"Flap-rabbits?"
"Flying rabbits. Good meat but hard to bring down - weigh about thirty pounds."
"What do you use? Not the ax surely."
Potter and Jackson laughed. "Look at this here." Potter slid a long brass rod from his trousers. It fitted down inside his pants along his pipe-stem leg.
Trent examined the rod. It was tooled by hand. Soft brass, carefully bored and straightened. One end was shaped into a nozzle. He peered down it. A tiny metal pin was lodged in a cake of transparent metal. "How does it work?" he asked.
"Launched by hand - like a blow gun. But once the b-dart is in the air it follows its target forever. The initial thrust has to be provided." Potter laughed. "I supply that. A big puff of air."
"Interesting." Trent returned the rod. With elaborate casualness, studying the two blue-gray faces, he asked, "I'm the first human you've seen?"
"That's right," Jackson said. "The Old Man will be pleased to welcome you." There was eagerness in his reedy voice. "What do you say? We'll take care of you. Feed you, bring you cold plants and animals. For a week, maybe?"
"Sorry," Trent said. "Other business. If I come through here on the way back..."
The horny faces fell with disappointment. "Not for a little while? Overnight? We'll pump you plenty of cold food. We have a fine cooler the Old Man fixed up."
Trent tapped his tank. "Short on oxygen. You don't have a compressor?"
"No. We don't have any use. But maybe the Old Man could -"
"Sorry." Trent moved off. "Have to keep going. You're sure there are no humans in this region?"
"We thought there weren't any left anywhere. A rumor once in a while. But you're the first we've seen." Potter pointed west. "There's a tribe of rollers off that way." He pointed vaguely south. "A couple of tribes of bugs."
"And some runners."
"You've seen them?"
"I came that way."
"And north there's some of the underground ones - the blind digging kind." Potter made a face. "I can't see them and their bores and scoops. But what the hell." He grinned. "Everybody has his own way."
"And to the east," Jackson added, "where the ocean begins, there's a lot of the porpoise kind - the undersea type. They swim around - use those big underwater air-domes and tanks - come up sometimes at night. A lot of types come out at night. We're still daylight-oriented." He rubbed his horny blue-gray skin. "This cuts radiation fine."
"I know," Trent said. "So long."
"Good luck." They watched him go, heavy-lidded eyes still big with astonishment, as the human being pushed slowly off through the lush green jungle, his metal and plastic suit glinting faintly in the afternoon sun.
Earth was alive, thriving with activity. Plants and animals and insects in boundless confusion. Night forms, day forms, land and water types, incredible kinds and numbers that had never been catalogued, probably never would be.
By the end of the War every surface inch was radioactive. A whole planet sprayed and bombarded by hard radiation. All life subjected to beta and gamma rays. Most life died - but not all. Hard radiation brought mutation - at all levels, insects, plant and animal. The normal mutation and selection process was accelerated millions of years in seconds.
These altered progeny littered the Earth. A crawling teeming glowing horde of radiation-saturated beings. In this world, only those forms which could use hot soil and breathe particle-laden air survived. Insects and animals and men who could live in a world with a surface so alive that it glowed at night.
Trent considered this moodily, as he made his way through the steaming jungle, expertly burning creepers and vines with his blaster. Most of the oceans had been vaporized. Water descended still, drenching the land with torrents of hot moisture. This jungle was wet - wet and hot and full of life. Around him creatures scuttled and rustled. He held his blaster tight and pushed on.
The sun was setting. It was getting to be night. A range of ragged hills jutted ahead in the violet gloom. The sunset was going to be beautiful - compounded of particles in suspension, particles that still drifted from the initial blast, centuries ago.
He stopped for a moment to watch. He had come a long way. He was tired - and discouraged.
The horny blue-skinned giants were a typical mutant tribe. Toads, they were called. Because of their skin - like desert horned-toads. With their radical internal organs, geared to hot plants and air, they lived easily in a world where he survived only in a lead-lined suit, polarized viewplate, oxygen tank, special cold food pellets grown underground in the Mine.
