"Tell them to show themselves."
The red-headed leader gave a sharp command and a flock of girls
appeared laughing from the woods.
Matt whistled silently. Isaac had called her shot. Margot
unquestionably had culled the most attractive wenches in her band and
dressed them scantily but ravishingly. They flocked about their leader,
staring up curiously at the ship.
"We didn't expect so many," called Matt, "but leave your rifles at the
edge of the wood before you come aboard. You'll have to be searched. We
aren't taking any chances."
[Illustration: "_Leave your guns before you come aboard._"]
Again there was a slight hesitation on Margot Drake's part. Then she
leaned her gun against a tree and bade her girls to do likewise. Matt
lowered the ladder.
As they swarmed up one at a time, Lynn, who was standing just behind
him, ran her hands swiftly over them from neck to toes. They were
carrying no concealed weapons.
"You're invited to lunch before we show you about." He glanced at his
watch as a gong sounded from down the passage. "It's served now. If
you'll just step this way...."
"No tricks," admonished Margot in a suspicious voice. "The rocket gun
is still trained on the ship."
"No tricks." He grinned amiably. When they came to the messroom door,
he stood aside for them to enter. Cloths had been laid, tables set.
Food steamed on the side-board.
They trooped inside, giggling and chattering. No sooner had the last
girl passed across the threshold than Matt slammed the heavy door and
barred it.
A glance down the passage assured him that Lynn had the ladder up and
the airlock sealed.
Dimly, he was aware of angry yells from the messroom, the thud of boots
against the bulkhead. He grinned. Door and bulkheads were of heavy
steel.
He stepped to the ladder well and blew shrilly on a whistle.
The deep rumble of the jets answered at once as Captain Bascom threw in
the controls. Sheets of roaring flame bounced from the ground up past
the ports.
From the outside, Matt realized, the _Argus_ must present an awe
inspiring sight cloaked in fire. He felt the deck shudder, then press
strongly against the soles of his feet.
They were off.
He grabbed Lynn in a bear hug and whirled her precariously around the
shimmying deck.
"We got 'em!" he shouted above the sullen thunder of the tubes. "We've
trapped 'em! Nineteen!"
Lynn gasped, "Put me down!" and struck him a hard blow in the solar
plexus.
Matt grunted, dropping her with a thump.
"I don't see why you're so elated," she said grimly.
A twinkle began to gleam in Matt's blue eyes.
Lynn saw the twinkle and said, "If you don't keep your hands off those
hussies, I'm going straight to your cabin and move all my things out!"
"What?" Matt was jarred out of his complacency.
"I said," she repeated with emphasis, "that if you even look cross eyed
at any of those trollops, I'm leaving you flat! I move out! Is that
clear?"
"But, good Lord!" Matt burst out, "I didn't even know you'd moved in.
Why ... I mean--what...."
Lynn had the grace to look confused. She said indignantly, "You know
what Isaac said yesterday as well as I do."
"What _Isaac_ said?" He stared at her blankly. Then a light broke.
"Oh, you mean about childr...."
"Yes," she interrupted. "There are so few women. Not enough to
go around, I mean. Obviously, we had to choose." She watched him
defiantly, but not without anxiety. "Well, I've chosen. Of course, if
you don't want me ... you do, don't you?"
For answer Matt swept her into his arms. This time she came without
resistance. "Oh, Matt," she said, "I was so scared that maybe you
wouldn't want me. I--I...." She pushed back a little so that she could
look into his eyes. "But, if you make any passes at those...."
With a chuckle, Matt put his hand over her mouth. "You malign me, Lynn.
I hadn't thought of such a thing. I was only thinking about the future
of the colony. That was all."
"I doubt it!" she said and kissed him hard on the mouth.
* * * * *
The trip to Fort Knox, only twenty miles off, was a prolonged crisis.
Captain Bascom had been forced to angle the ship up at a slant, until
they were miles high above the fort, and then descend perpendicularly.
Every moment Matt thought the _Argus_ was going to lose momentum and
plunge back to the ground.
When the jets at length fell silent, he wiped the sweat off his face
with his sleeve and looked at the bloodless features of Lynn.
"Never again!" said the girl. "The next time we have to move, I walk!"
They had waited in the passage to the air lock. Now Matt pulled himself
together, ran to the port and threw it open.
Fort Knox had been moved since World War II. The atom bomb had made a
large army, navy or air force obsolete. The barracks of the old fort
had been enlarged and modernized and, at the time of the plague, housed
workers who commuted back and forth to Louisville. The gold vault had
been turned into a museum and library, the parade ground into a park.
New Fort Knox was a single massive building of gray monolithic
concrete. Large as a city block and thirty stories high, the frowning
structure was located on a promontory overlooking the Ohio and Salt
rivers. It had housed a detachment of the world police, and the
laboratories and living quarters of the technicians who had come to
replace the standing army in the new era of push-button warfare.
Matt, staring at the cubical gray fort, realized that it had been built
to protect the lethal experiments that had been carried out in its
labs. There were no windows on the first or second floors. Nothing less
than an atom bomb could destroy it.
He cast a cautious glance at the silent deserted town of West Point
beyond the highway and the brown slack waters of Salt River, muddied by
spring rains. The _Argus_ had landed directly behind the fort and the
Ohio was at their backs.
Isaac Trigg came into the passage with Captain Bascom. Rapidly the
others began to assemble.
"Well?" asked Isaac.
"Look for yourself. We could have scoured the world and not found a
better place."
They crowded to the port, staring out at the silent pile of concrete.
"Splendid! Splendid!" Isaac rubbed his dry hands together. Broad grins,
laughter and exultant comments broke out among the others.