When Worlds Collide Philip Wylie

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.Fires were going in two stoves; more coffee was ready, thesupply of sandwiches had overtaken the demand, and kettles of soup augmented it.Taylor was still incharge, and he made his report as soon as he saw Tony."The big storehouses are half underground, as you probably know, and I don't think the food inthem has been hurt much, although it has been shaken up.I didn't know anything about the feedingarrangements, but I've located a bunch of men who did.There's apparently a large herd of livestock anda lot of poultry about a quarter of a mile in the woods.I've sent men there to take charge.They alreadyreported that the sheep and goats and steers didn't budge, although their pens and corrals were destroyed.They're putting up barbed-wire for the time being.Everything got shaken up pretty badly, and the waterand mud spoiled whatever it got into, but most of the stuff was in big containers.The main that carriedthe water from the reservoir is all smashed to hell, and I guess the water in the reservoir isn't any goodanyway.I'm boiling all that I use, but somebody has just got the bright idea of using the fire apparatusand hoses from some of these young lakes.""You've done damned well, Taylor," Tony said."Do you think you can carry on for a few hoursmore?""Sure.I'm good for a week of this."Tony watched the innumerable chores which were being done by men under Taylor's instruction.He noticed for the first time that the work of reclaiming the human habitations was not being donealtogether by the young men, the mechanics and the helpers whom Hendron had enlisted.AmongTaylor's group were a dozen middle-aged scientists whose names had been august in the world threemonths before that day.Unable for the time to carry on their own tasks, they were laboring for thecommon weal with mops and brooms and pails and shovels.When Tony went outdoors again, it was four o'clock, though he had no means of knowing thetime.Once again he noticed that the air was cooler.He made his way down the almost impassable trailto the stockyards, and found another group of men working feverishly with the frightened animals andthe clamorous poultry.Then he walked back to the "village green." So far as he could determine, everyeffort was being bent toward reorganizing the important affairs of the community.He had at last theleisure in which to consider himself and the world around him. Perspiration had carried away the dirt on his face and hands, but his clothes were still mucky.The dampness of the air had prevented that mud from drying.His hair was still caked.He walked in thedirection of the flying-field, and presently found what he sought--a depression in the ground which hadbeen filled with water to a depth of three or four feet, and in which water the mud had settled.He wadedinto the pool carefully so as not to disturb the silt on the bottom.The water was warm.He ducked hishead below the surface and laved his face with his hands.When he stepped out, he was relatively clean, though his feet became immediately encased inmud again.Slowly he walked to the top of the small hill from which he had watched the Bronson Bodies onthe evening before.He felt a diminution of the sulphur and other vapors in the air, His throat was raw,but each breath did not sting his lungs as it had during the last hours when they had been lying in theopen field.He noticed again a quality of thinness in the air which persisted in spite of the heat andmoisture.He wondered if the entire chemistry of the earth's atmosphere had been changed--if, forexample a definite percentage of its normal oxygen had been consumed.That problem, however, wasunsolvable, at least for the time.By straining his eyes into the distance, and aiding their perceptions with imagination, he coulddeduce the general changes in the local landscape.The hurricane had uprooted, disheveled anddestroyed the surrounding portions except where hill-crests protected small patches of standing trees [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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