He strained his eyes, staring intently at the altimeter—at the little spot of light creeping steadily toward a red line on the dial. They met! And Camp, his fingers quivering on a half score of firing-keys, kicked over a foot lever that opened the jets to their fullest capacity, and pressed the keys. The rockets flamed with their utmost, ravening power, and the smooth rush of the sphere jolted to a shuddering halt as it danced uncertainly at the tip of the column of hellfire.
He had stopped flat about one hundred meters from the ground, he observed. Swifter, then, than was compatible with absolute safety, he reduced the power of the blast, bit by tiny bit, and the sphere settled rapidly into the incandescent pit its fiery breath had dug. The jets coughed, picked up again ... and ceased altogether ... and the sphere settled easily into the impalpable ash of the pit.
II. Village of Silence
"Son of a ... !" Camp whispered, and in any other circumstances it would have been a curse. He lit a cigarette, watching the blue-gray smoke twist in slow, fantastic whorls across the cramped cabin, and wondered what he should do now. He absently released the lock that controlled the loading-port of the sphere, and watched idly as a small motor drove the heavy panel open to the air. A beam of sunlight, the first in three years, cut across the cabin, causing Marvin to chuckle with alarm. Camp tossed a black cloth over the reptile's cage. Marvin would keep, he thought, until it was discovered just what sunlight would do to the pallid little creature.
He finished his cigarette and flipped the butt through the open port. Years on another gravity and weeks in space had not spoiled his aim, he thought happily. Some things a man kept forever, once he'd acquired them.
Camp began to tap his foot impatiently. Then he began to count. Before he realized it, ten minutes had passed, and still there were no high-pitched voices babbling outside, no white, excited faces peering through the port, no visitors to his crater to welcome him as befitting a returned hero.
Almost angrily he strode to the lip of the port's shelving door and vaulted to the top of the parapet of charred, powdered earth his landing had flung up. He had come down, he saw, near the shore of a fairly large body of water, a lake somewhere near Lake Superior, from what he'd been able to see during the descent. To his right was the water; to his left a concrete highway, and, a kilometer or two along the road, he saw the slick ferroconcrete structures of a town. But over all the country in his sight, there was not a single person to be seen, nor any sign of life.
He took a few steps toward the highway, stopped uncertainly, and returned to the space-sphere. He rummaged out a pack of cigarettes and matches, and stood for a moment balancing a heavy automatic in his palm. With a laugh at his own adolescent ideas he tossed the pistol back to its place and climbed once more from the crater. Something wriggled in his pocket.
"What the devil?" Camp asked of the empty air, and fished an eel-like Marvin from his white coverall.
"Women!" gloated Marvin, leering at Camp in idiot affection. "Lead me to 'em!"
Camp strode across the grass to the white streak of the highway. "You be good," he commanded, stuffing the lizard back into his pocket, "or I'll send you to bed without any sugar. We're going to call on the deacon."
The walk was a dismal and seemingly interminable keeping to the left of the concrete pavement, expecting any moment to be hailed by the klaxon of a five-decker bus roaring past. Camp plodded steadily toward the village, glad even for the slight company of Marvin.
"My God, but it's creepy," Camp said confusedly. There were not, he suddenly realized, even birds or animals to be seen, not an insect buzzing stridently. The town seemed asleep in the warm September sunshine, as quiet as a peaceful Sunday morning; here and there a gay-striped, orange-and-black awning flapped listlessly in the gentle breeze, and autos were parked in thin lines along the curbs.
But the awnings were torn and flapped by the wind's tugging fingers, and the bleaching cars stood on flat tires, rusting away where they were parked.
Camp strode along the main street of the village, searching, hunting, looking through the windows of the little specialty shops and the larger general stores, some of them empty and gaping like blind eyes where old-fashioned glass had shattered or fallen out. The stores were unlocked, all of them, indicating that whatever had befallen the populace had occurred during the daytime, and though Camp opened several doors, yet some undefined fear kept him from entering any of the shops. Dust was thick on the floors, eddied into drifts and strange designs by vagrant winds, yet in the food stores meats and fruits seemed solid and sweet enough beneath their vacuum-exhausted glass housings.
He hurried to the other side of the street, looking nervously over his shoulder as he went, to a print shop whose sign read, "The Meshuggeh Junction, Advertiser." He poked tentatively at the door. Like all the others he had tried, it swung open beneath his touch, and its hinges protested loudly in the thick silence.
An ancient Goss power press was the chief feature of the press-room, dwarfing a single monotype, and racks of fonts and job presses for smaller work. And in the rolls of the Goss was a stream of paper midway between blank and finished page. It seemed to Camp that the operator of the Goss had had barely time enough to shut off the power before he—went away.
Camp forced himself to bend over and read the date of the paper in the press. It was the issue of the "Advertiser" for Monday, May 22, 1995... and today, the stunned Camp thought, is Wednesday, the seventeenth of September, 1997!
He feverishly scanned what little of the paper was made up, finding no clue to the nightmare he was experiencing. He stepped from the shop, at last, and stood blinking for a moment in the bright afternoon sunshine.
Then he heard the silence ... what silence! Silence deep and unbroken, unending, terrifying... silence blanketing a world! He whirled suddenly and shouted, flinching as the echo bounced eerily back from the nearby hills. He went on down the street, looking around at every step. He felt that if he could turn quickly enough, he would see somebody peering stealthily over a window-sill or around a door. His hurried pace turned into a run.
"You're crazy, Camp," Marvin jeered from his pocket.
Camp found himself at the village docks. There were boats moored there, the gay-bannered cruisers and motor-yachts of vacationers who had been there for the spring fishing and camping when it—whatever unimaginable thing the single syllable implied—happened.
Only the larger and newer craft, those with the duraloy hulls so popular before Camp had left for another planet, were still afloat, and all of these, he soon discovered, needed repairs of one sort or another before they would run. He finally chose, after thorough inspection, a sturdy cabin cruiser. Its tanks were slopping-full of oil, but Camp wasn't quite sure how good this would be after its two-year ripening. He drained the tanks accordingly, and refilled them from sealed cans he had found.
He started the motors, grimacing as thick clouds of black smoke vomited from the twin exhausts and backfire popped sharply once or twice, indicating vital need of a tune-up.
He worked grimly and silently, the only sounds breaking the heavy quiet being the clicking of his tools and the strident buzz of a battery charger. Dimly apparent in the back of his mind was an awareness of inimically circling shadows, of a vague menace watching him as he worked, and he shivered uncontrollably.