The Mine - time to call again. Trent lifted his transmitter. "Trent checking again," he muttered. He licked his dry lips. He was hungry and thirsty. Maybe he could find some relatively cool spot, free of radiation. Take off his suit for a quarter of an hour and wash himself. Get the sweat and grime off.
Two weeks he had been walking, cooped up in a hot sticky lead-lined suit, like a diver's suit. While all around him countless life-forms scrambled and leaped, unbothered by the lethal pools of radiation.
"Mine," the faint tinny voice answered.
"I'm about washed up for today. I'm stopping to rest and eat. No more until tomorrow."
"No luck?" Heavy disappointment.
"None."
Silence. Then, "Well, maybe tomorrow."
"Maybe. Met a tribe of toads. Nice young bucks, eight feet high." Trent's voice was bitter. "Wandering around with nothing on but shirts and pants. Bare feet."
The Mine Monitor was uninterested. "I know. The lucky stiffs. Well, get some sleep and raise me tomorrow am. A report came in from Lawrence."
"Where is he?"
"Due west. Near Ohio. Making good progress."
"Any results?"
"Tribes of rollers, bugs and the digging kind that come up at night - the blind white things."
"Worms."
"Yes, worms. Nothing else. When will you report again?"
"Tomorrow," Trent said. He cut the switch and dropped his transmitter to his belt.
Tomorrow. He peered into the gathering gloom at the distant range of hills. Five years. And always - tomorrow. He was the last of a great procession of men to be sent out. Lugging precious oxygen tanks and food pellets and a blast pistol. Exhausting their last stores in a useless sortie into the jungles.
Tomorrow? Some tomorrow, not far off, there wouldn't be any more oxygen tanks and food pellets. The compressors and pumps would have stopped completely. Broken down for good. The Mine would be dead and silent. Unless they made contact pretty damn soon.
He squatted down and began to pass his counter over the surface, looking for a cool spot to undress. He passed out.
"Look at him," a faint faraway voice said.
Consciousness returned with a rush. Trent pulled himself violently awake, groping for his blaster. It was morning. Gray sunlight filtered down through the trees. Around him shapes moved.
The blaster... gone!
Trent sat up, fully awake. The shapes were vaguely human - but not very. Bugs.
"Where's my gun?" Trent demanded.
"Take it easy." A bug advanced, the others behind. It was chilly. Trent shivered. He got awkwardly to his feet as the bugs formed a circle around him. "We'll give it back."
"Let's have it now." He was stiff and cold. He snapped his helmet in place and tightened his belt. He was shivering, shaking all over. The leaves and vines dripped wet slimy drops. The ground was soft underfoot.
The bugs conferred. There were ten or twelve of them. Strange creatures, more like insects than men. They were shelled - thick shiny chitin. Multi-lensed eyes. Nervous, vibrating antennae by which they detected radiation.
Their protection wasn't perfect. A strong dose and they were finished. They survived by detection and avoidance and partial immunity. Their food was taken indirectly, first digested by smaller warm-blooded animals and then taken as fecal matter, minus radioactive particles.
"You're a human," a bug said. Its voice was shrill and metal
lic. The bugs were asexual - these, at least. Two other types existed, male drones and a Mother. These were neuter warriors, armed with pistols and foliage axes.
"That's right," Trent said.
"What are you doing here? Are there more of you?"
"Quite a few."
The bugs conferred again, antennae waving wildly. Trent waited. The jungle was stirring into life. He watched a gelatin-like mass flow up the side of a tree and into the branches, a half-digested mammal visible within. Some drab day moths fluttered past. The leaves stirred as underground creatures burrowed silently away from the light.
"Come along with us," a bug said. It motioned Trent forward. "Let's get going."
Trent fell in reluctantly. They marched along a narrow path, cut by axes some time recently. The thick feelers and probes of the jungle were already coming back. "Where are we going?" Trent demanded.
"To the Hill."
"Why?"
