"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.