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getting pretty thick even back in 1950. And now I saw the streets were free of traffic, too.
We cruised around for half an hour, and during that time the truth was driven home to us. A truth that was plenty
hard to take.
That city below us was a dead city! There was no sign of life. Not a single automobile on the street, not a person on
the sidewalks.
Herb and I looked at one another, and disbelief must have been written in letters three feet high upon our faces.
'Herb,' I said, 'we gotta find out what this is all about.'
Herb's Adam's apple jiggled up and down his neck.
'Hell,' he said. 'I was figuring on dropping into the Dutchman's and getting me a pick-up.'
It took almost an hour to find anything that looked like an airport, but finally I found one that looked safe enough. It
was overgrown with weeds, but the place where the concrete runways had been was still fairly smooth, although the
concrete had been broken here and there, and grass and weeds were growing through the cracks.
I took her down as easy as I could, but even at that we hit a place where a slab of concrete had been heaved and just
missed a crack-up.
The old fellow with the rifle could have stepped from the pages of a history of early pioneer days except that once in
a while the pioneers probably got a haircut.
He came out of the bushes about a mile from the airport, and his rifle hung cradled in his arm. There was something
about him that told me he wasn't one to fool with.
'Howdy, strangers,' he said in a voice that had a whiny twang.
'By Heaven,' said Herb, 'it's Daniel Boone himself.'
'You jay birds must be a right smart step from home,' said the old guy, and he didn't sound as if he'd trust us very far.
'Not so far,' I said. 'We used to live here a long time ago.'
'Danged if I recognize you.' He pushed back his old black felt hat and scratched his head. 'And I thought I knew
everybody that ever lived around here. You wouldn't be Jake Smith's boys, would you?'
'Doesn't look like many people are living here any more,' said Herb.
'Matter of fact, there ain't,' said Daniel Boone. 'The old woman was just telling me the other day we'd have to move so
we'd be nearer neighbors. It gets mighty lonesome for her. Nearest folks is about ten miles up thataway.'
He gestured to the north, where the skyline of the city loomed like a distant mountain range, with gleaming marble
ramparts and spires of mocking stone.
'Look here,' I asked him. 'Do you mean to say your nearest neighbor is ten miles away?'
'Sure,' he told me. 'The Smiths lived over a couple of miles to the west, but they moved out this spring. Went down to
the south. Claimed the hunting was better there.'
He shook his head sadly. 'Maybe hunting is all right. I do a lot of it. But I like to do a little farming, too, And it's
mighty hard to break new ground. I had a right handsome bunch of squashes and carrots this year. 'Taters did well,
too.'
'But at one time a lot of people lived here.' I insisted. 'Thousands and thousands of people. Probably millions of
them.'
'I heard tell of that,' agreed the old man, 'but I can't rightfully say there's any truth in it. Must've been a long time ago.
Somebody must have built all them buildings -although what for I just can't figure out.'
 The _Globe_ editorial rooms were ghostly. Dust lay everywhere, and a silence that was almost as heavy as the dust.
There had been some changes, but it was still a newspaper office. All it needed was the blur of voices, the murmur of
the speeding presses to bring it to life again.
The desks still were there, and chairs ringed the copy table.
Our feet left trails across the dust that lay upon the floor and raised a cloud that set us both to sneezing.
I made a beeline for one dark corner of the room; there I knew I would find what I was looking for.
Old bound files of the paper. Their pages crackled when I opened them, and the paper was so yellowed with age that
in spots it was hard to read.
I carried one of the files to a window and glanced at the date. September 14, 2143. Over three hundred years ago!
A banner screamed: 'Relief Riots in Washington.' Hurriedly we leafed through the pages. And there, on the front
pages of those papers that had seen the light more than three centuries before, we read the explanation for the silent [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]