The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  Baker hesitated . “To establish myself as an Authority,” he said,

  finally. “After today, I will be the recognized Authority on how to

  manage the nation’s greatest research and development program .”

  Fenwick stared, then gasped . “Authority—you? This is the thing

  you were trying to fight. This is the great Plague Sam Atkins taught

  you—”

  Baker was shaking his head and laughing . “No . Sam Atkins

  didn’t tell me that one man could become immune and fight the

  Plague head on all by himself . He taught me something else that I

  didn’t understand for a long time . He told me that he who ceases to

  fear Authority becomes Authority .

  “To become Authority was the last thing in the world I wanted .

  But finally I recognized what Sam meant; it was the only way I

  could ever accomplish anything in the face of this Plague . You can’t

  tell men of this culture that it is wrong to put themselves in total

  agreement with Authority . If that’s the program on which they’ve

  chosen to function, the destruction of the program would destroy

  them, just as it did me . There had to be another way .

  “If men are afraid of lions, you don’t teach them it’s wrong for

  men to be afraid of beasts; you teach them how to trap lions .

  “If men are afraid of new knowledge-experiences, you don’t

  teach them that new knowledge is not to be feared . There was a time

  when men got burned at the stake for such efforts . The response to-

  day is not entirely different . No—when men are afraid of knowledge

  you teach them to trap knowledge, just as you might teach them to

  trap lions .

  “I can do this now because I have shown them that I am an Au-

  thority . I can lead them and it will not fracture their basic program

  tapes, which instruct them to be in accord with Authority . I can stop

  their battle against those who are not possessed of the Plague . It may

  even be that I can change the course of the Plague . Who knows?”

  Fenwick was silent for a long time . Then he spoke again . “I read

  somewhere about a caterpillar that’s called the Processionary Cater-

  pillar . Several of them hook up, nose to fanny, and travel through a

  forest wherever the whims of the front caterpillar take them .

  THE GREAT GRAY PLAGUE, by Raymond F. Jones | 740

  “A naturalist once took a train of Processionary Caterpillars and

  placed them on the rim of a flower pot in a continuous chain. They

  marched for days around the flower pot, each one supposing the

  caterpillar in front of him knew where he was going . Each was the

  Authority to the one behind . Food and water were placed nearby,

  but the caterpillars continued marching until they dropped off from

  exhaustion .”

  Baker frowned . “And what’s that got to do with—?”

  “You,” said Fenwick. “You just led the way down off the flower

  pot . You just got promoted to head caterpillar .”

  THE GREAT GRAY PLAGUE, by Raymond F. Jones | 741

  THE SCARLET PLAGUE,

  by Jack London

  Originally published in London Magazine in 1912.

  I

  The way led along upon what had once been the embankment of

  a railroad . But no train had run upon it for many years . The forest

  on either side swelled up the slopes of the embankment and crested

  across it in a green wave of trees and bushes . The trail was as narrow

  as a man’s body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway . Oc-

  casionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing through the forest-mould,

  advertised that the rail and the ties still remained . In one place, a

  ten-inch tree, bursting through at a connection, had lifted the end of

  a rail clearly into view . The tie had evidently followed the rail, held

  to it by the spike long enough for its bed to be filled with gravel and

  rotten leaves, so that now the crumbling, rotten timber thrust itself

  up at a curious slant . Old as the road was, it was manifest that it had

  been of the mono-rail type .

  An old man and a boy travelled along this runway . They moved

  slowly, for the old man was very old, a touch of palsy made his

  movements tremulous, and he leaned heavily upon his staff . A rude

  skull-cap of goat-skin protected his head from the sun . From be-

  neath this fell a scant fringe of stained and dirty-white hair . A visor,

  ingeniously made from a large leaf, shielded his eyes, and from un-

  der this he peered at the way of his feet on the trail . His beard, which

  should have been snow-white but which showed the same weather-

  wear and camp-stain as his hair, fell nearly to his waist in a great

  tangled mass . About his chest and shoulders hung a single, mangy

  THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 742

  garment of goat-skin . His arms and legs, withered and skinny, be-

  tokened extreme age, as well as did their sunburn and scars and

  scratches betoken long years of exposure to the elements .

  The boy, who led the way, checking the eagerness of his muscles

  to the slow progress of the elder, likewise wore a single garment—a

  ragged-edged piece of bear-skin, with a hole in the middle through

  which he had thrust his head . He could not have been more than

  twelve years old . Tucked coquettishly over one ear was the freshly

  severed tail of a pig . In one hand he carried a medium-sized bow

  and an arrow .

