The leader of the group, a gray-haired, bulky man, stared.
'I know you. You're Stephen Court. I've seen your pictures in the paper. What is all this about, anyhow?'
Court swiftly noted the insignia of rank on the man's blue sleeve.
'There's no time now, Sergeant. There's a killer beyond that light barrier. He's got to be stopped!'
'But we can't shoot down a man on your word.'
Court sucked in his breath, then his hand went out in a blurring motion.
Grabbing a heavy revolver from one of the officers, he whirled and pumped bullets at the barrier of fire. Flame crackled and snarled. The bullets could not penetrate the barrier. Half-melted, they dropped to the floor.
The revolver was wrested from his hand. The sergeant eyed him in amazement, holding the smoking gun.
'I tell you—'
Court made a gesture of despair as he heard a low whine, rising in pitch and intensity, throbbing through the ship. He knew that Thordred was busy in the laboratory. He tried a new tack.
'This ship may be blown up at any minute. Get your men out. Keep the crowd back.' He hesitated, then pointed to the unconscious forms of the Chinese and the gargoyle-faced giant on their couches. 'Get them out, too.'
Jansaiya, the Atlantean girl, was nowhere in sight, and there was not time to search for her.
The menace of explosion the sergeant could understand. He issued swift orders. His men swarmed out of the ship, carrying the cataleptic men.
Court followed. He could not guess what Thordred would do now, but he suspected that the killer might loose his death rays on the mob. Orders ran from one officer to another. The crowd was pushed back, milling, asking questions, shuffling unwillingly.
Standing at the sergeant's side, Court bit his lip in indecision. What now? Thordred was impregnable behind his force screen. Without equipment, Court could do nothing. With the right apparatus, he knew, he could find the vibration-rate of the screen and neutralize it. But there was no equipment here.
'This got anything to do with the Plague?' the sergeant said. 'We're evacuating New York, you know.' 'What? Evacuating New York!'
'Yeah. The Plague's hit us. The city's a death-trap, with eight million people here. Martial law's been declared, though, and everything's under control. The whole city's moving out before the Plague spreads.' Court nodded, staring at the ship.
'Well, clear the park and get some planes to bomb our friend there. I don't know if explosive will harm him, but it's worth trying while there's still time. As for those two unconscious men you took out of the ship, get them to a hospital. We'll—'
There was a sudden interruption. From the golden hull, a ray of cold green brilliance probed. As it shot toward Court, he felt a wave of icy chill. All the strength was abruptly drained from his body. He felt himself falling…
The ray flamed brighter, turned to yellow, then to white. It splashed in pale radiance over the sergeant. His strong face
seemed to melt, the flesh blackening incindery horror over the bone-structure. The officer dropped without a sound…
Through filming eyes, Court saw the golden space ship rise from its resting place. It shot up and hovered. Fleeing abruptly into the western skies, it was gone!
When the ray touched Court, it had not been strong enough to kill, only to paralyze. But the sergeant was horribly dead.
Court felt himself slipping down into the black pit of unconsciousness. His last memory was that of some small bird wheeling above him against the blue. Then darkness took him.
Hearing returned to him first. The sound was confused and chaotic. Court lay motionless, striving to analyze it. As if from a vast distance, he seemed to hear a babble of voices faintly mumbling what sounded like gibberish. Piercing through this was a medley of shrill whistles and siren-like noises that were utterly inexplicable.
Then Court opened his eyes, looked straight up at a bare white ceiling. Sunlight made square patterns on it.
He could move, he discovered. Without difficulty he.sat up, found that he was in one of a row of cots that ran down the length of a long room. He was in a hospital!
Court's voice cracked when he cried out. He tried again, but roused only an echo. Wonderingly he rubbed his chin and gasped in amazement. A beard? He must have been unconscious for two weeks, at least!
He rose, shivering in his regulation hospital nightgown. Though the windows were closed, the room was icy cold. Rocking weakly on his feet, Court looked around.
The man in the next bed looked familiar. It was the obese Oriental he had last seen in the golden space ship! The man lay silent, motionless, no breath lifting his huge paunch.
In the cot beyond lay the scar-faced giant, the man who had resembled a gladiator. He, too, was apparently dead or cataleptic.
Some of the other beds were occupied, Court saw. He made a quick investigation. Strangers, and dead, all of them, some had plainly died of starvation and thirst. The blankets in most cases were tumbled and twisted, and some of the bodies on the floor where they had apparently flung themselves. One grizzled oldster was huddled in a heap near the door, his skinny hand still outstretched for aid that could never come.
The hospital must have been deserted. But what could have caused medical men to forsake their patients? Physicians do not break the Hippocratic Oath so easily. That meant—The Plague!
His throat tight, Court stumbled to a table where a carafe of water stood. It was stagnant with long standing and half evaporated, but he gulped down a repulsive swallow.
A folded newspaper on the table caught his gaze. Hastily he folded the paper to the first page. Flaring headlines greeted him.
PLAGUE STRIKES NEW YORK!
2 °Carriers Reported in Manhattan;
Mayor Orders City Evacuated!
Hastily linotyped columns gave the story. All over Greater New York, the Plague had suddenly appeared. In Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, from Harlem to the Battery—the shining men, harbingers of weird death, had come into being.
Thinking the invasion had arrived by way of Jersey and the surrounding area, the mayor had directed the evacuation to take place northward. But in the box labeled 'Latest News Bulletins,' it became apparent that the infection was spreading with fatal speed. Among eight millions of people, the Plague ran like wildfire.
Well, judging by his beard and the date of the paper, that had been two weeks ago. What was the country like now?
Court went to the window and stared out. The bleak, snow-covered expanse of Central Park was far below. Small, irregular dark blotches lay on the whiteness. Were they bodies?
Court found a telephone and jiggled the receiver impatiently. Not even the dial-tone answered him. New York must be entirely deserted, save by the dead!
Again he went to the window. This time he saw a shining oval of light, dwarfed by distance, gliding under the trees in the park. A Carrier…
Court knew he could not remain in New York. With a nod of decision, he glanced at the two motionless figures on the cots beside his own. Hastily he began to gather equipment. He saw a use for the Oriental and the giant. He could not leave them here, frozen in cataleptic sleep, even if he did not think that their knowledge might prove valuable.
He used heat, stimulants and artificial respiration. The stimulants were easy to procure after a trip down the corridor into adjoining wards. It was harder to find adrenalin. Court had to break down a door before locating the drug, but finally he was ready.
Electricity, rather than gas, supplied the hospital. He knew there would be no current now. Court hesitated.
