Last Gasp

sake!' Nick swept his arm out to indicate the thirty or so people in the clearing, weary, travel-stained, faces streaked with yellow, exuding hopelessness like a bad smell. 'We're down to a few days rations, we've used up nearly all our medical supplies, we've nowhere to go, and you're fretting like a maiden aunt that someone's about to start World War Three.' He shook his head in bewilderment. 'Maybe it might be for the best if they did drop a nuke on top of us. At least it would be quick and painless.'

Chase nodded grimly across the muddy water to the buildings choked with vines and foliage on the other side of the Strip. 'If you're that anxious to die, Nick, that way's just as quick. I wouldn't give you fifteen minutes.'

'I don't want to die, none of us do. But that's precisely what's going to happen unless we can get help. Any kind of help--and soon.' Nick looked around despairingly. 'Stay here and we starve, rot, and get eaten, and not necessarily in that order.'

One of the others said, 'I think Nick's right. Even if it was a gunship it must have been American, with our guys in it.'

'Hell, for all we know it could have been a search-and-rescue mission!' said somebody else bitterly.

Ruth was staring hard at Chase, her eyes holding a message it took him a moment to decipher. Then he understood: It concerned Jo. Ruth said quietly, 'We've got to find help, Gavin, and very soon.'

During the day they had to contend with the airless oven heat, but after nightfall was worse. Insects came out in their millions. Centipedes a foot long undulated across the clearing and had to be beaten to a pulp before they got to the ration packs. Dan and some of the others went down to the brackish water to see if it was fit for drinking and disturbed a tribe of alligators snoozing in the mud.

They decided to seek shelter in one of the ruined buildings along the Strip.

Everything of any value, everything portable, had long since been looted. The jungle had crept indoors, transforming the public bars and restaurants, the gaming rooms, the lobbies and passages into dank sweltering caves. By flashlight they explored the labyrinth, hacking through festoons of creepers and climbing stairs where the carpets squelched underfoot like thick moss. They came upon a swimming pool half-filled with green slime, the crusty surface broken here and there by snouts and unblinking eyes reflected in the beams of light. In other rooms the silence was intimidating. Tapestries of foliage clung to the walls, the leaves a dark mottled brown giving off an acrid scent that bit at the throat like ammonia. This vegetation was feeding off the poisoned air and becoming itself poisoned in the process, adding to the toxic fumes that formed the new atmosphere. The spiral of decay was winding tighter and tighter--each malfunction in the biosphere contributing to the next perverted link in the crooked chain. It was evolution but in the wrong direction.

Dan, along with Art Hegler and two of the other younger men, went on ahead, leaving the main party in the corner of what had been an electronic amusements room on the third floor of the Stardust Hotel. The twin-seater booths , with their controls and curved video screens were more or less intact, resembling the top halves of large colored eggs stuck to the floor. A section of the side was hinged, which the players pulled shut, sealing themselves inside a flickering green womb. Now the doors hung open, the insides inky black.

Two floors above the advance group had battered down a fire door to find themselves in a corridor stretching the full depth of the building. The jungle hadn't penetrated this far, although the humidity had rotted the carpets and the velvety embossed wallpaper made a perfect breeding ground for white bell-shaped fungi.

Tentatively pushing open each door and standing well back, they investigated every room, some of which were untouched, the beds made up, the TV blank-faced in the corner, towels in the bathroom hanging flaccidly from chromium-steel rails. And in one room, which showed signs of occupation, Hegler slid back a closet door and goggled in amazement. The closet was crammed solid from floor to ceiling with cartons of tinned food--somebody's secret hoard, which they hadn't had time to eat.

'Strike starvation off the list,' said Dan gleefully, ripping open a carton and spilling two-pound tins of smoked ham over the floor. 'At least for the time being. This guy was all set for the millennium by the look of it.'

Wayne Daventry, the twenty-year-old son of a biologist who had died of a heart attack two years ago, started to cry. The other three said nothing, averting their eyes, but they understood his emotion well enough. It was one thing to put up a stoic front in the face of adversity, yet impossible not to betray real inner feeling when Providence offers a small gift of kindness, the briefest glimmer of hope.