  On his back was a quiverful of arrows . From a sheath hanging

  about his neck on a thong, projected the battered handle of a hunting

  knife . He was as brown as a berry, and walked softly, with almost a

  catlike tread . In marked contrast with his sunburned skin were his

  eyes—blue, deep blue, but keen and sharp as a pair of gimlets . They

  seemed to bore into aft about him in a way that was habitual . As

  he went along he smelled things, as well, his distended, quivering

  nostrils carrying to his brain an endless series of messages from the

  outside world . Also, his hearing was acute, and had been so trained

  that it operated automatically . Without conscious effort, he heard all

  the slight sounds in the apparent quiet—heard, and differentiated,

  and classified these sounds—whether they were of the wind rustling

  the leaves, of the humming of bees and gnats, of the distant rumble

  of the sea that drifted to him only in lulls, or of the gopher, just under

  his foot, shoving a pouchful of earth into the entrance of his hole .

  Suddenly he became alertly tense . Sound, sight, and odor had

  given him a simultaneous warning . His hand went back to the old

  man, touching him, and the pair stood still . Ahead, at one side of the

  top of the embankment, arose a crackling sound, and the boy’s gaze

  was fixed on the tops of the agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a

  grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at sight of

  the humans . He did not like them, and growled querulously . Slowly

  the boy fitted the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bow-

  string taut . But he never removed his eyes from the bear .

  THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 743

  The old man peered from under his g
reen leaf at the danger, and

  stood as quietly as the boy . For a few seconds this mutual scrutiniz-

  ing went on; then, the bear betraying a growing irritability, the boy,

  with a movement of his head, indicated that the old man must step

  aside from the trail and go down the embankment . The boy fol-

  lowed, going backward, still holding the bow taut and ready . They

  waited till a crashing among the bushes from the opposite side of the

  embankment told them the bear had gone on . The boy grinned as he

  led back to the trail .

  “A big un, Granser,” he chuckled .

  The old man shook his head .

  “They get thicker every day,” he complained in a thin, undepend-

  able falsetto . “Who’d have thought I’d live to see the time when a

  man would be afraid of his life on the way to the Cliff House . When

  I was a boy, Edwin, men and women and little babies used to come

  out here from San Francisco by tens of thousands on a nice day . And

  there weren’t any bears then . No, sir . They used to pay money to

  look at them in cages, they were that rare .”

  “What is money, Granser?”

  Before the old man could answer, the boy recollected and tri-

  umphantly shoved his hand into a pouch under his bear-skin and

  pulled forth a battered and tarnished silver dollar . The old man’s

  eyes glistened, as he held the coin close to them .

  “I can’t see,” he muttered . “You look and see if you can make out

  the date, Edwin .”

  The boy laughed .

  “You’re a great Granser,” he cried delightedly, “always making

  believe them little marks mean something .”

  The old man manifested an accustomed chagrin as he brought the

  coin back again close to his own eyes .

  “2012,” he shrilled, and then fell to cackling grotesquely . “That

  was the year Morgan the Fifth was appointed President of the

  United States by the Board of Magnates . It must have been one of

  the last coins minted, for the Scarlet Death came in 2013 . Lord!

  THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 744

  Lord!—think of it! Sixty years ago, and I am the only person alive

  to-day that lived in those times. Where did you find it, Edwin?”

  The boy, who had been regarding him with the tolerant curious-

  ness one accords to the prattlings of the feeble-minded, answered

  promptly .

  “I got it off of Hoo-Hoo . He found it when we was herdin’ goats

  down near San José last spring . Hoo-Hoo said it was money . Ain’t

  you hungry, Granser?”

  The ancient caught his staff in a tighter grip and urged along the

  trail, his old eyes shining greedily .

  “I hope Har-Lip’s found a crab…or two,” he mumbled . “They’re

  good eating, crabs, mighty good eating when you’ve no more teeth

  and you’ve got grandsons that love their old grandsire and make a

  point of catching crabs for him . When I was a boy—”

  But Edwin, suddenly stopped by what he saw, was drawing the

  bowstring on a fitted arrow. He had paused on the brink of a crevasse

  in the embankment . An ancient culvert had here washed out, and the

  stream, no longer confined, had cut a passage through the fill. On the

  opposite side, the end of a rail projected and overhung . It showed

  rustily through the creeping vines which overran it . Beyond, crouch-

  ing by a bush, a rabbit looked across at him in trembling hesitancy .

  Fully fifty feet was the distance, but the arrow flashed true; and the

  transfixed rabbit, crying out in sudden fright and hurt, struggled

  painfully away into the brush. The boy himself was a flash of brown

  skin and flying fur as he bounded down the steep wall of the gap

  and up the other side . His lean muscles were springs of steel that

  released into graceful and efficient action. A hundred feet beyond,

  in a tangle of bushes, he overtook the wounded creature, knocked

  its head on a convenient tree-trunk, and turned it over to Granser to

  carry .

  “Rabbit is good, very good,” the ancient quavered, “but when it

  comes to a toothsome delicacy I prefer crab . When I was a boy—”

  “Why do you say so much that ain’t got no sense?” Edwin impa-

  tiently interrupted the other’s threatened garrulousness .

  THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 745

  The boy did not exactly utter these words, but something that

  remotely resembled them and that was more guttural and explosive

  and economical of qualifying phrases . His speech showed distant

  kinship with that of the old man, and the latter’s speech was approx-

  imately an English that had gone through a bath of corrupt usage .

  “What I want to know,” Edwin continued, “is why you call crab

  ‘toothsome delicacy’? Crab is crab, ain’t it? No one I never heard

  calls it such funny things .”

  The old man sighed but did not answer, and they moved on in si-

  lence . The surf grew suddenly louder, as they emerged from the for-

  est upon a stretch of sand dunes bordering the sea . A few goats were

  browsing among the sandy hillocks, and a skin-clad boy, aided by

  a wolfish-looking dog that was only faintly reminiscent of a collie,

  was watching them . Mingled with the roar of the surf was a continu-

  ous, deep-throated barking or bellowing, which came from a cluster

  of jagged rocks a hundred yards out from shore . Here huge sea-lions

  hauled themselves up to lie in the sun or battle with one another .

  In the immediate foreground arose the smoke of a fire, tended by a

  third savage-looking boy. Crouched near him were several wolfish

  dogs similar to the one that guarded the goats .

  The old man accelerated his pace, sniffing eagerly as he neared

  the fire.

  “Mussels!” he muttered ecstatically . “Mussels! And ain’t that a

  crab, Hoo-Hoo? Ain’t that a crab? My, my, you boys are good to

  your old grandsire .”

  Hoo-Hoo, who was apparently of the same age as Edwin, grinned .

  “All you want, Granser . I got four .”

  The old man’s palsied eagerness was pitiful . Sitting down in

  the sand as quickly as his stiff limbs would let him, he poked a

  large rock-mussel from out of the coals . The heat had forced its

  shells apart, and the meat, salmon-colored, was thoroughly cooked .

  Between thumb and forefinger, in trembling haste, he caught the

  morsel and carried it to his mouth . But it was too hot, and the next

  moment was violently ejected . The old man spluttered with the pain,

  and tears ran out of his eyes and down his cheeks .

  THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 746

  The boys were true savages, possessing only the cruel humor

  of the savage . To them the incident was excruciatingly funny, and

  they burst into loud laughter . Hoo-Hoo danced up and down, while

  Edwin rolled gleefully on the ground . The boy with the goats came

  running to join in the fun .

  “Set ’em to cool, Edwin, set ’em to cool,” the old man besought,

  in the midst of his grief, making no attempt to wipe away the tears

  that still flowed from his eyes. “And cool a crab, Edwin, too. You

  know your grand
sire likes crabs .”

  From the coals arose a great sizzling, which proceeded from the

  many mussels bursting open their shells and exuding their moisture .

  They were large shellfish, running from three to six inches in length.

  The boys raked them out with sticks and placed them on a large

  piece of driftwood to cool .

  “When I was a boy, we did not laugh at our elders; we respected

  them .”

  The boys took no notice, and Granser continued to babble an

  incoherent flow of complaint and censure. But this time he was more

  careful, and did not burn his mouth . All began to eat, using nothing

  but their hands and making loud mouth-noises and lip-smackings .

  The third boy, who was called Hare-Lip, slyly deposited a pinch of

  sand on a mussel the ancient was carrying to his mouth; and when

  the grit of it bit into the old fellow’s mucous membrane and gums,

  the laughter was again uproarious . He was unaware that a joke had

  been played on him, and spluttered and spat until Edwin, relenting,

  gave him a gourd of fresh water with which to wash out his mouth .

  “Where’s them crabs, Hoo-Hoo?” Edwin demanded . “Granser’s

  set upon having a snack .”

  Again Granser’s eyes burned with greediness as a large crab was

  handed to him . It was a shell with legs and all complete, but the

  meat had long since departed. With shaky fingers and babblings of

  anticipation, the old man broke off a leg and found it filled with

  emptiness .

  “The crabs, Hoo-Hoo?” he wailed . “The crabs?”

  “I was fooling Granser . They ain’t no crabs! I never found one .”

  THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 747

  The boys were overwhelmed with delight at sight of the tears

  of senile disappointment that dribbled down the old man’s cheeks .

  Then, unnoticed, Hoo-Hoo replaced the empty shell with a fresh-

  cooked crab . Already dismembered, from the cracked legs the white

  meat sent forth a small cloud of savory steam . This attracted the old

  man’s nostrils, and he looked down in amazement .

  The change of his mood to one of joy was immediate. He snuffled

  and muttered and mumbled, making almost a croon of delight, as he

  began to eat . Of this the boys took little notice, for it was an accus-

  tomed spectacle . Nor did they notice his occasional exclamations

  and utterances of phrases which meant nothing to them, as, for in-