHAPTER SEVEN

ON THE bulletin board of the post office, among the escaped-counterfeiter notices and information on rocket mail, hung a large white square, firmly taped in place behind protective glass:

WARNING TO THE PUBLIC!

MIGRATING PROTOZOA NOT

TO BE HARMED

The public is hereby advised that certain interplanetary migratory protozoa referred to as drifters have, by special act of the Supreme Council of the Federal World Government, been placed in the category of Wards of the State, and are not to the damaged, harmed, mutilated, destroyed, abused, tortured, or in any way subjected to cruel or unusual treatment with intent to injure or kill.

Further, it is advised that Public Law 30d954A requires that any person or persons found so abusing members of the class of interplanetary migratory protozoa referred to as drifters will be punished by fine of not more than one hundred and ninety thousand Westbloc dollars and/or confinement to a forced labor camp for a period not to exceed twenty years.

It is hereby stated by the Department of Public Health of the Federal World Government that the migratory protozoa referred to as drifters are benign, incomplete single-celled organisms incapable of affecting human safety or property, and if left alone will succumb to the natural temperature of the Earth's surface.

It is further advised that any person witnessing the aforedescribed mistreatment of migratory protozoa referred to as drifters will be rewarded with the cash sum of ten thousand Westbloc dollars. Oct. 7 2002

Most of the escaped-counterfeiter notices and information on rocket mail were yellowed, dog-eared, fly-specked with age. This notice remained bright and clean throughout its life: after it had hung for perhaps three hours, the protective glass was carefully slid aside, and the notice removed. The notice was torn up and thrown away. And the glass re-closed.

The man who led this particular mob had red hair and was blind in one eye. Otherwise he looked like any other wide-shouldered laborer striding along at the head of a mob... Except that when he emerged briefly in the moonlight, an armband was momentarily visible, and in his right hand was gripped a portable wireless field telephone.

The mob wasn't a mob, either. It was a tightly-organized line of dedicated men. Behind those men came a straggling, undisciplined crowd composed of high school boys, girls in white shorts, children wheeling bikes, middle-aged workmen, sharp-faced housewives, dogs, and a few old people with their arms folded against the cold. For the most part the crowd stayed behind and minded their own business; it was the line of dedicated men responding to the redheaded leader who did the actual work. And the redheaded leader was carrying out instructions relayed over the field telephone.

"The next house," the field telephone was saying, in its odd little whisper, compounded of night and metallic cobwebs. "I can see it pretty well. Watch your step; somebody's coming to meet you."

Overhead, the scout plane rotated its jets and secured itself directly above the quarry. The quarry had come to rest on the roof of a long-abandoned warehouse. It was virtually invisible; nobody knew how long it had lain there, drying and cracking in the hot sunlight, sweating cold drops of mist during the long nights. It had just now been detected by one of the periodic aerial flights over the town.

It was a big one.

"God," the field telephone gasped, as the scout plane gingerly lowered itself. "It's a granddaddy. It's big as a barn. Must be old as hell."

The red-headed leader didn't answer; he was cautiously scanning the side of the warehouse, looking for a ladder to the roof. Finally he made it out: a fire-escape ladder that ended ten feet from the pavement.

"Get those boxes," he ordered one of his men. "Those trash boxes over in that alley."

Two men broke away from the line; handing their flashlights to others behind them, they trotted across the silent street. It was late, well past midnight. The factory district of Omaha Falls was forbidding and deserted. Far off, a car motor sounded. Now and then somebody in the tautly-watching crowd coughed or sneezed or murmured. None of them spoke out loud; rapt, fascinated, with an almost religious awe, they watched the men drag the trash boxes over and stack them under the ladder.

A moment later the red-headed man leaped up, caught the last rung, and dragged the ladder down.

"There you go," the field telephone said, in the hands of one of his men. "Be careful when you get up on the roof... it's right at the edge."

"Is it alive?" the red-headed man demanded, momentarily taking back the field telephone.

"Think so. It stirred a little, but it's weak."

Satisfied, the red-headed man snatched up the ten-gallon drum of gasoline and climbed the ladder. Under his strong fingers the metal was sweaty. Grunting, he continued on, past the second floor of the warehouse, past the gaping, broken holes that had been windows. A few indistinct shapes filled the building; obsolete war machinery rusting and discarded. Now he was almost at the roof. Halting, he held on for a moment, getting his wind and examining the situation.

The lip of the roof was visible. To his nostrils came the faint pungent scent of the drifter; the odor of drying flesh that he had come to know so well. He could almost see it. With great caution he climbed one more rung; now it was clearly visible.

The drifter was the largest he had seen. It lay across the roof of the warehouse, folded and wadded in thick layers. One edge dripped loosely over the side; if he wished, he could reach out his hand and touch it. But he didn't wish. Frightened, he involuntarily pulled back. He hated even to look at them, but he had to. Sometimes, he had to touch them; and once, one dreadful time, he had slipped and fallen into one, found himself half-buried in the quivering mass of protoplasm.

"How's it look?" a man below shouted up.

"Fine."

"Is it big?"

"Very." The red-headed man poised himself expertly and craned his neck. The drifter looked old and noticeably yellow: its fluid had turned an aged opaque, discoloring the asphalt roof beneath. It was quite thin, of course; each layer was only a fraction of an inch thick. And it was alien. A foreign, unfamiliar life form, dropped from the sky onto the roof of this warehouse. His gorge rose up in his throat and almost choked him. Turning away, he bent down and fumbled with the lid of the gasoline drum.

The gasoline had been strewn over the roof and the match applied, when the first police ship came screaming down, past the slow scout plane, directly at the roof.

The crowd scattered; the scout plane scuttled off. Standing in the safety of the shadows, the red-headed man perceived that the fire could not be put out. A police fire-ship squirted futile foam for awhile and then retired. The fire-ship hesitated, then dropped below roof-level, to halt the blaze from spreading downward. The drifter itself had already perished. Once, the drying cadaver shivered and sent flaming bits of itself showering down on the pavement. Rapidly, it curled, shriveled, oozed out its life-fluids, and degenerated. A shrill high-pitched squeal echoed up and down the street; its living sap was protesting mindlessly against the fire. Then the remaining tissue charred and disintegrated into smoking fragments. The fire-ship hoisted itself, squirted a few perfunctory times, and then retreated.

"That's it," the red-headed man said into his field telephone. He felt and deep and lasting satisfaction, knowing that he personally had killed the alien life form. "Now we can get going."