nd it did not help to remember that Sol, though he might regain complete health, could never bed his woman-the provocatively proportioned female Sos would now be jammed against, all night long.
CHAPTER THREE
'Look!' Sola cried, pointing to the hillside across the valley.
It was noon, and Sol was no better. They had tried to feed him, but his throat would not swallow and they were afraid water would choke him. Sos kept him in the tent and fenced out the sun and the boldly prying flies, furious in his uncertainty and inability to do anything more positive. He ignored the girl's silly distraction.
But their problems had only begun. 'Sos, look!' she repeated, coming to grab at his arm.
'Get away from me,' he growled, but he did look.
A gray carpet was spreading over the hill and sliding grandly toward the plain, as though some cosmic jug were spilling thick oil upon the landscape.
'What is it?' she asked him with the emphasis that was becoming annoying. He reminded himself that at least she no longer disdained his opinions. 'The Roents?'
He cupped his eyes in a vain attempt to make out some detail. The stuff was not oil, obviously. 'I'm afraid it's what abolished the game in this region.' His nameless fears were being amply realized.
He went to Sol's barrow and drew out the two slim singlesticks: light polished rods two feet long and an inch and a half in diameter, rounded at the ends. They were made of simulated wood and were quite hard. 'Take these, Sola. We're going to have to fight it off somehow, and these should come naturally to you.'
She accepted the sticks, her eyes fixed on the approaching tide, though she showed no confidence in them as a weapon.
Sos brought out the club: the weapon no longer than the singlestick and fashioned of similar material, but far more hefty. From a comfortable, ribbed handle it bulged into a smooth teardrop eight inches in diameter at the thickest point, with the weight concentrated near the end, and it weighed six pounds. It took a powerful man to handle such an instrument with facility, and when it struck with full effect the impact was as damaging as that of a sledgehammer. The club was clumsy, compared to other weapons-but one solid blow usually sufficed to end the contest, and many men feared it.
He felt uneasy, taking up this thing, both because it was not his weapon and because he was bound by his battle path never to use it in the circle. But he repressed these sentiments as foolish; he' was not taking the club as a weapon and had no intention of entering the circle with it. He required an effective mode of defence against a strange menace, and in that sense the club was no more a weapon of honor than the bow. It was the best thing at hand to beat back whatever approached.
'When it gets here, strike at the edge,' he told her.
'Sos! It-it's alive!'
'That's what I was afraid of. Small animals, millions of' them, ravaging the ground and consuming every flesh bearing creature upon it. Like army ants.'
'Ants!' she said, looking at the sticks in her hands.
'Like them-only worse.'
The living tide had reached the plateau and was coming across in a monstrous ripple. Already some front-runners were near enough to make out separately. This close, the liquid effect was gone.
'Mice!' she exclaimed, relieved. 'Tiny mice!'
'Maybe-because they're among the smallest mammals, and they reproduce fastest. Mammals are the most savage and versatile vertebrates on Earth. My guess is that these are carnivorous, whatever they are.'
'Mice? But how-'
'Radiation. It affects, the babies in some way, makes them mutants. Almost always harmful-but the few good ones survive and take over, stronger than before. The books claim that's how man himself evolved.'
'But mice!'
The outriders were at their feet. Sos felt inane, holding the club aloft against such enemies. 'Shrews, I'm afraid.
