DYNASTY OF THE SMALL

CHAPTER 1

As an independent chronicler of the astounding results following Dr. Haddon Blair’s efforts to eliminate disease germs from the world, my name may not be mentioned. Suffice it that I have been a witness throughout the entire sequence of events, and it is because so many misinformed people today regard the otherwise benevolent and singularly irresponsible Blair as a world-wrecker, that I am trying, purely out of Christian spirit, to absolve him from all taint of criminal inclination.

The business started, as such things do, in the simplest manner. Blair, bacteriological instructor at the Research College of Science, was wont to spend his leisure hours investigating the realms of disease, studying antitoxins and serums, poring over microscopes, examining the formation of cells, protoplasm, blood, and whatnot. No form of bacilli escaped his tireless searching. I have myself seen him work far into the night at the laboratory—a short, bald-headed man, thin-shouldered and nervously earnest, his dark eyes forever alternating between his beloved microscope and voluminous scrapbook of notes.

Most students believed he was eccentric; indeed, they were rarely so polite. What on earth did he hope to gain from such an exhaustive examination of bacilli, parasites, and Protozoa? Nobody knew—until a celebrated day in November, 2017, when he published his remarkable monograph on the cause of all protozoic diseases.

He claimed that he could kill all diseases that had this multi-cellular organism as their base, and was quite confident that the unicellular bacteria would also soon come under his control. Disease, he assured the medical circles, was doomed. I read his monograph myself, but not being a bacteriologist I had some difficulty in understanding it; still, he certainly had the right and logical idea.

His method was to destroy—by a method that he rightly withheld from his monograph—the protoplasmic nucleus of Protozoa. This, it appeared, killed the cell itself. He went on to explain how the Protozoa created, in parasitic form, such virulent diseases as sleeping sickness, malaria, and so forth.

So much I gathered from his monograph; later, in due order, I learned his method of annihilation—but to that in its proper sequence. What mattered at that time was that, much though I regret to state it, the medical profession—either from a sense of jealousy or because they knew Blair spoke truth and would thereby ultimately put them out of business—utterly ridiculed the conception and forced the brilliant, sensitive Blair to retire into his shell and continue his work in secret.

This state of affairs lasted for some weeks, until there arrived on the scene the bluff, nut-brown giant known throughout the world as Captain Barry Northern, big-game hunter, tropical explorer, and president of American Tropical Explorations, Inc.

Dr. Blair watched him with a quiet expectancy, as he was shown into his study in the college annex.

“I’m a man of few words, doctor,” the captain began, seating himself at Blair’s request. “Both my fellow directors and myself have read your recently published monograph on the absolute cure of all protozoic, tropical diseases. We believe that you really have the secret, and are willing to purchase it.”

“Purchase it?” Blair shrugged and smiled whimsically. “My dear captain, my antitoxin, as we will call it, is not a patent medicine. It is the absolute solution of all diseases, which have the protozoan as the basis. Most certainly it is not for sale.”

“Forgive me if I sound rather commercial,” the captain apologized, “but we really are prepared to purchase the formula for this—er—antitoxin from you. Just consider its enormous value to us! We lose many good men through tropical disease. We honestly believe in you, doctor, and be damned to what these petty doctors say! Why, you’ve found for tropical disease what Nietzsche found for ethics and Einstein for space!”

“Thank you,” said Blair quietly, clasping his thin, nervous hands on the desk before him. “I’m glad to learn that somebody is at least interested. My antitoxin is unique in that it is progressive in its action. Suppose I explain, then if you are still impressed we may negotiate further? I would much rather you knew the details, you know.”

“But I do! Your monograph—”

“Ah, yes, the monograph! Well, it was a very technically arranged piece of work, hardly phrased to suit the requirements of so practical a body as Explorations, Inc. To put it more clearly, captain, we will take sleeping sickness as our example. In this case the victim is first bitten, probably by a tsetse fly, which hands on the parasitic Protozoa into the blood of the victim, and there develops the endoparasitic disease of sleeping sickness.

“Now, Protozoa are, of course, more; highly developed organisms than bacteria; they are multi-cellular and divide by fission. Two become four, four become eight—and so on. Bacteria, on the other hand, are unicellular and far more difficult to destroy from the scientific point of view. Protozoa, though, possessing such amazing powers of multiplication, soon get their victim down. The center of their cells is composed of protoplasm, a granular viscid substance consisting of water to the extent of three quarters of its weight.”

“Well?” Northern asked, listening intently.

“It is that protoplasmic nucleus that has so interested me, captain. Protoplasm in the germ world—indeed in any world—is life. Life to another. Life is all one grand parasitism. Everything lives on something else; lives on the protoplasm of the other. You understand?”

“Why surely! Bigger fleas have smaller fleas upon their backs to bite ’em! Of course I understand! But go on, please.”

“Well, I have been rather handicapped in my efforts by there being some six million cells in a drop of blood equal to two pins’ heads—but thanks to the ultra-powerful microscopes I have devised from the resources of this college I have managed to be successful. So far I have related only the externals of my discovery. If you would care to step into the adjoining laboratory I will give you a practical demonstration.”

“Delighted!” The captain rose with alacrity to his feet, and followed the small savant from the study.

* * * *

Ten minutes of adjustment with his specially designed microscopes, and the placing on the slide of a drop of blood from a nearby phial completed Blair’s preliminaries. Then he motioned to the explorer to look.

Obeying, the captain focused the lenses and studied in silence a vision of blood crystals, with a dark agglomeration of foreign substance to the extreme right of the illumined circle of vision.

“Living flagellate Protozoa known as trypanosomes of sleeping sickness, transmitted to blood by the bite of the tsetse fly,” Blair explained sonorously. “Normally they would finally invade the cerebrospinal fluid. Now, just keep on watching, captain. There! Now what do you see?”

At the words another spot of foreign matter dropped into view, moved indolently for a space amidst the blood crystals, then gravitated as though by chemical affinity directly upon the trypanosomes. Within five seconds the trypanosomes had completely vanished!

“Say, that was terrific!” the explorer exclaimed enthusiastically, raising his eyes. “I never saw anything so swift in all my life. How did you do it?”

Blair smiled. “Explained in detail it would give away my secret,” he replied quietly. “Still, I can outline what happened. In the bacteriological realms, captain, there exist, as any scientist will tell you, hundreds of unknown forms of life. For instance, the Protozoa, more highly developed than the bacteria, are the deadly enemy of bacteria. I reasoned that there must therefore be something that would likewise be the relentless enemy of Protozoa, and yet harmless to everything else.

