Two immense butterflies danced past him. Great fragile shapes, multicolored, racing erratically around him and then away. Life everywhere -- bugs and plants and rustling small animals in the shrubbery, a buzzing jungle of life in every direction. Trent sighed and snapped his helmet back in place. Two breathfuls was all he dared.
He increased the flow of his oxygen tank and then raised his transmitter to his lips. He clicked it briefly on. "Trent. Checking with the Mine Monitor. Hear me?"
A moment of static and silence. Then, a faint, ghostly voice. "Come in, Trent. Where the hell are you?"
"Still going North. Ruins ahead. I may have to bypass. Looks thick."
"Ruins?"
"New York, probably. I'll check with the map."
The voice was eager. "Anything yet?"
"Nothing. Not so far, at least. I'll circle and report in about an hour." Trent examined his wristwatch. "It's half-past three. I'll raise you before evening."
The voice hesitated. "Good luck. I hope you find something. How's your oxygen holding out?"
"All right."
"Food?"
"Plenty left. I may find some edible plants."
"Don't take any chances!"
"I won't." Trent clicked off the transmitter and returned it to his belt. "I won't," he repeated. He gathered up his blast gun and hoisted his pack and started forward, his heavy lead-lined boots sinking deep into the lush foliage and compost underfoot.
It was just past four o'clock when he saw them. They stepped out of the jungle around him. Two of them, young males -- tall and thin and horny blue-gray like ashes. One raised his hand in greeting. Six or seven fingers -- extra joints. "Afternoon," he piped.
Trent stopped instantly. His heart thudded. "Good afternoon."
The two youths came slowly around him. One had an ax -- a foliage ax. The other carried only his pants and the remains of a canvas shirt. They were nearly eight feet tall. No flesh -- bones and hard angles and large, curious eyes, heavily lidded. There were internal changes, radically different metabolism and cell structure, ability to utilize hot salts, altered digestive system. They were both looking at Trent with interest -- growing interest.
"Say," said one. "You're a human being."
"That's right," Trent said.
"My name's Jackson." The youth extended his thin blue horny hand and Trent shook it awkwardly. The hand was fragile under his lead-lined glove. Its owner added, "My friend here is Earl Potter."
Trent shook hands with Potter. "Greetings," Potter said. His rough lips twitched. "Can we have a look at your rig?"
look at your rig?"
"Your gun and equipment. What's that on your belt? And that tank?"
"Transmitter -- oxygen." Trent showed them the transmitter. "Battery operated. Hundred-mile range."
"You're from a camp?" Jackson asked quickly.
"Yes. Down in Pennsylvania."
"How many?"
Trent shrugged. "Couple of dozen."
The blue-skinned giants were fascinated. "How have you survived? Penn was hard hit, wasn't it? The pools must be deep around there."
"Mines," Trent explained. "Our ancestors moved down deep in the coal mines when the War began. So the records have it. We're fairly well set up. Grow our own food in tanks. A few machines, pumps and compressors and electrical generators. Some hand lathes. Looms."
He didn't mention that generators now had to be cranked by hand, that only about half of the tanks were still operative. After three hundred years metal and plastic weren't much good -- in spite of endless patching and repairing. Everything was wearing out, breaking down.
"Say," Potter said. "This sure makes a fool of Dave Hunter."
"Dave Hunter?"
"Dave says there aren't any true humans left," Jackson explained. He poked at Trent's helmet curiously. "Why don't you come back with us? We've got a settlement near here -- only an hour or so away on the tractor -- our hunting tractor. Earl and I were out hunting flap-rabbits."
"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."
way."
"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.