'Now, if we can get a good movie on TV,' Dan said to divert attention and began punching buttons with a conjurer's flourish, 'I reckon the Stardust deserves a five-star rating!'

As the set began to hum, Art Hegler yelped as if stung, staggered back, and tripped over his own feet.

The others stood with hearts pounding as the concave screen lit up and a fuzzy picture appeared, which at first nobody could make any sense of. It was like a surgeon's view of a pumping heart, stark eye-searing red, being pierced by an enormous black veined torpedo.

Dan smiled bleakly in the artificial flickering twilight thrown by the screen. 'Just what we need, the in-house pom movie. The circuit must be still wired up to the generator.' He shook his head sadly. 'It's true what they say: 'The world will end not with a whimper but with a bang.''

One of the others gave a hollow laugh.

Not really believing it would work, Dan tried to get another channel. Why bother transmitting pictures when there was nobody to receive them? Yet there were--dammit, had to be--other pockets of civilization, if only on the evidence of the gunship. Where had that come from? What was it looking for? Survivors?

As he expected, nothing came through, and he switched it off. Hegler said, 'If there's power on maybe we can tap it. Get some light in this place if nothing else--'

'I don't think that's wise, Art.' Dan crossed to the window. 'Turn your flashlights off for a minute.'

The four of them stood looking out at the jungle below, just about discernible in the fading light. It stretched away into the murky dusk, an unbroken canopy covering the low-level buildings with the multistory hotels and casinos poking through like concrete piles in an inland sargasso sea. Nearest to them was Circus-Circus, then the Sahara, farther yet the Hyatt, and in the distance the Union Plaza.

'Think about it. Up here we'd be like a beacon for anyone or anything down there. I've no idea what's living in the swamp and I'm not keen on finding out. I don't think it's sensible to advertise our presence, do you?'

'It could bring help,' Hegler pointed out.

'It could bring trouble. I think the only help we're going to get is from ourselves. What do you say, Pete?'

Pete Kosinski, who had worked as a technician with Ron Maxwell, stroked his week-old growth of beard, which softened the lower half of his angular jaw. 'This seems to me like a good place for now. We've got a supply of food and we can make the place secure. I don't want to share with nobody, least of all those little albinos with the soft handshake. Let's keep it just for us.'

'What about you, Wayne?'

'I agree--I mean about the lights and everything. If we can rest up for a few days and get ourselves organized, give ourselves time to think, we stand a much better chance.' The young man sounded grateful to have been asked his opinion, anxious to show he'd recovered from his emotional spasm. 'Let's end with a bang, not a whimper.'

Dan arched back, shaking with laughter. It flooded through him like sweet relief. The other two laughed with him while Wayne grinned amiably, not sure what he'd said or why it was funny but tickled pink that it was.

They split up into pairs and searched the rest of the rooms along the corridor, thirty-six in all. Dan didn't want any nasty surprises in the middle of the night and so paid particular attention to the doors at the far end of the corridor and the three fire exits. All were intact and could be made secure.

Finding this place was the first stroke of luck they'd had since leaving the Tomb. He was still concerned about fresh water, and there was the problem of medical supplies, which were almost gone, but at least from here, in daylight, they'd have an excellent view of the terrain. Tomorrow he'd explore the upper floors. How high was the Stardust? Ten, twelve, fifteen stories? Despite his fatigue he felt buoyed up, almost cheerful, and he clapped Wayne on the back and told him to go back down to the third floor and bring everyone up.

'Tell them we've got vacancies for everyone--including king-size beds, first-class food, and stimulating entertainment, all at no extra charge. The Stardust seasonal special, compliments of the management.'

Wayne saluted smartly and trotted off, the wavering flashlight dancing over the mildewed carpet like a fairy's halo.

It wasn't, as it happened, any of the four children in the party who were responsible for disturbing the blue-