“At last I found it—a minute animalcule with a crawling movement which I myself created by the cross-fertilization of lowly cells and amoeba. Through long years I worked, until at last I created a creature that could exist only on the protoplasm contained with the cell nucleus of Protozoa.

“All cells are different, all protoplasm is different; there is a specialized type to everything in nature. So my amoebical baby, weaned on Protozoa protoplasm, always seeks the Protozea when injected into the blood stream. Naturally my animalcule are capable of fission and multiply at an amazing speed. But you perceive, since it is only fatal to Protozoa, that the body as a whole is unharmed completely, my animalcule making no toxic effects whatever on the blood stream, and when there are no more Protozoa left to feed upon, my animalcule dies from starvation. The blood stream then resumes its normal condition. Instantaneous cure is the result.”

“That’s marvelous!” the captain muttered. “But, tell me—how did you manage to manufacture this microscopic life? I thought creation of life was impossible?”

“I didn’t manufacture life, my friend. I took living cells, compounds of protoplasm, chromatin, plant chlorphyll, and so forth, and brought about a complex crossbreeding. That’s all.”

The little scientist paused and smiled reflectively. “Bacteria will be much more difficult, though. With their minute fungoid bases and insensibility to heat and cold extremes—”

“Quite so—but about this stuff of yours. Are you willing to sell it?”

“No, the formula is too valuable for inexperienced hands. I have a better proposition, a compromise. I will make up a bottle of the substance, complete with instructions as to method of injection, etc. If any of you are taken ill on your forthcoming tropic exploration and prove my antitoxin to be all I claim for it, your company must vindicate me in the eyes of the world and medical profession.”

“It’s a deal!” Northern declared promptly, extending a vast hand. “And say, why can’t we inject before the disease and make doubly sure?”

“Where would be the use with no harmful Protozoa present? I grant that normal Protozoa would be there, bound to be—but why waste the substance on a harmless organism? No, wait until you’re attacked, then start.”

“I see your point. Well, that’s settled then. To make doubly sure of good faith you shall have confirmation in writing from my company.”

“Thank you,” Blair murmured. “I will see to it that you get the antitoxin within a week.”

“A week! But we leave the day after tomorrow! I’m so sorry; I realize that it is rather short notice—”

“I cannot possibly do it under a week, captain. Still, that need not be a drawback, surely? You’ll be going by train and boat, of course?”

“With our extensive equipment we shall have to.”

“Excellent! I will send the antitoxin to you at—er— You’re going to South Africa, I believe? Suppose we say Cape Town? I’ll send it by fast airmail the moment I have it ready.”

“Splendid, doctor! That will do admirably. We’ll leave it at that, then, and tomorrow you will receive our signed warrant of good faith. Sign it and send it back to me by return of post; that will ensure my getting it before I leave.”

“I will.” Blair nodded. “Everything will be in order.”

* * * *

With the precision common to his quiet and industrious nature, Dr. Blair spent every spare moment in secretive manufacture of his extraordinary anti-toxin. The written assurance of the bluff captain’s promises duly arrived the following day, was signed by Blair, and returned.

The days moved on; the African expedition departed; but, true to his promise, a week later, Blair mailed his anti-toxin by the fastest known South African air route, then proceeded to completely forget all about the matter and devote his attention to interrupted studies on the possible annihilation of bacteria.

From then on, it appears, our little scientific friend fades transiently from the scene of activity, and instead attention must become focused upon a fast airplane heading for South Africa.

Malignant fate, in the form of a severe winter gale, swept in from the Atlantic and, according to report, struck the airplane when she was twenty miles west of Cape Verde Islands. There appears to be no exact record of what happened, but it is certain that the machine was finally brought down in the storm’s fury and sank without a single survivor. Passengers, pilot, mails, and shattered plane all sank to the bottom of the tempest-lashed Atlantic. For days afterward planes conducted an exhaustive search, but finally could only add the disaster to the already grimly long list of those gone before.

Dr. Blair, back in New York, constantly absorbed in his work, never read any newspapers and certainly did not listen to the radio, hence he was quite in ignorance of the occurrence. Indeed, even if he had known, it is doubtful if he could have foreseen the terrible things that were to accrue from the plane wreck. So it was that, several days afterward, to his mystified astonishment, Blair received a cable from Cape Town:

NO ANTITOXIN TO HAND STOP UNDERSTAND PLANE WAS WRECKED IN GALE STOP SEND FRESH SUPPLY STOP WILL DELAY TRIP INTO INTERIOR FOR FOURTEEN DAYS.

BARRY NORTHERN

“Wrecked?” Blair repeated to his breakfast egg, and on asking his housekeeper for verification quickly received it.

“Why, yes, sir—the South African express went down in that awful storm we had about a fortnight ago. Surely you remember, doctor?”

“I do seem to remember that my hat blew off one day,” Blair mused. “That must have been it. Dear me, how annoying. Incidentally, Mrs. Mason, these eggs are underdone. Four minutes is the time.”

“I’ll remember, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Blair turned back to his eating. Silently, he resolved that fresh antitoxin should arrive in Cape Town within another week. Odd how calmly he came to this decision, and yet had not the cold-blooded patience to realize what might be happening to the other antitoxin at the bottom of the ocean. Whilst he sat detachedly eating his over-boiled eggs and studying a treatise on germ cultures; whilst Captain Northern fumed impatiently in the torrid heat of Cape Town, a brine-sodden package in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean burst asunder and released into those murky, silent abysses the incipient decay of all civilization.

CHAPTER 2

The second package of antitoxin reached Cape Town. Captain Northern returned from his expedition eight months later at the close of a scorching July. It appeared that he had had the most successful expedition ever—not a man ill. Fresh discoveries had been made, and above all things, Dr. Blair’s Protozoa annihilator was publicly acclaimed in the eyes of the world—to the intense irritation of the medical faculty and the extreme joy of those suffering from, diseases, which were definitely protozoic in basis.

Dr. Blair—Captain Northern now his closest friend—achieved world fame. Beyond the fact that his work had been recognized he seemed quite unconcerned, still pursuing his efforts in bacteriology. At his disposal had been placed a fully-equipped laboratory, backed by Explorations, Inc. The control of Cures, Inc„ too, where the antitoxin was constantly manufactured by public demand for hospitals and medical circles, absorbed a good deal of time.

