"Ha," said the professor. He made an effort. "Madame, tell me something. Do you never feel a certain thing, a sense of friendliness and intoxication and goodwill enveloping you quite suddenly?"
"Oh, that," she said scornfully. "Yes; every now and then. It doesn't bother me. I just think of all the work I have to do. How I must stamp out the dreadful, soul-destroying advocates of meat-eating, and chemical fertilizer, and fluoridation. How I must wage the good fight for occult science and crush the materialistic philosophers. How I must tear down our corrupt and self-seeking ministers and priests, our rotten laws and customs—"
"Lieber Gott," the professor marveled as she went on. "With Norris it is spiders. With me it is rats and asphyxiation. But with this woman it is apparently everything in the Kosmos except her own revolting self!"
She didn't hear him; she was demanding that the voting age for women be lowered to sixteen and for men raised to thirty-five.
We plowed through flies and mosquitoes like smoke. The flies bred happily on dead cows and in sheep which unfortunately were still alive.
There wasn't oil cake for the cows in the New Lemuria. There wasn't sheep-dip for the sheep. There weren't state and county and township and village road crews constantly patrolling, unplugging sluices, clearing gutters, replacing rusted culverts, and so quite naturally the countryside was reverting to swampland. The mosquitoes loved it.
"La Plume," the Duchess announced gaily. "And that's Miss Phoebe Bancroft's little house right there. Just why did you wish to see her, professor, by the way?"
"To complete her re-education …" the professor said in a tired voice.
Miss Phoebe's house, and the few near it, were the only places we had seen in the Area which weren't blighted by neglect. Miss Phoebe, of course, was able to tell the shambling zombies what to do in the way of truck-gardening, lawn-mowing and maintenance. The bugs weren't too bad there.
"She's probably resting, poor dear," said the Duchess. I stopped the car and we got out. The Duchess said something about Kleenex and got in again and rummaged through the glove compartment.
"Please, professor," I said, clutching my briefcase. "Play it the smart way. The way I told you."
"Norris," he said, "I realize that you have my best interests at heart.
You're a good boy, Norris and I like you—"
"Watch it!" I yelled, and swung into the posture of defense. So did he.
Spiders. It wasn't a good old world, not while there were loathsome spiders in it. Spiders—
And a pistol shot past my ear. The professor fell. I turned and saw the Duchess looking smug, about to shoot me too. I sidestepped and she missed; as I slapped the automatic out of her hand I thought confusedly that it was a near-miracle, her hitting the professor at five paces even if he was a standing target. People don't realize how hard it is to hit anything with a handgun.
I suppose I was going to kill her or at least damage her badly when a new element intruded. A little old white-haired lady tottering down the neat gravel path from the house. She wore a nice pastel dress which surprised me; somehow I had always thought of her in black.
"Bertha!" Miss Phoebe rapped out. "What have you done?"
The Duchess simpered. "That man there was going to harm you, Phoebe, dear. And this fellow is just as bad—"
Miss Phoebe said: "Nonsense. Nobody can harm me. Chapter Nine, Rule Seven. Bertha, I saw you shoot that gentleman. I'm very angry with you, Bertha. Very angry."
The Duchess turned up her eyes and crumpled. I didn't have to check; I was sure she was dead. Miss Phoebe was once again In Utter Harmony With Her Environment.
I went over and knelt beside the professor. He had a hole in his stomach and was still breathing. There wasn't much blood. I sat down and cried. For the professor. For the poor damned human race which at a mile per day would be gobbled up into apathy and idiocy. Goodby, Newton and Einstein, goodby steak dinners and Michelangelo and Tenzing Norkay; goodby Moses, Rodin, Kwan Yin, transistors, Boole and Steichen….
A redheaded man with an adam's apple was saying gently to Miss Phoebe: "It's this rabbit, ma'am." And indeed an enormous rabbit was loping up to him. "Every time I find a turnip or something he takes it away from me and he kicks and bites when I try to reason with him—"
And indeed he took a piece of turnip from his pocket and the rabbit insolently pawed it from his hand and nibbled it triumphantly with one wise-guy eye cocked up at his victim. "He does that every time, Miss Phoebe," the man said unhappily.
The little old lady said: "I'll think of something, Henry. But let me take care of these people first."
"Yes, ma'am," Henry said. He reached out cautiously for his piece of turnip and the rabbit bit him and then went back to its nibbling.
"Young man," Miss Phoebe said to me, "what's wrong? You're giving in to despair. You mustn't do that. Chapter Nine, Rule Three."
I pulled myself together enough to say: "This is Professor Leuten. He's dying."
Her eyes widened. "The Professor Leuten?" I nodded. "How to Live on the Cosmic Expense Account?" I nodded.
"Oh, dear! If only there were something I could do!"
Heal the dying? Apparently not. She didn't think she could, so she couldn't.
"Professor," I said. "Professor."
He opened his eyes and said something hi German, then, hazily:
"Woman shot me. Spoil her—racket, you call it? Who is this?" He grimaced with pain.
"I'm Miss Phoebe Bancroft, Professor Leuten," she breathed, leaning over him. "I'm so dreadfully sorry; I admire your wonderful book so much."
His weary eyes turned to me. "So, Norris," he said. "No time to do it right. We do it your way. Help me up."
I helped him to his feet, suffering, I think, almost as much as he did.
The wound started to bleed more copiously.
"No!" Miss Phoebe exclaimed. "You should lie down."
The professor leered. "Good idea, baby. You want to keep me company?"
"What's that?" she snapped.
"You heard me, baby. Say, you got any liquor in your place?"
"Certainly not! Alcohol is inimical to the development pf the higher functions of the mind. Chapter Nine—"
"Pfui on Chapter Nine, baby. I chust wrote that stuff for money."
If Miss Phoebe hadn't been in a state resembling surgical shock after hearing that, she would have seen the pain convulsing his face. "You mean …?" she quavered, beginning to look her age for the first time.
"Sure. Lotta garbage. Sling fancy words and make money. What I go for is liquor and women. Women like you, baby."
The goose did it.
Weeping, frightened, insulted and lost she tottered blindly up the neat path to her house. I eased the professor to the ground. He was biting almost through his lower lip.
I heard a new noise behind me. It was Henry, the redhead with the adam's apple. He was chewing his piece of turnip and had hold of the big rabbit by the hind legs. He was flailing it against a tree. Henry looked ferocious, savage, carnivorous and very, very dangerous to meddle with. In a word, human.
"Professor," I breathed at his waxen face, "you've done it. It's broken.
Over. No more Plague Area."
He muttered, his eyes closed: "I regret not doing it properly …but tell the people how I died, Norris. With dignity, without fear. Because of Functional Epistemology."
I said through tears: "I'll do more than tell them, professor. The world will know about your heroism.
"The world must know. We've got to make a book of this—your authentic, authorized, fictional biography— and Hopedale's West Coast agent'll see to the film sale—"
"Film?" he said drowsily. "Book …?"
"Yes. Your years of struggle, the little girl at home who kept faith in you when everybody scoffed, your burning mission to transform the world, and the climax—here, now!—as you give up your life for your philosophy."