Second Variety and Other Stories (56 page)

Trent checked his counter, found the reading low enough, slid back his helmet for a precious
moment.

Fresh air rushed into his nose and mouth. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs. The air smelled
good -- thick and moist and rich with the odor of growing plants. He exhaled and took another breath.

To his right a towering column of orange shrubbery rose, wrapped around a sagging concrete
pillar. Spread out over the rolling countryside was a vast expanse of grass and trees. In the distance a
mass of growth looked like a wall, a jungle of creepers and insects and flowers and underbrush that
would have to be blasted as he advanced slowly.

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.

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?"

"Yes, worms. Nothing else. When will you report again?"

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 metallic. 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.