Yes, throughout the following August events were steady in arrival, but quite unexciting. There were the usual undercurrents of war talk, Eastern menace, unemployment, and kindred subjects, until in the waning warmth of September, 2018, came the first hint of the unusual.

Probably nobody at that time attached the slightest significance to the almost obscure newspaper announcement that undoubtedly was the first authentic report of approaching trouble. Now, in the light of later events, I can trace it all back to that report, and here I reproduce it exactly as it appeared in the New York Clarion for September 28, 2018:

Pernambuco, Brazil.

September 27, 2018

Our South American correspondent sets on record perhaps the queerest ‘Act of God’ legal case in Brazilian history, taking place now in the Pernambuco law courts. Señor D’Alverez, former proprietor of the Hotel Catalan on the coast of Pernambuco, which commands one of the world’s most unique views of the ocean from every window, is endeavoring to sue the authorities of Pernambuco for causing, presumably by pollution, the blackness of the sea on the coast line.

The Hotel Catalan’s greatest attraction is its view of the luminous sea breakers of the South Atlantic after nightfall. The phosphorescent glitter of waves in the dark must be familiar to almost everybody on the Pernambuco coast, the effect, up to a month ago, was such as this, but far more brilliant than most other places in the world. The darkness of the sea now has caused Señor D’Alverez to lose nearly all his extensive clientele. Case proceeding.

That, verbatim, was the case—and later it was reported that the unfortunate Señor D’Alverez lost it! The authorities had certainly not polluted the sea, or caused the odd sliminess on the beach in front of the hotel. Poor D’Alverez was further confounded in his efforts by the surprising evidence that not only the shores of Pernambuco, but also those of Natal, Bahia, Victoria, and Rio de Janeiro were affected as well. From then onward there was a gradual smattering of increasingly puzzling reports that still did not convey anything save a very deep enigma to the scientific brains of the world.

Beyond that, though, the seas at night were utterly and absolutely dark. From California, Florida, England, and Bombay came definite assurance of the fact, whilst seagoing men, many amongst them being famous, hard-headed captains, declared that the seven seas of the world, at night, were inky black. Always, they explained, the sea possessed a faint and hazy light, but now that had gone for the first time in history.

Solemn, Stygian water passed beneath the liners of the earth; sullen, unrelieved black breakers thundered on the shores of five continents. Luminosity had gone from the sea—and nobody knew why—then.

* * * *

The minister of agriculture for Great Britain in June of 2019, was gravely troubled. His gaunt, austere form, framed in the summer sunlight of the window, was rigid in the intensity of his concentration upon a report in his hand.

“Incredible!” he breathed at last. “It utterly defies my comprehension!”

Quietly he turned and summoned his secretary.

“Benson, did you prepare this report?” he asked steadily.

Benson nodded. “Yes, sir. I am aware that it is extraordinary, but it is based entirely on authentic reports from the farmers and agriculturists throughout the country.”

The minister’s gray eyes narrowed. “Authentic, Benson? What sort of fools are they that dare to say they have grown wheat stalks seven feet high, and roses larger than cabbages? The thing is unheard of! Preposterous!”

“Maybe so, sir, but I am given to understand that the power of the saltpeter has become enormously increased through some unknown agency. At present this period of gigantism seems to be confined to this country, but I have unconfirmed reports of similar occurrences in America.”

“Saltpeter increase!” The minister frowned. “Most unusual! Has it been analyzed?”

“By our own chemists, sir. It seems that there is a vast increase in the bacteria, which virtually create saltpeter. This, naturally, is the basis of wheat cultivation, and—”

“Quite so, but that doesn’t explain the giant roses. It seems as though a wave of Gargantuan growth is affecting the entire country. Even trees are not immune from it. They are growing to enormous proportions this year. You must have noticed?”

“Indeed, sir, I have. But I am still unable to explain—”

“Very well, thank you,” the minister interrupted, in a tone of quiet dismissal. “I must look into this matter very carefully.”

“Very good, sir.”

* * * *

The minister of agriculture did look into the matter, with a desperation born of genuine alarm. In his position of eminence all agricultural bodies looked to him for suggestions and advice, but the problem was quite beyond the understanding of this matter-of-fact man. Not that he was alone in his perplexity, for the same startling conditions manifested themselves also in the United States, Canada, and Africa, spreading afterward to South America.

The wheat markets of the world were completely glutted with monstrous crops. In many instances burning was adopted, but without much success. The surplus still remained. Somewhere, deep down in the earth, had come a change—a terrific, amazing stimulation was at the base of all plant life.

Growth, formerly an orderly and unostentatious process, had suddenly become a wild and haphazard expansion in the midst of which man moved with a gnawing, deadening conviction of futility. To the average man, the panic of the stock markets apart, it was distinctly unsavory shock to find his favorite oak tree bursting all former bounds and thrusting into the earth roots of tremendous and devastating power.

Accidents became more numerous; walls were smashing down beneath this enormous force. Solid flags of concrete were smashed and broken to expose eager, hungry branches seeking the sun.

Vast crop yields, enormous elongation of the verdure of tropical countries—a change in the soil. Mighty flowers that mocked in their very vastness; the birth of a second yield before the first had hardly been cleared away. The canker of incredible growth was the sole focus of talk. In two short months it became a very far cry from a worried British minister of agriculture. The matter was one of world concern.

Botanists of every country examined the problem with a fevered efficiency, but only reached conclusions that were singularly startling. A condition of excessive osmosis was appearing, the process by which plants normally convey moisture from the ground against gravity to the top of their stems.

These erudite experts instanced a plant in Java, which is used for practical purposes as a fountain. The stem is cut at several feet off the ground, and from the severed pipe pours a continuous jet of pure water, refined by the plant’s own natural laboratory. This, they explained, was normal osmosis, but in the prevailing conditions of giantism this effect, visible in a mild formation in any growing plant, was now increased ten-thousand fold.

The ground was being sucked dry! Vast and plentiful yields would be inevitably followed by the world’s worst drought. Even rain made no difference, for as fast as it fell to earth the plants utilized it and grew all the stronger thereby. A threat of the extinction of the human race gradually took grave form and portent.

Such matters of paramount concern could hardly fail to reach so industrious a body as the Explorations, Inc., yet even so they had no inkling of the real truth. Captain Northern was puzzled, and rightly so; Dr. Blair was interested—but nothing more than that. Probably the matter would have continued to evade their real attention had not grave and deadly disease reared its ugly head amongst the masses and demanded of Cures, Inc., a possible relief from its fatal ravages.

