Murray Leinster - War with the Gizmos

One of the fires began to burn low. The flame ring Lane had made first now went out. They smelled burned gasoline. Lane looked anxiously at Carol. She nodded reassurance. Together, they waded through the yielding dust to where the professor and Burke labored over Sam.

“This affair,” panted the professor, “is a great deal more serious than I imagined. I’m afraid this poor man is dead!”

Burke, working beside her, said profoundly: “You folks must’ve worked things out even better than I did. I wouldn’t’ve thought of fighting ghosts with fire. But it sure chased ’em!”

“And things like this,” the professor panted, “are apt to happen all over the country. I am beginning to feel genuine alarm. We simply have to alert the authorities. We have to set research teams at work to solve the problem these Gizmos present. They—why, they are a menace to everybody! They can do incalculable harm!”

She worked resolutely at the task of trying to revive the owner of the filling-station, Burke, at her side, working with a precision indicating practice at this task.

“If you don’t need help just yet,” said Lane, “I’ll try the phone again. May be able to get a doctor.”

He waded through the dust to the station again. Carol, as if automatically, went with him. He used the telephone, first to try to get a doctor for the owner of the station, and then for long distance. It was incongruous to have so desperately urgent a task to do, and to have the telephone operator break in from time to time, demanding more coins in the phone lest she break off the connection. Toward the end, Carol was handing Lane the coins he needed. Once, he heard the ringing of a cash register bell.

He hung up, his face dark.

“It’s not good?”

“It could hardly be worse,” he said bitterly. “No doctor. There are only two in Murfree. They’re both out on emergency calls. People dead or believed to have died in their sleep. I tried for other doctors nearby. There were a dozen sudden deaths in the county last night, in four families. All the doctors are busy trying to find out what they died of, because it looks contagious.” His voice was ironic. “They’re trying to find out how to protect the other members of the families involved, because they must have been exposed! A sudden disease is a better explanation than mine for the things that happened everywhere last night. It’s easier to believe, anyhow!”

He started for the door. Carol said: “Dick, I had to take change from the cash register, for the telephone.”

He handed her a bill, and she put it in the cash drawer, closed it, and followed him out. The professor had ceased her efforts at artificial respiration and stood wringing her hands. Burke had heaved Sam’s limp form over his shoulder and was struggling through the dust toward the station.

“He’s dead,” said the professor unhappily. “We tried, but—We just thought to look. And he’d breathed in dust. He drowned in dust. He gasped for breath and his lungs filled with it as if it had been water. Nothing can be done—nothing!”

Burke said, “His number was up, that’s all. Those things came, carryin’ dust, an’ they dropped it. They’d’ve managed to put out any fire we made except a gasoline fire. That’s what they had the dust for.” He added, “Somebody must’ve fought ’em with fire before, and they figured out what to do about it.”

“We did,” said Lane grimly. He spoke to the professor. “Gizmos aren’t a local product. They’re nation-wide. There were sudden deaths everywhere last night—hundreds of them. What’s happened here has been happening everywhere, with variations. The official reaction is that some new disease has developed among animals, and that now it’s attacking humans. It’s called a plague, which so far has hardly appeared in cities. People are advised to get rid of their pets, to stay away from any place where there’s wild life, and to wait for bacteriologists and epidemologists to track down the germ and develop immunizing shots against it.”

The professor was appalled. “The idiots!” she raged. “The fools! We’ve got to tell them—”

“No,” said Lane. “We’ve got to show them.”

Burke waded past him with his burden. He put the proprietor inside his filling station. Then he went out to the car and examined it carefully and brushed a six-inch mass of dust from the top of the hood. He brushed at the radiator, then climbed in and started the motor, listening with a critical ear. He nodded, and put it in gear. The car moved slowly through the dust, which flowed almost like a liquid. Its exhaust left a trail on the surface. There were monstrous frozen dust waves made by its wheels. The dunelike coating on its roof slipped and slid and poured downward.

Once clear of the thicker dust deposit, Burke stopped the car again. He got out and came back to the filling station. He came out with a brush and cloths. He began to clean the car, and then wipe the windows to transparency once more. When he had finished, he beat at his own clothing to rid it of dust.

“I’m known to sportsmen as a reasonably truthful writer about hunting,” said Lane, “but that’s not a quick channel to acceptance of our information. This is too serious to waste time persuading people about. Have you better contacts than that?”

The professor wrung her hands. “If they’ve got the idea that it’s a plague,” she said bitterly, “it’ll be ten times harder to make them see sense! There’s nobody as hidebound as a researcher! They talk about teamwork, but it means that nobody dares think anything the rest of the team won’t accept! And I’ve got a reputation for imagination, which is the one thing that scares a scientific mind! They’ll believe anybody but me—anybody with a doctorate, at least!”

Burke approached, still brushing at his clothing. He had an odd air of combined apprehension and zest.

“Me,” he said, “I’m leaving. I figure you people kept me from getting what he got—” he gestured toward the filling station—“and you know plenty that I’d like to know. You knew what to do when they came in a cloud. I’ve got to figure things out, and I want all the information I can get. Want to come along with me?”

“We certainly don’t want to stay here,” Lane said. He turned to the professor again. “Your best bet, of course, is to get back to the University with your facts.”

“Facts? What good are facts? I’ve got to show Gizmos—alive, dead, stuffed and made into microscopic slides for histological examination before anybody with a scientific reputation will agree that a thing can be alive without being flesh and blood. But I’ve had ’em try to strangle me! Those things are dangerous!”

“Look,” said Lane. “I’ve got some friends—a mixed bunch. Some will believe me, but as mere businessmen who hunt and fish, nobody will listen to them any more than to me. But there’s one man—he’s head of a pharmaceutical laboratory in New Jersey. They make antibiotics and such things. We’ve hunted and fished together. It’s not likely he’ll accept all we’ve learned without some proof, but he’ll let me show him the proof—if I can get it to him.” The professor shrugged.

“One more phone call, then,” said Lane, “and we’ll start.” To Burke he said: “We’ll ride with you and tell you what we know. When you want to split off, you’ll let us out at the nearest airfield or railroad station. Does that suit you?”

“You made a bargain,” said Burke expansively. “I’ll fill up the car.”

Lane went back into the filling station, Carol following. He heard a curious scratching sound. Instantly tense, he went to see. It came from an overturned oil drum. He dragged at it and the Monster crawled out: cringing: moaning: trembling in every muscle. He had fled to the darkest, remotest place his terror-stricken instincts could suggest. He had not been killed. The Gizmos this time had concentrated upon the humans.