The Second Science Fiction MEGAPACK®. Robert Silverberg

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      Crane said; “But why do we have to get to the sea?”

      Hallmyer blew a spume of ashes.

      “Ask her,” he said, pointing to Crane’s other side.

      Evelyn was there, crawling seriously, intently; mimicking Crane’s smallest action.

      “It’s because of our house,” she said. “You remember our house, darling? High on the cliff. We were going to live there forever and ever, breathing the ozone and taking morning dips. I was there when you left. Now you’re coming back to the house at the edge of the sea. Your beautiful flight is over, dear, and you’re coming back to me. We’ll live together, just we two, like Adam and Eve—”

      Crane said: “That’s nice.”

      Then Evelyn turned her head and screamed: “Oh, Stephen! Watch out!” and Crane felt the menace closing in on him again. Still crawling, he stared back at the vast gray plains of ash and saw nothing. When he looked at Evelyn again, he saw only his shadow, sharp and black. Presently it, too, faded away as the marching shaft of sunlight passed.

      But the dread remained. Evelyn had warned him twice, and she was always right. Crane stopped and turned and settled himself to watch. If he was really being followed, he would see whatever it was coming along his tracks.

      * * * *

      There was a painful moment of lucidity. It cleaved through his fever and bewilderment, bringing with it the sharpness and strength of a knife.

      I’m going mad, he thought. The corruption in my leg has spread to my brain. There is no Evelyn, no Hallmyer, no menace. In all this land there is no life but mine—and even ghosts and spirits of the underworld must have perished in the inferno that girdled the planet. No—there is nothing but me and my sickness. I’m dying—and when I perish, everything will perish. Only a mass of lifeless cinders will go on.

      But there was a movement.

      Instinct again. Crane dropped his head and played dead. Through slitted eyes he watched the ashen plains, wondering if death was playing tricks with his eyes. Another facade of rain was beating down toward him, and he hoped he could make sure before all vision was obliterated.

      Yes. There.

      A quarter mile back, a gray-brown shape was flitting along the gray surface. Despite the drone of the distant rain, Crane could hear the whisper of trodden cinders and see the little clouds kicking up. Stealthily he groped for the revolver in the knapsack as his mind reached feebly for explanations and recoiled from fear.

      The thing approached, and suddenly Crane squinted and understood. He recalled Umber kicking with fear and springing away from him when the ’chute landed them on the ashen face of the Earth.

      “Why, it’s Umber,” he murmured. He raised himself. The dog halted. “Here boy!” Crane croaked gaily. “Here, boy!”

      He was overcome with joy. He realized that a miserable loneliness had hung over him, almost a horrible sensation of oneness in emptiness. Now his was not the only life. There was another. A friendly life that could offer love and companionship. Hope kindled again.

      “Here, boy!” he repeated. “Come on, boy—”

      After a while he stopped trying to snap his fingers. The Great Dane hung back, showing fangs and a lolling tongue. The dog was emaciated to a skeleton and its eyes gleamed red and ugly in the dusk. As Crane called once more, mechanically, the dog snarled. Puffs of ash leaped beneath its nostrils.

      He’s hungry, Crane thought, that’s all. He reached into the knapsack and at the gesture the dog snarled again. Crane withdrew the chocolate bar and laboriously peeled off the paper and silver foil. Weakly he tossed it toward Umber. It fell far short. After a minute of savage uncertainty, the dog advanced slowly and gabbled up the food. Ashes powdered its muzzle. It licked its chops ceaselessly and continued to advance on Crane.

      Panic jerked within him. A voice persisted: This is no friend. He has no love or companionship for you. Love and companionship have vanished from the land along with life. Now there is nothing left but hunger.

      “No—” Crane whispered. “That isn’t right. We’re the last of life on Earth. It isn’t right that we should tear at each other and seek to devour—”

      But Umber was advancing with a slinking sidle, and his teeth showed sharp and white. And even as Crane stared at him, the dog snarled and lunged.

      Crane thrust up an arm under the dog’s muzzle, but the weight of the charge carried him backward. He cried out in agony as his broken, swollen leg was struck by the weight of the dog. With his free right hand he struck weakly, again and again, scarcely feeling the grind of teeth gnawing his left arm. Then something metallic was pressed under him and he realized he was lying on the revolver he had let fall.

      He groped for it and prayed the cinders had not clogged its mechanism. As Umber let go his arm and tore at his throat, Crane brought the gun up and jabbed the muzzle blindly against the dog’s body. He pulled and pulled the trigger until the roars died away and only empty clicks sounded. Umber shuddered in the ashes before him, his body nearly shot in two. Thick scarlet stained the gray.

      Evelyn and Hallmyer looked down sadly at the broken animal. Evelyn was crying, and Hallmyer reached nervous fingers through his hair in the same old gesture.

      “This is the finish, Stephen,” he said. “You’ve killed part of yourself. Oh—you’ll go on living, but not all of you. You’d best bury that corpse, Stephen. It’s the corpse of your soul.”

      “I can’t,” Crane said. “The wind will blow the ashes away.”

      “Then burn it—”

      It seemed that they helped him thrust the dead dog into his knapsack. They helped him take off his clothes and pack them underneath. They cupped their hands around the matches until the cloth caught fire, and blew on the weak flame until it sputtered and burned limply. Crane crouched by the fire and nursed it until nothing was left but more gray ash. Then he turned and once again began crawling down the ocean bed. He was naked now. There was nothing left of what-had-been but his flickering little life.

      He was too heavy with sorrow to notice the furious rain that slammed and buffeted him, or the searing pains that were shooting through his blackened leg and up his hip. He crawled. Elbows, knee, elbows, knee—woodenly, mechanically, apathetic to everything. To the latticed skies, the dreary ashen plains, and even the dull glint of water that lay far ahead.

      He knew it was the sea—what was left of the old, or a new one in the making. But it would be an empty, lifeless sea that some day would lap against a dry lifeless shore. This would be a planet of rock and stone, of metal and snow and ice and water, but that would be all. No more life. He, alone, was useless. He was Adam, but there was no Eve.

      Evelyn waved gaily to him from the shore. She was standing alongside the white cottage with the wind snapping her dress to show the clean, slender lines of her figure. And when he came a little closer, she ran out to him and helped him. She said nothing—only placed her hands under his shoulders and helped him lift the weight of his heavy pain-ridden body. And so at last he reached the sea.

      It was real. He understood that. For even after Evelyn and the cottage had vanished, he felt the cool waters bathe his face. Quietly—calmly—

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