“Disease?” repeated Blair, facing the newly established controller of health for the United States. “It depends on what sort of disease it is. We can stop all protozoic disease, of course, but—”

“Doctor—listen!” Michael Grant’s cadaverous face was deadly earnest as he spoke. Here was no normal, pleasing controller, but a man harried by relentless trouble, the entire onus of saving a stricken country reposing on his bowed shoulders. “Dr. Blair, in Heaven’s name, you’ve got to invent something! I’ve seen the—the most horrible things! The ravages of the disease pale the Bubonic Plague into insignificance! People are dying by the hundreds, especially here and in England. Hospitals are crammed to the doors; there are not enough doctors and nurses to go round. People with the disease seem to choke, strangle to death—then, horribly enough, they burst asunder as though blown up with gas! It’s as though some dreadful after-death hypertrophy or elephantiasis sets in. It’s—it’s ghastly!”

“Terrible,” agreed Captain Northern, who was also present. “But after all, Grant, we cannot undertake to—”

“Wait!” Blair interrupted suddenly, thinking. “I’m just getting the dim glimmerings of an idea. Tell me, Grant, have these people with the disease eaten any of the hypertrophied wheat, in bread form?”

“Why, yes. What else could they do?”

“In the circumstances, nothing else, but I just wanted to verify the point. I can give you no actual assurance, but we’ll do our best to help.”

“Ah! You have a clue for a cure?” the controller asked hopefully.

“I have a clue as to the cause,” Blair corrected quietly. “I will telephone you the instant I find anything effective—if I do! In the interval, get every well-known bacteriologist to work on the problem. Get them to analyze the wheat, the trees, the flowers, the soil. It is not a botanical problem, but a bacteriological one. Murcatz of Austria, Professor Libby of England—get all of them busy and have them send their reports, to me. If we don’t work fast—”

“Well?” Grant questioned gravely.

“If we don’t work fast I’m afraid I foresee the destruction of all humanity, and of all civilization. Already many of our buildings are in danger of collapse through the undermining of giant roots—and now comes the disease! The situation is critical, Grant—critical. However, do as I have advised and I’ll keep in touch with you.”

Grant nodded worriedly and went off with quick, nervous strides. The instant he had disappeared the captain turned in surprise to Blair. The elderly savant seemed to have actually shrunk in stature. His shoulders were hunched, his face pale and haggard.

“Why, Blair, what on earth’s the matter? Do you feel ill, too?”

Blair turned two burning, sunken eyes. “Eh?” he asked listlessly—then seemed to recover himself. “Oh, no, I’m not ill. It’s just that I’ve linked up the recent incredible happenings of plant hypertrophy and deadly disease with something I did in the early December of 2017, over two years ago.”

“What! Utter rubbish, doctor! Something you did!”

“Yes,” Blair groaned, shrugging hopelessly. “You remember that antitoxin I sent you by air mail which went down in the Atlantic?”

“Why, of course, but what—”

“Lord! What a blind fool I’ve been, wrapped up in my petty experiments—this pointless money making. That infernal animalcule of mine had never before been outside a laboratory—never been in contact with anything. Only direct from phial to syringe, and thence into the patient’s blood. You know yourself how careful we have been in supplying the stuff to hospitals, to make sure it doesn’t contact anything but human blood? You know the rigid adherence to our instructions which is observed everywhere?”

“Certainly. Well?”

“It never occurred to my stupid brain what would happen to the stuff in the Atlantic. Now I know! I can trace back every event. You remember when the seas went dark? Beyond doubt my animalcule escaped from the package and made an attack on the infinite swarms of Protozoa existing about them. You see, the animalcule, only kept alive in the first place by the fluid in which they move, would finally exhaust their supply, and the demand of hunger would drive them to expansion. They must find more food. Clearly then they burst their bonds and escaped into the sea.

“Naturally, they found food unlimited and began their fission process. Two, four, eight, sixteen—in the course of twenty-four hours one descendant of my animalcule would have multiplied to over a million! In four days to one hundred and forty billions.”

“Good Lord!” Northern cried, his red face losing some of its color as the stunning probabilities began to smite him.

“It is scientific fact that the destruction of Protozoa would cause the dark seas, and those slimy beaches would be my spawned animalcule continuing their devilish search for edible things.”

“But—but do Protozoa exist everywhere?” Northern asked helplessly, and Blair gave a grim smile.

“Do they! Good heavens, man, they swarm in every sea, at every depth, in the icy seas of the polar regions, in the hot waters of the tropics; they teem in the soil, in the water we drink, in the food we eat!”

“Then—then—”

“You begin to see? In the retrospect we can see that those shores touching the Atlantic were the first to be affected. It spread afterward to the land. In the soil the Protozoa have always killed bacteria; now, though, the Protozoa have been annihilated by something stronger than themselves—my animalcule! That means that the bacteria have a free field and can use all their energies.

“That logically means that all soil, trees, and plants have become inconceivably vast through the energy of unopposed bacteria. The enemy are missing, and so bacteria have the chance to develop—a chance they’ve never had since the beginning of time—until I started to meddle!”

“And the disease?”

“Surely it is obvious?” Blair snapped impatiently. “Enormously energetic bacteria in bread, for instance—quite unharmed by the heat of baking ovens; unharmed bacteria in every drink, in every scrap of food, are now pursuing their own deadly and mysterious course. The balance is destroyed; Protozoa have almost gone. And the bacteria are growing!

“That has never happened before because of the constant Protozoa war; but now humans are being choked and rent asunder; enormously stimulated trees are wrecking our cities; osmosis is sucking the land dry. Ultimately the bacteria will be large enough to view! But disease—ordinary disease, that is, formerly restrained by Protozoa—will now be rife, besides this strangling plague. We’re in a horrible trap, Northern, and I don’t know the way out!”

“But is it possible for bacteria to grow?”

“Of course, with all opposition removed. The spores of bacilli or bacteria are the most difficult things on earth to destroy. I have interfered in a most unforgivable, tragic manner. No organism lives unto itself, captain. Nature is a perfect unity, incredibly complicated, but everything plays some part in the economy of the whole.

“Just as each living organism represents a delicate balance of forces, so does nature; just as the forces within the organism are perpetually changing, necessitating continuous readjustments to maintain the essential equipoise, so in nature from day to day, year to year, aeon to aeon, organisms wax and wane and the balance of life is continually changing. But, destroy one iota of that balance, remove one tiny part of it, and outraged Nature takes her revenge—like this!”

