Hubble looked worried too. “They’re so sure there are other people—that it’s only a matter of contacting them.”
Kenniston looked at him. “Do you believe there are any others? I’m beginning to doubt it, Hubble. If they couldn’t live in this city, they couldn’t anywhere.”
“Perhaps,” Hubble admitted uneasily. “But we can’t be sure of anything. We have to try, and keep trying.”
Kenniston started the transmitter that night, using it for only ten minutes each hour, to conserve gasoline as much as possible.
“Middletown calling!” he spoke into the microphone, “Middletown calling!”
No use of adding more—they could not yet operate a receiver to hear an answer. They could only call to make known their presence, and wait and hope that any others left on dying Earth would hear and come.
Crowds watched from outside the door, as he called. They were there through the night, when Beitz took over, and there again the next day, and the next. They were quite silent, but the hope in their faces made Kenniston sick. He felt, as another day and another passed, the mockery of the words he kept repeating.
“Middletown calling!”
Calling to what? To an Earth dying, devoid of human life, to a cold and arid sphere that had done with humanity long ago? Yet he had to keep sending it out, the cry of man lost in the ages and seeking his kind, the cry that he felt there were no ears on Earth to hear.
“Middletown calling—calling—”
Chapter 9
OUT OF THE SILENCE
No answer. Weeks had gone by, while Kenniston and Beitz called and called, and out of the silence of the dying Earth had come no reply.
Every hour they had spoken the words that had become meaningless.
And between calls, they had fumbled with the strange receivers that they did not know how to tune. And nothing at all had happened.
Kenniston came to dread the times when he must leave the building and walk through the little crowd of hopeful Middletowners who were always gathered outside.
“No, not yet,” he had to say, always trying to look confident. “But maybe soon—”
“And maybe never,” Carol said to him hopelessly, when they were alone. “If anybody had heard, they could have got here from any part of Earth, in these weeks you’ve been calling.”
“Perhaps they don’t have airplanes,” he reminded her.
“If they had complicated radio receivers to hear our call, they’d have planes too, wouldn’t they?”
Her logic was unanswerable. For a moment Kenniston was silent.
Then, “Please don’t say that to anyone else, Carol. All these people—it’s what keeps them going, I think, their hope of finding other people. They wouldn’t feel so lost, then.” He sighed. “We’ll keep calling. It’s all we can do. And maybe McLain and Crisci will find someone out there. They should be back soon.”
McLain had succeeded in organizing his motor expedition to explore the surrounding country. It had taken weeks of preparation, of marshalling tank-trucks from Middletown to use as gasoline caches at carefully selected points, of laying out tentative routes to follow. Two weeks before, the little caravan of jeeps and half-tracs had started out, and its return was due.
And as it searched the dusty wastes out there, as Kenniston and Beitz again and again voiced the unanswered call, work and life and death had marched forward in New Middletown.
Hubble had helped lay out the schedule of necessary work. The hydroponic tanks had to be got ready. The whole city had to be cleaned of drifted dust. The supplies brought from old Middletown had to be inventoried.
A board of elected officials had assigned men to their work. Every man had his job, his schedule of hours, his pay in ration tickets. The schools had been set up again. Courts and law functioned once more, thought all except serious offenders were liberated on probation.
Babies were born in New Middletown each day. And the death toll was heavy at first, most of its victims among the old who could not stand the shock of uprooting. A space of land outside the dome had been carefully fenced in as a cemetery.
But underneath all the bustle of new activities, it was a waiting city. A city, waiting with terrible eagerness for an answer to that call that went hourly out into the silence.
Kenniston felt his helplessness. He could not even understand completely the transmitters he used. He had, in these weeks, completely disassembled one of them without being able to puzzle out its circuits. He was sure that it employed radio frequencies far outside the electro-magnetic spectrum of twentieth-century science. But parts of the design were baffling. The words stamped on the apparatus meant nothing—they were in the same completely unknown language as all the city’s inscriptions. He could only keep sending out the same questioning, hopeful message into the unknown. “Middletown calling!”
Finally, McLain’s exploring expedition returned. Carol came running to Kenniston with the news. He went with her to the portal, where thousands of Middletowners were already anxiously gathering.
“They’ve had a hard time,” said Kenniston, as the jeeps and half-tracks rolled through the portal and came to a halt. McLain, Crisci and the others were unshaven, dust-smeared, exhausted-looking. Some of them sagged in their seats.
McLain’s voice boomed to the eager questioners. “Tell you all about it later! Right now, we’re pretty beat up.”
Crisci’s tired voice cut in. “Why not tell them now? They’ll have to know.” He faced the wondering crowd and said, “We found something, yes. We found a city, two hundred miles west of here. A domed city, just like New Middletown.”
Bertram Garris asked the question that was in everyone’s mind. “Well? Were there people in that other city?”
Crisci answered softly, “No. There was nobody there. Not a soul. It was dead, and it had been dead a long time.”
McLain added, “It’s true. We saw no sign of life anywhere, except a few little animals on the plains.”
Carol turned a pale face toward Kenniston. “Then there’s no one else? Then we are the last?”
A sick silence had fallen on the crowd. They looked at each other numbly. And then Bertram Garris displayed unsuspected capacities of leadership. He got up on one of the half-tracks and spoke cheerfully.
“Now, folks, no use to let this news get you down! McLain’s party only covered a few hundred miles, and Earth is a mighty big place. Remember that Mr. Kenniston’s radio calls are going out, every hour.” He rattled on with loud heartiness. “We’ve all been working hard, and we need some recreation. So tonight we’re going to have a big get-together in the plaza—a town party. Tell everybody to come!”
The crowd of Middletowners brightened a little. But as they went away, Kenniston saw that most of them still looked back soberly. He told Garris, “That was a good idea, to take their minds off things.”
The Mayor looked pleased. “Sure. They’re just too impatient. They don’t realize it may take the other people a good while to answer those calls of yours.”
Kenniston realized that Garris’ confidence had not been assumed. Despite the shattering new revelation, the Mayor still had faith that there were other people.
But Hubble was somber when he heard the news. “Another dead city? Then there’s no further doubt in my mind. Earth must be lifeless.”
“Shall I keep sending out the radio call?” Hubble hesitated. “Yes, Ken—for a while. We don’t want to spoil their party tonight.”
The town party in the plaza that night had the unusual luxury of electric lights, powered by a portable generator. There was a swing band on a platform, and a big space had been roped off for dancing. Kenniston threaded through the crowd with Carol, for Beitz had offered to stand his trick. Everyone knew him now and greeted him, but he noticed a significant difference in the greetings. They did not ask him now whether his calls had had an answer.