Page:Stirring Science Stories, March 1942.djvu/26



HERE was a whirling flash of trees past the window. One wing struck a crag and with a mighty crash the plane erased itself against the mountainside.

Some hours passed before Weaver awoke with a throbbing pain in his arm. A cut shoulder was caked with frozen blood and the first thing he heard was the icy whistle of the cold wind. He staggered to his feet but fell back, fainting, upon a drift of snow and would have been lost were it not for Millet's strong arm.

"Weaver!" Millet shouted above the roaring wind. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay," Weaver said feebly. "Go to the others."

Millet bent to pick up Weaver's prostrate body and carried it clumsily over the soft snow to the meagre protection of a nearby cave. Here Johnson was waiting by a small fire that was made from parts of the wreckage. Millet placed the wounded man next to the fire and quickly bandaged the bleeding arm.

"This will have to do," he said as he placed the final knot upon a make-shift sling.

"The others! What about the others?" Weaver asked.

"There are not others," Millet said. "Just the three of us. The rest are dead."

"Well! Well!" the little man, Johnson, said impatiently. "Why stand there like that gaping? Do something! We have to get back to civilization! I have an important appointment in Norman next week. The air company will pay for this!"

"We're nowhere near Norman," Millet said, as if taking delight in puncturing the little man's business-like air. "I talked with the pilot before we crashed, big boy."

"Well? Well?" demanded Johnson.

"There's nothing here. Nothing!" Millet said. "No villages. No cities. No railroads. No radios. Nothing! This part of Canada has been lifeless since way back in 2036."

The three were silent, and for that moment the air was colder and the wind blew with added sharpness. The men shivered and moved together for more warmth.

"Eskimos?" Johnson asked, "there must be Eskimos around here. We'd get food, blubber, fat and all that sort of thing."

Millet slapped his hands together to keep the blood circulating and laughed loudly.

"Point one for civilization!" he said. "Three citizens of New Democracy looking for primitive Eskimos to save them! Ha!"

He suddenly sobered and looked about him, and listened to the howling wind.

"There are no Eskimos here," he said, "When the War Disease came we survived. But the Eskimo is extinct."

"Have we got food?" Johnson asked.

"None," Millet said curtly, to dispel all false hopes.

"I am not sure," Weaver said slowly, "but five minutes before we crashed I—I'm sure I saw a thin line of smoke coming up from a valley. That valley there." he said, pointing toward a mountain range.

"Nonsense!" Millet muttered, looking at the inhospitable icy peaks.

"Nonsense?" Johnson shouted, "What do you mean nonsense? Who are you to say it's nonsense! Maybe there are explorers here, an expedition of seme sort. We've nothing to lose. If there's a village we're saved. If not—"

"If not?" Millet asked, smiling.

Johnson ignored him. He drew his meagre overcoat more tightly about him and went out into the whirling snow. The three took one final look at the wreckage of the plane and the bodies that were already covered by a white mantle. Johnson led the way and Weaver followed, his arm rapidly becoming numb. Millet, face down to avoid the bite of the wind, brought up the rear.

HE SUN was already overhead when they reached the mountain top and saw before them in the valley the strange city. It was a city, in the midst of the snow and the wind of arctic winter, and long spirals of grey smoke from snow-covered factories rose up into the heavens.

Dumbfounded, Millet stared at the city in the valley.

"There!" Johnson said triumphantly, "and you said this part of Canada was uninhabited. That's an industrial city of more than twenty thousand people!"

"In the arctic?" Millet asked, almost talking to himself, "so far north?" He raised his arm and pointed to all the sides of the city. "There are no railroads leaving it," he said.

"Maybe they're covered by snow," Johnson said. "Anyway, there are what seem to be flying fields."

They stopped talking and made their perilous way down to the floor of the valley. The