“Then that means that, in finding a new equipoise, the most terrific things may happen.”

“Are happening!” Blair amended grimly. “Consider the position! We have left, apparently, bacteria and fungoid spores, perhaps the most indestructible forms of life. Bacteria, as you may know, can survive both the temperature of space and that of molten metals. How do you propose we fight that?”

“Damned if I know! I’m more used to killing big game. Really, it’s this universal illness that’s worrying me. We’ve got to do something, Blair.”

The little scientist grunted. “We can’t, Northern. We’re faced with the most unimaginable difficulties. Bacteria are free, man—absolutely free to develop. In that very fact lies our undoing.”

“Can’t you invent something to kill the bacteria, then?”

“I’ve been trying to for years, and I’m afraid it would take several more years to complete my work. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of the problem yet.” Blair’s voice was colorless; then, with unexpected savagery, “Oh, the idiocy of it all! What a fool I’ve been! I’ve torn life and civilization out by the roots! In killing one disease I’ve released another, infinitely more horrible and complex.”

“But, Blair, something—”

“There is only one thing, Northern. We have no cure, but we can use preventives. Antiseptic suits, covering everybody from head to foot, may arrest the onslaught—special suits, which I shall design. All food and drink must be completely and scientifically sterilized, as near as possible, by a bureau which Congress itself shall appoint.

“There is nothing else that can be done. Every living soul must unite in fighting the menace. We can’t stop its progress, but at least we can, I think, save those who so far have escaped. I’ll get in touch with the President himself right now.”

CHAPTER 3

During the history of his career, man has been confronted with many major catastrophes, from the Deluge to the black death, but certainly nothing so completely devastating as the free evolution of bacteria ever befell him before.

The efforts of Blair were at least successful in advising the countries of the world as to what had occurred. At first he became the target for numberless attacks, but later on those gifted with more common sense than the majority saw quite clearly that he had acted entirely unwittingly in the matter, and therefore turned to him for orders.

There came, inevitably, a tremendous shuffling of social and governmental orders. The usual topics of a sadly depressed and war-threatened world were hastily shelved in order that plans might be matured to battle with the new and incredible enemy. To the vast majority the idea of emancipated bacteria conveyed no meaning, but they were willing, nonetheless, to act on the advice of the great scientists working in cooperation with Blair.

There grew up after weeks of arrangement specially built edifices devised with walls prepared to confound the invaders—walls that were saturated automatically with antiseptics of the most pungent kind known to science. Every scrap of provisions and water was sterilized completely—or as nearly as possible. Suits tested to withstand the ravages of all known bacterial germs were manufactured in the tens of thousands and supplied to the now numbered and indexed populations of every country.

And whilst all this proceeded, death walked through the countries of the world, in particular strangling the life blood of America and England, twin dominations of the earth. In that late fall of 2019 the disease claimed tens of thousands; it swept through New York in a merciless, terrible tide. Always there was the final bursting apart of the victim. The rotting dead could not be moved quickly enough; all efforts to make decent burial or cremation were useless.

Side by side with this unparalleled horror came the constant smashing and toppling of buildings as still-active roots tore their way to the light. Riven streets, shattered edifices, fermenting and rotted limbs and corpses were commonplace sights in those black and ruthless days. Yet the survivors still toiled on, protected by their antiseptic suits, and built the domains for the remaining inhabitants. Now and again work was ruined by the intrusion of roots, but on the whole success was achieved.

It was the late fall; overworked Nature was slowing down her pace, but, as ever, living trees and plants continued to reinforce themselves within, awaiting the spring when they would again burst forth on the Gargantuan race.

And now there was real drought to be faced. What little rain had fallen during the summer had rapidly been absorbed by the plants’ osmosis. Springs, ponds, lakes and rivers had ceased to be. The reservoirs were sucked dry, and in their stead reposed tall and invincible grasses that hurled defiance to the first cold winds of approaching winter. By far did the dead outnumber the living. Only a few head of cattle were alive, and these were jealously guarded against the time when they might one day be of use again. Hence, meat supply failed. Milk was at a premium and water was rare. The only method of securing it was by filterization of sea water; but so difficult was the task of distribution, and so hard pressed was everybody in the building of shelters, the matter was shamefully neglected. Still, enough was obtained to meagerly satisfy the survivors, whilst food consisted of biscuits and dried foods all made before the giantism had come. In no other way was the certainty of security from the ravages of the disease.

Thuswise, in November, 2019, mankind in every country retired to the shelters assigned to him, to await the development of circumstances, to study out what was to emerge from this vast and complex upheaval.

To the forefront in the study of the existing conditions there were naturally Dr. Blair, Captain Northern, the officials of Explorations, Inc., and several scientists of international repute, amongst whom in particular was Professor Libby the noted English bacteriologist, a tall, gray-haired acrimonious man of uncertain age, who possessed a penchant for arguing every scientific detail, great or small.

Their particular shelter building, larger than average on account of the instruments and apparatus housed therein, stood to the left of the now deserted Cures, Inc., building, commanding a perfect view of a small park to the front, with a vision of sadly shattered New York beyond.

The metropolis was empty of people, but in the park at the base of the colossal trees, or half buried in rank grasses, lay the cadavers of those who had fallen.

The disease had been arrested now, of that Blair was sure, but he shuddered when he thought of the unguessable trillions of unopposed bacteria multiplying and evolving outside, pursuing, he felt certain, some enigmatic and organized plan of their own.

Not that there was any absolute guarantee of non-development of bacteria within the shelters, but certainly there was less chance of it than in the vast outer world where extinguishment was utterly impossible.

Throughout the winter there seemed to be little evidence of any change. Somehow man struggled through on his short rations, afraid to venture outside. Frost and snow came and went, absorbed into the ground by the silent, now ungrowing trees. But deep down in the earth roots grasped the moisture and pushed their way farther into man’s domain. And deep down in the earth, too, were the first dim stirrings of an incredible evolution, a process quite invisible at that time to the anxious eyes of watching millions.

Bacteria were developing with incredible speed, multiplying and expanding, freed utterly from all restraining influence. Strange and wonderful thing, this cyclonic and progressive development of spheres, rods and intermediate shapes, born of the soil, the colossal trees, the dead and festering remains of luckless humans. It was a birth and transformation sufficient surely to cause the late Louis Pasteur to turn in his grave.

