The alighted passengers strayed slowly across toward the glass and
chromium entrance to the Administration Building. The landing lights
were cut off, and the airport became a deep pool of quiet shadow in the
midst of the towering ramparts of New York's buildings. Most of the
structures were two hundred stories high in this queenly city that had
been built on the site of the old one destroyed in the final World War
of 2132.
Then a woman began to scream. She was standing in the glow of light
from the Administration Building, holding out a shaking hand that was
already turning silver on the back. People hurriedly backed away from
her. She was already in convulsions before the white-garbed attendants
from the airport hospital could get her under shelter. A man swore
tonelessly, and people kept far apart as they hurried from the field.
The Gray Death had struck again!
Most of the passengers took elevators to the upper floors. There they
boarded monorail trains that took them to the part of the city where
they were bound. Or, if they happened to live near the airport, they
simply went along one of the glass-enclosed cross-walks that clung
to the outside of the buildings and bridged the streets in graceful
curves. Larry Gibson did not go into the Administration Building at
all. There would be too many people who might know him, and he dreaded
their sneering smiles of recognition. He went out a small gate at the
side of the airport, a gate that led to the tenth-floor level.
The lower parts of New York's towering buildings formed the zone of
factories and warehouses. There were few lights here at this hour, and
the cross-walk was nearly deserted. Larry was looking for a cheap place
to stay, to conserve his dwindling resources. It wasn't that Larry was
particular about the kind of work that he was willing to do. That stage
was far behind him! It was simply that, in this simplex and highly
organized civilization of the Twenty-fourth Century, a man couldn't get
a job without showing his properly authenticated identity papers. And
when a prospective employer saw his papers, it always turned out that
there were no vacancies available. There was a hard bitterness in Larry
Gibson's eyes as he trudged away from the airport.
After about half a block, Larry turned in at a little place called the
Moorings Bar. It was dingy, and smelled of stale beer. Most of the
customers were night-shift factory employees, waterfront loafers, and
the crews of the water-borne ships that still crawled sluggishly across
the ocean with those bulky and cheap commodities that the airliners did
not care to handle. Half a dozen roughly clad men leaned on the greasy
bar. Larry sat down at a corner table and called for a drink.
So he was back in New York--the city that had been his home before the
Stratholiner _Pegasus_ fell into the sea with a loss of a hundred lives
two years before! Larry wondered how long he would stay here. Not long.
A month, or perhaps six weeks. The latter would be a long time for him
to remain in one place nowadays. He had become a wanderer. A rolling
stone that gathered neither moss nor worldly goods, nor even much of
the peace of mind that he sought. So he passed like a shadow from city
to city and from land to land. He made no friends nowadays. Larry
Gibson was still a young man, but there was a cold grimness about his
face that did not encourage advances.
* * * * *
A radio behind the bar had been playing music, but now the sound
abruptly ceased and the television screen went blank. Then the face of
a government announcer appeared on the screen. His voice came from the
speaker sharp and clear.
"Though the toll of the Gray Death continues to be very heavy, the
government of the Confederation is pleased to announce to the peoples
of Earth that the mystery of the disease has been solved. It is found
to be a new and malignant form of leprosy, caused by some hitherto
unknown germ. It has also been found that the proper use of radium can
control the disease, when applied by what doctors call the Riesland
Method. That is the end of this bulletin."
The radio returned to playing music. The bald-headed bartender grinned
broadly.
"Maybe we'll have a chance to go on living after all, boys," he said.
"I guess that calls for a drink on the house."
"Aye--the mystery of the Gray Death is removed!" a deep voice behind
Larry rumbled with heavy sarcasm. "I could have told them that answer
a week ago, if I'd thought the thick-headed fools who run this planet
would listen to me! But what they haven't announced is that the
Riesland Method calls for a lot of radium, and all Earth's supply is
not enough to check this epidemic in time to save the population of the
planet!"
Larry turned around to glance at the speaker. It was a man who sat
alone at a table by the wall. He was a very tall man, gaunt and
gray-haired with a pointed beard that jutted forward at a pugnacious
angle. Exceptionally heavy eyebrows gave him a quizzical appearance.
His unpressed clothes were badly stained, and rakishly tilted on one
side of his head was a slouch hat of a type that had gone out of style
many years before. A half-empty bottle of rum stood on the table before
him. Somehow he gave the impression of having already consumed what
liquor was missing from the bottle, and of having every intention of
emptying it before leaving his table.
Well, Larry Gibson reflected with a sardonic grin, _he_ was no one to
criticize a man for a little thing like excessive drinking. His own
record in that regard had been pretty lurid for the past two years.
Just then the other man grasped his bottle firmly in one hand, and his
glass in the other, and lurched over to Larry's table.
"Mind if I join you for a bit of conversation, young feller?" he
boomed. "Rum, more than any other essence of Bacchus, is a friendly
drink that needs to be shared."
Larry looked up at him without cordiality. He had been living alone
with his bitterness and frustration for so long that he resented
any intrusion on his privacy. Then he suddenly grinned. There was
a reckless and irrational gallantry about this gaunt old man that
appealed to some part of his own nature that had now been dormant for a
long time.
"Sure, sit down," he said.
"Thanks, young feller. My name is Crispin Gillingwater Ripon, and
I feel the need of a little company after a hard day trying to
recondition a rocket ship with the lousiest collection of shiftless
renegades that ever signed on as crew for such a craft."
"What ship is that?" Larry wanted to know.
"The _Sky Maid_."
"Never heard of her," Larry said thoughtfully and slowly.
"You wouldn't! She used to be the _Orion_, but she is now renamed
and my ship--subject to a matter of a few liens and some faulty hull
insulation and a very good chance of never coming back to port again
after I start on my voyage. Have a drink, young feller!"
"The _Orion_!" Larry exclaimed "Why, she was condemned as not
air-worthy over a year ago!"
"How else do you think I bought her?" Ripon grinned. "I'll concede
that, if the world had shown a proper appreciation for my varied
talents, I'd be a millionaire many times over, but I happen to be
almost broke. You appear to be a promising lad, young feller. How about
signing on for a trip to the Moon?"
"So you're the crazy man who is talking of going to the Moon," Larry
grinned. Ripon glowered at him from under his heavy brows for a minute,
then grinned in return.
"Be more careful with your language, young feller, or I'll bust this
bottle over your head! I may be eccentric, but I'm a lot saner than
those pedants who claim the trip can't be made."