"Never mind."
Watching the shiny bugs stride along, Trent had trouble believing they had once been human beings. Their ancestors, at least. In spite of their incredible altered physiology the bugs were mentally about the same as he. Their tribal arrangement approximated the human organic states, communism and fascism.
"May I ask you something?" Trent said.
"What?"
"I'm the first human you've seen? There aren't any more around here?"
"No more."
"Are there reports of human settlements anywhere?"
"Why?"
"Just curious," Trent said tightly.
"You're the only one." The bug was pleased. "We'll get a bonus for this - for capturing you. There's a standing reward. Nobody's ever claimed it before."
A human was wanted here too. A human brought with him valuable gnosis, odds and ends of tradition the mutants needed to incorporate into their shaky social structures. Mutant cultures were still unsteady. They needed contact with the past. A human being was a shaman, a Wise Man to teach and instruct. To teach the mutants how life had been, how their ancestors had lived and acted and looked.
A valuable possession for any tribe - especially if no other humans existed in the region.
Trent cursed savagely. None? No others? There had to be other humans - some place. If not north, then east. Europe, Asia, Australia. Some place, somewhere on the globe. Humans with tools and machines and equipment. The Mine couldn't be the only settlement, the last fragment of true man. Prized curiosities - doomed when their compressors burned out and their food tanks dried up. If he didn't have any luck pretty soon... The bugs halted, listening. Their antennae twitched suspiciously.
"What is it?" Trent asked.
"Nothing." They started on. "For a moment -"
A flash. The bugs ahead on the trail winked out of existence. A dull roar of light rolled over them.
Trent sprawled. He struggled, caught in the vines and sappy weeds. Around him bugs twisted and fought wildly. Tangling with small furry creatures that fired rapidly and efficiently with hand weapons and, when they got close, kicked and gouged with immense hind legs. Runners.
The bugs were losing. They retreated back down the trail, scattering into the jungle. The runners hopped after them, springing on their powerful hind legs like kangaroos. The last bug departed. The noise died down.
"Okay," a runner ordered. He gasped for breath, straightening up. "Where's the human?"
Trent got slowly to his feet. "Here."
The runners helped him up. They were small, not over four feet high. Fat and round, covered with thick pelts. Little good-natured faces peered up at him with concern. Beady eyes, quivering noses and great kangaroo legs. "You all right?" one asked. He offered Trent his water canteen.
"I'm all right." Trent pushed the canteen away. "They got my blaster."
The runners searched around. The blaster was nowhere to be seen.
"Let it go." Trent shook his head dully, trying to collect himself. "What happened? The light."
"A grenade." The runners puffed with pride. "We stretched a wire across the trail, attached to the pin."
"The bugs control most of this area," another said. "We have to fight our way through." Around his neck hung a pair of binoculars. The runners were armed with slug-pistols and knives.
"Are you really a human being?" a runner asked. "The original stock?"
"That's right," Trent muttered in unsteady tones.
The runners were awed. Their beady eyes grew wide. They touched his metal suit, his viewplate. His oxygen tank and pack. One squatted down and expertly traced the circuit of his transmitter apparatus.
"Where are you from?" the leader asked in his deep purr-like voice. "You're the first human we've seen in months."
Trent spun, choking. "Months? Then..."
"None around here. We're from Canada. Up around Montreal. There's a human settlement up there."
Trent's breath came fast. "Walking distance?"
"Well, we made it in a couple of days. But we go fairly fast." The runner eyed Trent's metal-clad legs doubtfully. "I don't know. For you it would take longer."
Humans. A human settlement. "How many? A big settlement? Advanced?"
"It's hard to remember. I saw their settlement once. Down underground - levels, cells. We traded some cold plants for salt. That was a long time ago."
"They're operating successfully? They have tools - machinery - compressors? Food tanks to keep going?"
The runner twisted uneasily. "As a matter of fact they may not be there any more."
Trent froze. Fear cut through him like a knife. "Not there? What do you mean?"