That bacilli, the rod-like bacteria, could ever have developed to visual size would have seemed a laughable fantasy in the ordinary world—yet toward the February of 2020 that was exactly what met the eyes of a staggered world, and particularly the eyes of the scientists connected with Explorations, Inc.

Reproduction began to take form in the manner of lowly sexual activity! By degrees each offspring began to assume greater and stronger form, and began to obtrude from the barrenness of the winter soil, hard and dry on the surface but moist below; from the trunks of the mammoth trees grew magnificently delicate growths of an unusually feathery consistency, roots buried tenaciously into whatever gave them sustenance.

These things, this astounding development of invisible life into beautiful and almost exotic vegetation, was an occurrence that caused Dr. Blair to gaze worriedly through the window, as he had gazed for so many long, tedious months.

“Incredible!” he muttered. “And yet so blatantly, irresistibly true! Northern, those things are alive! Thinking bacteria! There’s no room for doubt.”

The explorer gazed doubtfully; the other scientists grouped about him.

“That’s putting it rather wildly, isn’t it?” Northern asked. “Whoever heard of thinking plants?”

“They’re not plants; they only resemble them. They are evolved minute organisms—bacilli. Look at this fellow here by the window! Those branches are the absolute equivalent of ganglionic neurons and synaptic resistances, similar to those existing in a human system. Of course, I do not expect we shall have any sure sign of intelligence until the flowers on these queer things open. You see the buds?”

“Umph,” Northern grunted. “Looks like a mixture of nasturtiums and spiraea to me.”

“But tell me, Blair,” remarked Professor Libby, gazing through the window, “how can you possibly believe in the evolution of bacteria into thinking creatures?”

“Why not?”

“Why not indeed! It’s against all scientific reason, Blair. I’m surprised at a man of your sagacity entertaining such a theory.”

“On the contrary, my dear professor, it’s the only theory worth entertaining. Evolution being infinite in time and possibility, the war of the human race and higher mammals with the forces of disease was, before this happened, only in the very earliest stages—the greater battles were still to come. The spores of bacilli were, and still are, the most difficult forms of life to destroy.

“Such other forms of life, like man, mammals, birds, reptiles and insects, are doomed to perish from any given habitable planet, overcome in turn through long ages of warfare by the indomitable forces of disease. These germs, with their life force of indestructible grandeur, are destined millions of years in the future to develop on the earth into a race of beings more and more intelligent than man could ever be.

“Along with the gigantic prehistoric animals already extinct, all other species will have perished until these smallest and least subject to gravitation will alone survive and dominate the earth. Here we have that evolution taking place right before us, brought about solely by the disappearance of hampering, destructive Protozoa.”

“I see,” the professor muttered. “In that case what do you propose we do? I had thought a worldwide fire might be beneficial in destroying these things.”

“And lose perhaps the greatest revelation of all time?” Blair asked in shocked alarm.

“I am thinking of ourselves. lf these things do turn out to be intelligent, there is no telling what may happen. They may be deadly and hostile; indeed, it seems to be the only conclusion permissible. Look how they create disease in humans!”

“Ah, yes, but not from a vicious sense, Libby. They had to live. Their exact reasons we may learn later. Personally, I see no reason to anticipate hostility. A high intelligence is rarely hostile, you know. According to recent radio reports everybody can last out a while longer, so why spoil the chance of seeing or ourselves?”

The professor shrugged his thin shoulders. “It’s in the hands of the majority,” he answered quietly.

CHAPTER 4

Until April the astonishing transition of bacilli from their natural lowly form persisted. Everywhere, in every direction, throughout the length and breadth of the earth, there grew and advanced these remarkable but by no means unlovely creations. Radio reported their presence in cities, suburbs, outlying districts, and rural areas—everywhere indeed that life could gain a hold,

In some cases climatic unsuitability caused a retardation, but on the whole the surface of the earth was covered by veritable eight-foot-high jungles of the stuff. They grew amidst the ruins of New York, leaving the broken buildings standing like islands, in mute testimony Ito the littleness of man.

In particular did the domain of the scientists of Explorations, Inc., stand isolated amidst these living enigmas

Day by day the baffled scientists looked out in dazed wonder, still unable to fully reconcile this mad metamorphosis of bacteriological evolution.

In May, 2020, the buds opened—and it seemed noteworthy that no other plant life budded at all. Trees and grass remained with the cold, bare barrenness of winter. In many instances there were evidences that the struggling giants of the previous terrible summer were dying, not living. Even steadfast, towering oaks were shedding their bark and. becoming leachy white. A subtle, deadly necrosis had seized the earth’s natural beauty. The living bacilli had become parasites, feeding upon the very plants they had once assisted.

The world became beautiful again when the bacilli buds opened into flowers. They resembled in general formation the vast, homely faces of giant sunflowers, only that they were far and away more delicate and ethereal in constitution.

The petals themselves, on the outer edge, were absolutely black, which caused no little controversy amongst the botanists who had declared a dead black could not exist in the plant world, except without recourse to skilled grafting, This array of black-spiked petals was presented in vivid contrast to the salmon-pink tentacled disks, as the countless hundreds of majestic plants bent gently in the first winds of that unparalleled summer.

It was when the flowers had been open for two weeks, no matter what the vagaries of the weather, that Explorations, Inc., decided that there lay before them one of the most unusual exploration trips in their annals. They resolved, by mutual assent, to venture outside. If the plants were alive and possessed means of communication there was no means of determining the fact within the heavily proofed walls.

Outside, there seemed to be little danger, nor was there anything to suggest that the plants were carnivorous unless directly attacked. The liberation of a white rabbit from the building revealed that the plants ignored it completely until it started to make an investigative nibble of a thick stem. Then a tentacled disk bent forward in sudden fury; branches lashed savagely, and the unfortunate rodent was torn in pieces with merciless ferocity. Afterward the plant in question resumed its passive and erect position.

“Obviously we must not attack them,” commented Blair, after he and the others had been rather horrified observers of this little episode. “Everything else seems safe, There is certainly no danger of disease now; germs have grown up. Come—we’ll go outside. You, captain—and you. Professor Libby, and any of you other gentlemen who care to come along.”

The others nodded silent assent. Captain Northern, more from experience than aught else, took a rifle from the wall rack and fingered it lovingly.

“I don’t like these darned things,” he confessed. “Give me lions or tigers—anything natural! A collection of infernal plants isn’t my idea of game at all.”

