"Shoot them!" he interrupted fiercely. "We can't afford to take
chances--and there's plenty more where they came from!"
There was a pause, then Lynn said, "Yes," in a strained voice.
Matt clicked off the walkie-talkie. He realized Isaac was regarding him
with a queer expression.
Matt said, "Damn it, Isaac, we _can't_ afford to take chances. There
are nineteen of those Amazons locked in the messroom. They'd like
nothing better than to get the upper hand. They're mean, Isaac. Mean as
cats that have run wild!"
"You're right, of course," Isaac agreed. "But to order them shot down
if they...."
A second dull boom interrupted him as another bridge across Salt River
was blown by Barren, the third assistant engineer.
A buzzer on Matt's walkie-talkie began to whir softly. He clicked it
on. The voice of Sawyer, the fat biologist whom he had sent to fortify
the highway bridge, sounded in his ear.
"Sawyer reporting. Two cars coming from the direction of Louisville."
"Scouts?" Matt asked.
"I think so."
"Are you dug in yet?"
"We have one machine gun set up and barbed wire strung across the
bridge. We can hold them."
"Let them get on the bridge," said Matt. "Then shoot up the cars. See
if you can't put them out of commission."
"Very well. They're coming onto the bridge now--slow." There was a
silence. Then Matt heard Sawyer say, "Hold your fire." Again there was
a silence that stretched on and on. Matt could feel his nerves tighten
like violin strings. After an interminable period, Sawyer said, "Now!"
Obviously, he was turned away from the mouthpiece because his voice was
faint.
Matt's fists clenched as the distant rattle of a machine gun reached
his ears. There was a second burst, and a third.
"We knocked out one car," Sawyer's voice sounded suddenly in Matt's
ear. "The other got away."
"Too bad," said Matt. "But that still gives us about six hours before
they can bring up the main body."
There was a loud boom from the direction of the river. "What was that?"
Matt snapped.
"Barren. He just blew the railroad bridge. That's the last one except
the one we're guarding."
"O.K.," said Matt. "Hang on."
"Don't leave me stuck out here in case they cross at Shepherdsville and
come up behind us. I don't want to be cut off."
"Don't worry," said Matt. "I'm sending a scout car up the highway
toward Elizabethtown. They'll warn us in plenty of time if they come
that way."
He snapped the radio off and turned to Isaac. "Well, we may as well
wait here until Lynn fetches our captives," and lit a cigarette.
* * * * *
By dark they had all the vital stores and their personal goods
transferred from the _Argus_ to the fort. The nineteen women from
Margot Drake's band were locked in the jail. The second assistant
engineer had dismantled key parts of the rocket ship so that it
couldn't be moved. And what was left of the bodies of the former
personnel of the fort were being removed from the top floors by a
special detail of space-suited men and dumped into the river.
Matt himself had seen to it that their defenses were in order.
Floodlights illuminated the grounds. The machine guns were oiled and
ammunition belts stacked handily.
At seven o'clock, he called in Jesse Sawyer. "Take up the machine gun,"
he ordered, "and let the bridge go. It isn't practical to hold it any
longer. I'm calling in the scout car from Elizabethtown."
"Good," came Sawyer's relieved voice. Matt detected a note of
excitement in it. "Good. I've something important that I want you to
see, Matt. Is the microscope set up?"
"Not ours," said Matt, "but the fort has some of the finest-equipped
laboratories I've ever seen. You can use the one here. What have you
found?"
"I'll be there in a jiffy. Show you then. But it's big, Matt. It's big.
I'll want you and Isaac in the laboratory. Yes, and Frazer, too." The
radio clicked off.
A frown furrowed Matt's brow. What the hell had Sawyer stumbled across?
He had never heard the biologist so urgent before. And Sawyer wasn't an
excitable person.
He wondered why he wanted Frazer, Isaac and himself all in the
laboratory?
Suddenly it struck him. Frazer was the biochemist. Isaac, besides being
the director, was the expedition's zoologist, and he himself was the
botanist!
It was not long before the three men were in the organic laboratory.
Jesse Sawyer entered, wheezing and dabbing at his moon face with a
handkerchief. Matt noticed that he was carrying a specimen jar in his
other hand.
"What have you found, Jesse?" Matt began, but the fat man waved him to
silence.
"Not so fast. I want a look at this under the microscope first. Then
I want all of you to see it, before I say anything. Where is the
microscope? Oh, here."
With trembling hands he began to prepare a slide. Matt watched him
fascinated, noting the deftness of the biologist's pudgy fingers. At
length, perspiring freely, Sawyer put his eye to the microscope, making
several adjustments. He drew in his breath sharply.
The jar that he had been carrying, Matt saw, was filled with some
liquid that radiated a pale yellow light. Was it phosphorescing? He
ran his hand through his coal black hair, his blue eyes narrowed.
"I thought so!" Sawyer muttered. "I thought so. Come here, Frazer. Take
a look."
The biochemist rose, looked through the microscope. "Well, I'll be
damned!" he ejaculated. "Where did you get that specimen?"
"Never mind. Isaac, you and Matt come see what you think."
When it came Matt's turn to put his eye to the aperture, he could
distinguish nothing at first. Then he made out dozens of minute
amoeba-like organisms squirming in the specimen on the slide.
Their resemblance to amoebae, he saw, was only superficial. Each one of
the minute organisms was glowing like a very small incandescent light.
He glanced up in bewilderment.
"Well," said Sawyer, "What do you make of them? Are they plant or
animal?"
"Where did they come from?" Matt asked.
"The river. That's a specimen of river water." The fat man pointed at
the bottle. "I tell you, Salt River and the Ohio are alive with these
organisms. Have you ever seen anything like them before?"
The three men shook their heads.
"What do you think, Jesse?" Matt asked the biologist.
"What do I think? I think they're the first evolutionary step of the
life spores that invaded Earth!"
"The life spores?"
The fat man nodded emphatically, crinkling an extra chin. "An alien
life form starting up the evolutionary ladder. I'm positive that
they're neither plant nor animal...."
"Then what are they?" Matt interrupted.
Jesse Sawyer shrugged fat shoulders. "I don't know. I want Frazer to
analyze them if he can."
"An alien life form!" said Matt speculatively. "Two dominant life forms
on the same planet...." He broke off as the eerie wail of sirens rent
the building.
"The Amazons! They're here!" he cried.
From the northeast corner of the building there came the staccato roar
of a machine gun.
"The roof!" Matt cried and dashed for the elevator.
The four men ran out on the landscaped roof. They made hurriedly for a
tight knot of men and women at the opposite rail.
Megaphones roared suddenly as Captain Bascom called through them:
"Don't approach any closer! We've machine guns trained over the
grounds!"
His voice was the voice of a giant through the electric megaphones.
Matt reached the rail and peered down. "Where are they?" he asked.
"There!" Lynn cried, pointing. Thirty stories below, Matt could see
the grounds lit by the flood lights as bright as day. At the edge of
illumination, he could make out tiny shadowy figures.
Suddenly, someone grasped his shoulder.
"Never mind the women," he heard Sawyer's voice grate in his ear. "Look
at the river!"
Matt raised his eyes. Salt River and the mile-wide Ohio were broad
glowing ribbons of light.
"The alien amoebas!" he gasped.