"They may be gone."
"Gone where?" Trent's voice was bleak. "What happened to them?"
"I don't know," the runner said. "I don't know what happened to them. Nobody knows."
He pushed on, hurrying frantically north. The jungle gave way to a bitterly cold fern-like forest. Great silent trees on all sides. The air was thin and brittle.
He was exhausted. And only one tube of oxygen remained in the tank. After that he would have to open his helmet. How long would he last? The first rain cloud would bring lethal particles sweeping into his lungs. Or the first strong wind, blowing from the ocean.
He halted, gasping for breath. He had reached the top of a long slope. At the bottom a plain stretched out - tree-covered - a dark green expanse, almost brown. Here and there a spot of white gleamed. Ruins of some kind. A human city had been here three centuries ago.
Nothing stirred - no sign of life. No sign anywhere.
Trent made his way down the slope. Around him the forest was silent. A dismal oppression hung over everything. Even the usual rustling of small animals was lacking. Animals, insects, men - all were gone. Most of the runners had moved south. The small things probably had died. And the men?
He came out among the ruins. This had been a great city once. Then men had probably gone down in air-raid shelters and mines and subways. Later on they had enlarged their underground chambers. For three centuries men - true men - had held on, living below the surface. Wearing lead-lined suits when they came up, growing food in tanks, filtering their water, compressing particle-free air. Shielding their eyes against the glare of the bright sun.
And now - nothing at all.
He lifted his transmitter. "Mine," he snapped. "This is Trent."
The transmitter sputtered feebly. It was a long time before it responded. The voice was faint, distant. Almost lost in the static. "Well? Did you find them?"
"They're gone."
"But..."
"Nothing. No one. Completely abandoned." Trent sat down on a broken stump of concrete. His body was dead. Drained of life. "They were here recently. The ruins aren't covered. They must have left in the last few weeks."
"It doesn't make sense. Mason and Douglas are on their way. Douglas has the tractor car. He should be there in a couple of days. How long will your oxygen last?"
"Twenty-four hours."
"We'll tell him t
o make time."
"I'm sorry I don't have more to report. Something better." Bitterness welled up in his voice. "After all these years. They were here all this time. And now that we've finally got to them..."
"Any clues? Can you tell what became of them?"
"I'll look." Trent got heavily to his feet. "If I find anything I'll report."
"Good luck." The faint voice faded off into static. "We'll be waiting."
Trent returned the transmitter to his belt. He peered up at the gray sky. Evening - almost night. The forest was bleak and ominous. A faint blanket of snow was falling silently over the brown growth, hiding it under a layer of grimy white. Snow mixed with particles. Lethal dust - still falling, after three hundred years.
He switched on his helmet-beam. The beam cut a pale swath ahead of him through the trees, among the ruined columns of concrete, the occasional heaps of rusted slag. He entered the ruins.
In their center he found the towers and installations. Great pillars laced with mesh scaffolding - still bright. Open tunnels from underground lay like black pools. Silent deserted tunnels. He peered down one, flashing his helmet beam into it. The tunnel went straight down, deep into the heart of the Earth. But it was empty.
Where had they gone? What had happened to them? Trent wandered around dully. Human beings had lived here, worked here, survived. They had come up to the surface. He could see the bore-nosed cars parked among the towers, now gray with the night snow. They had come up and then - gone.
Where?
He sat down in the shelter of a ruined column and flicked on his heater. His suit warmed up, a slow red glow that made him feel better. He examined his counter. The area was hot. If he intended to eat and drink he'd have to move on.
He was tired. Too damn tired to move on. He sat resting, hunched over in a heap, his helmet-beam lighting up a circle of gray snow ahead of him. Over him the snow fell silently. Presently he was covered, a gray lump sitting among the ruined concrete. As silent and unmoving as the towers and scaffolding around him.
He dozed. His heater hummed gently. Around him a wind came up, swirling the snow, blowing it up against him. He slid forward a little until his metal and plastic helmet came to rest against the concrete.