“Take your rifle if it consoles you, captain, but don’t, for Heaven’s sake, fire without cause,” Blair warned him grimly. “Now, gentlemen, let us be going.”

Cautiously, the door bolts were slipped back and the little party of men filed rather uneasily into the jungle of eight-foot plants about them, looking curiously at the livid-green stems of the things, noting in silence the peculiar formation of roots.

“I say, do you smell anything?” Northern asked presently, pausing and sniffing strongly.

The others stopped. The air was suddenly and unaccountably heavy with the oddest and most indefinable of odors.

“Lord!” Northern breathed, swaying slightly in spite of himself. “The stuff’s got the kick of a supercharged cocktail. What do you make of it, Blair?”

The little scientist stood perfectly still, his face crinkled in the oddest expression, as he sniffed and considered simultaneously.

“Don’t you notice something besides the smell?” he asked at last, and his voice seemed to indicate that he was almost afraid of his own thoughts.

“Don’t you detect a kind of—of mental perturbation?”

“I’ve noticed it for some time,” Professor Libby commented pensively. “It feels just as though these things were trying to communicate through smell! Of course the thing is idiotic!”

“I wonder if it is?” Blair muttered, looking about him. “After all, in what other way could a plant growth convey its thoughts? Of what use is a flower’s perfume by itself? Think of the exotic, overpowering odor of acacia; the heavy and sickly smell of a hyacinth in a heated room; the rank, earthy reek of a full-blown chrysanthemum, so suggestive of the fall and death.

“I repeat—botanists have never found the reason for a plant’s odor. Might it not be a very rudimentary form of thought-radiation, entirely misunderstood by our hopelessly undeveloped sense of smell—the least developed of all our senses?”

“I never looked at it quite like that before,” Professor Libby confessed. “Now you mention it, I—” .He stopped suddenly in obvious surprise. “The plant odor has changed!” he cried in astonishment. “You notice? It smells like—like coffee! Doesn’t that rather confound your plant-odor theory, Blair?”

“Not at all; several of the rarer tropical plants change their perfume just as a chameleon changes its color.”

The scientists ceased to wrangle, fell silent, baffled by the peculiarities with which they were surrounded; but of one fact they could be sure: the bacilli plants changed the exhalation of their perfume almost constantly. At every forward step they took, the explorers into this new and unexpected world became conscious of new and unsuspected uses for their olfactory nerves. They sensed, by their very action of inhaling the multitudinous perfumes, a first dim effort at communication, which was either too feeble or else their brains were too dense to grasp it.

Altogether, that first exploration was none too illuminating. They learned nothing; indeed only realized with a numbing, leaden bitterness that the fair face of the normal earth had gone for all time—that they, in common with the countless other millions of earth’s inhabitants, were a decadent race, prey to these odd but relentless objects that were neither plant nor animal, but something hovering on that strange, invisible bridge between.

* * * *

It is said, with considerable truth, that familiarity breeds contempt.

Certainly it did so in the case of the scientists in whom we are most interested. Day after day, becoming bolder each time, Blair led his little party of immediate followers into the surrounding bacteria jungle, and each day they became palpably conscious of a new meaning to the varied odors.

Their olfactory nerves became gradually adjusted to the unexpected conditions, with the result that a sense of smell, formerly the prime possession of animals, became .a superb development in man! Nerve responded to nerve, affecting, too, the nerves of the brain, until at last, three months later, after constant inhalations of the perfume, those of Explorations, Inc., sensed the first real portents of dawning; revelation entering their minds.

Instead of speech heard by the ears, it was odor conveyed by the nostrils, the formerly least developed sense in man suddenly taking on vital significance.

Thus in September of 2020 Dr. Blair and his associates perceived with perfect clarity the real meaning behind this incredible evolution. He and the others assembled in the little clearing wherein they so far had daily investigated and, inhaling the laden air, read the first messages—beyond question the strangest messages ever conveyed in living men. The only drawback was the inability to convey replies. Answers could not even be given by pantomime, for it had become increasingly obvious that the objects had no visual organs. Their entire process of detection seemed. to be accomplished by a complex form óf sensitivity, as though their oddly-formed nerves were responsive to every change of light radiation, sound, or air movement.

Gradually the message took on form:

“That you are men, flesh-and-blood creations born originally of chromosomes, we know full well. We have sensed the aura of your presences, and to a great extent have gathered information from your minds. We would wish it to be understood that since our advent to maturity, the completion of our evolutionary cycle, we have taken stock of the world into which we have come. To humans, as we sense you call yourselves, we have no hostility, and much less so to your particular party.

“You, Dr. Blair, are our greatest benefactor. By the removal of what you call Protozoa you took from our paths what would be to you the equivalent of three things—time, war, and death! With none of those to hamper you, think what you could do! You gave to us a similar opportunity, and for that we are grateful.

“That we have developed to maturity so quickly is not really so wonderful a thing as you seem to imagine. Before, our microscopic size, our almost two-dimensional limitations, caused our purposes and advancement to be invisible to your eyes. We had the same powers then as now, but you couldn’t detect them.

“Our world was a flat and uninteresting place; we were surrounded by giants, almost beaten in our struggle to attain full proportions by the ravages of the merciless Protozoa. Now that we have emerged from our cramping environment, now that we have, as it were, a totally different relative outlook—as different nearly as a new universe would be to you—we shall pursue our intelligent pursuits....”

The odors ceased for a space as though a plan of explanation were being formulated. Blair looked at his companions in silent wonder, there to find expressions similar to his own. Then the communication resumed.

“Even to your understanding, men, there are degrees of parasitism, and from being the most lowly parasitic organism of dimensions of one twenty-five-thousandth part of your inches, we have risen to our full grandeur. The degeneracy of a parasite, you will agree, is in proportion to its dependence. Thus you will see that there is little degeneracy in, for instance, the mosquito, which has to fly, bite, and digest—but on the other hand the tapeworm has nothing to do but digest, and hence is degenerate.

“We never really possessed any real animosity for our hosts when we were parasitic. We merely tried to avail ourselves of an abundant source of energy, but in the course of doing so we were bound to excrete toxics and poisons which were in many cases obnoxious to our hosts—hence came disease. In particular was this manifest when our growth increase caused the bursting of human beings. Being present in blood, feeding and expanding simultaneously, there was no other course but actual bursting asunder of the victim.

“For those occurrences we are deeply regretful, but it was unavoidable. Disease has gone now from your world for all time—at least for so long as we exist, and our life span is of course thousands of years. Our food we draw from the soil, our sustenance from the air.

