Life was a rabbit scurrying over a hill. Life was a warm blanket, and a secluded sleeping place. Life was ditchwater, and an unbloated can of corned beef, and a suit of clothing looted from a deserted cottage. Life, above all else, was an avoidance of other human beings. For no dermie had the grace to cry “unclean!” to the unsuspecting. If the dermie’s discolorations were still in the concealable stage, then concealed they would be, while the lost creature deliberately sought to infect his wife, his children, his friends—whoever would not protest an idle touch of the hand. When the grayness touched the face and the backs of the hands, the creature became a feverish night wanderer, subject to strange hallucinations and delusions and desires.
The fog began to part toward midmorning as Paul drove deeper into the outskirts of Houston. The highway was becoming a commercial subcenter, lined with businesses and small shops. The sidewalks were showered with broken glass from windows kicked in by looters. Paul kept to the center of the deserted street, listening and watching cautiously for signs of life. The distant barking of a dog was the only sound in the once-growling metropolis. A flight of sparrows winged down the street, then darted in through a broken window to an inside nesting place.
He searched a small grocery store, looking for a snack, but the shelves were bare. The thoroughfare had served as a main avenue of escape, and the fugitives had looted it thoroughly to obtain provisions. He turned onto a side street, then after several blocks turned again to parallel the highway, moving through an old residential section. Many houses had been left open, but few had been looted. He entered one old frame mansion and found a can of tomatoes in the kitchen. He opened it and sipped the tender delicacy from the container, while curiosity sent him prowling through the rooms.
He wandered up the first flight of stairs, then halted with one foot on the landing. A body lay sprawled across the second flight—the body of a young man, dead quite a while. A well-rusted pistol had fallen from his hand. Paul dropped the tomatoes and bolted for the street. Suicide was a common recourse, when a man learned that he had been touched.
After two blocks, Paul stopped running. He sat panting on a fire hydrant and chided himself for being overly cautious. The man had been dead for months; and infection was achieved only through contact. Nevertheless, his scalp was still tingling. When he had rested briefly, he continued his plodding course toward the heart of the city. Toward noon, he saw another human being.
The man was standing on the loading dock of a warehouse, apparently enjoying the sunlight that came with the dissolving of the fog. He was slowly and solemnly spooning the contents of a can into a red-lipped mouth while his beard bobbled with appreciative chewing. Suddenly he saw Paul who had stopped in the center of the street with his hand on the butt of his pistol. The man backed away, tossed the can aside, and sprinted the length of the platform. He bounded off the end, snatched a bicycle away from the wall, and pedalled quickly out of sight while he bleated shrill blasts on a police whistle clenched between his teeth.
Paul trotted to the corner, but the man had made another turn. His whistle continued bleating. A signal? A dermie summons to a touching orgy? Paul stood still while he tried to overcome an urge to break into panicked flight. After a minute, the clamor ceased; but the silence was ominous.
If a party of cyclists moved in, he could not escape on foot. He darted toward the nearest warehouse, seeking a place to hide. Inside, he climbed a stack of boxes to a horizontal girder, kicked the stack to topple it, and stretched out belly-down on the steel eye-beam to command a clear shot at the entrances. He lay for an hour, waiting quietly for searchers. None came. At last he slid down a vertical support and returned to the loading platform. The street was empty and silent. With weapon ready, he continued his journey. He passed the next intersection without mishap.
Halfway up the block, a calm voice drawled a command from behind him: “Drop the gun, dermie. Get your hands behind your head.”
He halted, motionless. No plague victim would hurl the dermie-charge at another. He dropped the pistol and turned slowly. Three men with drawn revolvers were clambering from the back of a stalled truck. They were all bearded, wore blue jeans, blue neckerchiefs, and green woolen shirts. He suddenly recalled that the man on the loading platform had been similarly dressed. A uniform?
“Turn around again!” barked the speaker.
Paul turned, realizing that the men were probably some sort of self-appointed quarantine patrol. Tow ropes suddenly skidded out from behind and came to a stop near his feet on the pavement—a pair of lariat loops.
“One foot in each loop, dermie!” the speaker snapped. When Paul obeyed, the ropes were jerked taut about his ankles, and two of the men trotted out to the sides, stood thirty feet apart, and pulled his legs out into a wide straddle. He quickly saw that any movement would cost him his balance.
“Strip to the skin.”
“I’m no dermie,” Paul protested as he unbuttoned his shirt.
“We’ll see for ourselves, Joe,” grunted the leader as he moved around to the front. “Get the top off first. If your chest’s okay, we’ll let your feet go.”
When Paul had undressed, the leader walked around him slowly, making him spread his fingers and display the soles of his feet. He stood shivering and angry in the chilly winter air while the men satisfied themselves that he wore no gray patches of neuroderm.
“You’re all right, I guess,” the speaker admitted; then as Paul stooped to recover his clothing, the man growled, “Not those! Jim, get him a probie outfit.”
Paul caught a bundle of clean clothing, tossed to him from the back of the truck. There were jeans, a woolen shirt, and a kerchief, but the shirt and kerchief were red. He shot an inquiring glance at the leader, while he climbed into the welcome change.
“All newcomers are on two weeks probation,” the man explained. “If you decide to stay in Houston, you’ll get another exam next time the uniform code changes. Then you can join our outfit, if you don’t show up with the plague. In fact, you’ll have to join if you stay.”
“What is the outfit?” Paul asked suspiciously.
“It just started. Schoolteacher name of Georgelle organized it. We aim to keep dermies out. There’s about six hundred of us now. We guard the downtown area, but soon as there’s enough of us we’ll move out to take in more territory. Set up road blocks and all that. You’re welcome, soon as we’re sure you’re clean… and can take orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“Georgelle’s. We got no room for goof-offs, and no time for argument. Anybody don’t like the setup, he’s welcome to get out. Jim here’ll give you a leaflet on the rules. Better read it before you go anywhere. If you don’t, you might make a wrong move. Make a wrong move, and you catch a bullet.”
The man called Jim interrupted, “Reckon you better call off the other patrols, Digger?” he said respectfully to the leader.
Digger nodded curtly and turned to blow three short blasts and a long with his whistle. An answering short-long-short came from several blocks away. Other posts followed suit. Paul realized that he had been surrounded by, a ring of similar ambushes.
“Jim, take him to the nearest water barrel, and see that he shaves,” Digger ordered, then: “What’s your name, probie? Also your job, if you had one.”
“Paul Harris Oberlin. I was a mechanical engineering student when the plague struck. Part-time garage mechanic while I was in school.”
Digger nodded and jotted down the information on a scratchpad. “Good, I’ll turn your name in to the registrar. Georgelle says to watch for college men. You might get a good assignment, later. Report to the Esperson Building on the seventeenth. That’s inspection day. If you don’t show up, we’ll come looking for you. All loose probies’ll get shot. Now Jim here’s gonna see to it that you shave. Don’t shave again until your two-weeker. That way, we can estimate how long you been in town—by looking at your beard. We got other ways that you don’t need to know about. Georgelle’s got a system worked out for everything, so don’t try any tricks.”