“Above all, understand this: we are the rightful owners of earthly life. Of us you were originally born; without us you would never have been born. Nothing would have been born. Now our turn has come, and we are here to form a dynasty of our own. We shall not interfere with you, but you would be well advised to attempt no hostility. You may move amongst us as you will, do what you wish—but leave us to our own devices as you value your lives.

“You cannot be expected to understand the nature of our science, a science which we have perfected through unguessable ages, long before man ever came on the earth. When the world was a steaming, fetid jungle of poisonous gases, we were reaching the apogee of our intellectual evolution. That evolution we perfected when man made his first appearance on the earth, and since then we have steadily perfected our preconceived conclusions.

“Because of our minute smallness by comparison with the rest of the world, our science is mainly two-dimensional in essence. More we cannot convey to you at the moment, friends, but we rest assured our communication has interpreted itself into the language you understand. As time passes you will know more of us.”

There the communication ended; the heavy and multifarious odors faded. The jungle became silent, problematical, bathed in the light of the slanting September sun. Quietly, puzzled, the scientists returned to their abode and there, for a while at least, stood in thought.

At length Blair spoke. His manner was calm and steady, as though he were a general facing a militant crisis.

“Gentlemen,” he said slowly, “it becomes increasingly obvious that we are being usurped by a strange, new dynasty—a dynasty of the small. At first sight it seems that we humans would have no difficulty in enforcing our own rights, but a little reflection reveals the alarming fact that we are being overpowered by creatures utterly indestructible! Fire, chopping, acids, explosives—everything known to science—are useless! Bacilli can survive all those things, and even if they could not, we have not enough available supplies on earth to be effective. You see, as fast as these infernal things are mown down they will grow again from the severed portions.”

“Then what are we to do? Sit and take it?” demanded Northern aggressively. “I don’t see taking orders from any damned plant, even if it does smell nice!”

“You propose we sit here and wait for something, like—like ultramodern Micawbers?” inquired Professor Libby acidly.

Blair shrugged. “If you have any suggestions I’d be only too glad to have them.”

Nobody had, it appeared. For the time being the giant bacilli held the field, and mankind, for all his years of culture and brilliance, was at an utter loss.

CHAPTER 5

Interest in the invaders on the part of the world’s entire population changed suddenly to consternation four weeks later, when it suddenly became evident that the creatures, as they were commonly called, possessed the power of locomotion. In much the same manner as a spider uses its active legs, so these queer beings of an incredible world used their roots, pursuing a strange, creeping sideways movement. Only when they evidently felt the need of rest or nourishment did, they pause and sink their roots back into the earth. But at least their marshaling into some semblance of order left many regions clear, including that about the Explorations, Inc. building.

Pursuing the bacilli through many weeks, Blair and his comrades found that the areas in and about New York had become entirely free. Similar reports came from other cities of the world. Everywhere, evidently working by some peculiar telepathic system of their own, the bacilli were moving to former farm and pastureland, where they could best obtain the particular ground stimulant they obviously needed.

But what a changed world they left behind them! In New York, as people began tentatively to reappear, it seemed as though some giant bomb had been dropped in the very center of the city. Those edifices that had survived the osmosis onslaught were cracked and fissured where the bacteria roots had found a temporary lodging. The streets were cracked and split, in some cases had subsided altogether. Windows in one piece were few and far between; streetcar and railway metals were twisted and bent out of all normal semblance of shape.

In the country there was also disaster, of a different nature. All plant life was dead; bacilli were in complete dominion. Where wheat and barley should have been standing in that golden fall, where the leaves of trees should have been turning russet brown, there was only an area of infinite miles of mighty eight-foot plants, forever shifting and altering their positions, turning the air of the country and city alike heavy with their odors—and yet the odors were disguised and inconsistent, so that humans, rebuilding their shattered domains and finances, could not analyze what plans the interlopers were perfecting.

To reorganize the world affairs and repair the damage was not too gigantic a problem; indeed in eight months it was accomplished. But the May of 2021 brought the increasing realization that, whilst man was totally free from all traces of disease, he was faced with complete starvation! The reserve supplies were almost at an end, and there was no means of replenishment.

Water, now that the osmosis of plants had ceased, was as plentiful as of yore, but the death of all plants had meant the death of nearly all cattle, of wheat, cereals, vegetables, fruits, the mainstays of life. Synthetic means could have been adopted had man been warned in time, but now there were no seeds either.

Finally, Congress, on June 1, 2021, issued the alarming report that, in America at least—and the position in other countries was, if anything, worse—all supplies would end by July 31st. By September humanity would be extinct!

* * * *

A sudden and tremendous wave of panic swept over the American people. Action was demanded—instant action. Accordingly, the helpless congressmen turned once again to science for assistance. Blair, Northern, Libby, all the members of Explorations, Inc.—who along with the world’s greatest scientists had studied the problem ceaselessly in the intervening months—convened an extraordinary meeting to meet the emergency, a meeting which was filled to capacity with an eager and excited audience hours before it was due to start.

When, ultimately, it did begin, Blair could do little but outline at length the utter indestructibility of the bacilli plants. He delivered almost a complete lecture on the nature of cells, chromatin, and kindred subjects, explained how the bacilli were now living on the very nature of the ground and absorbing the now nearly dead life of trees and vegetable matter to nourish themselves.

“Unfortunately the plants are still on the increase,” Blair went on worriedly. “Our figures show that they now populate every scrap of earth where a city or an ocean does not stand. Against such numbers we are powerless. How many of them there will be before they put their unknown plans into operation we don’t know—but we do know that there are too many of them to eliminate.”

“Be damned to that for a tale!” snorted Caleb Roome, president of the National Food Trust, seated in the front row of the audience. “You call yourselves scientists, and instead of fighting the crisis of world starvation you stand there and prattle about how fast the plants are multiplying! Infernal rot, sir! We have airplanes, bombs, tanks, acids, and gases—all the products of modern warfare. They’ve got to be used!”

“As you wish, Mr. Roome,” Blair answered wearily. “It will be quite useless. Bacilli are the most adaptive of all living things. They carry within themselves organisms denied to humans. They are a complete filtering laboratory on their own; also they can synthesize; they can change the nature of anything to suit their own requirements. Poison gas they will convert to their own purpose.”

Blair paused, then thumped his fist heavily on the desk before him. “Mr. Roome, ladies and gentlemen, mankind is faced with an indomitable foe! In six months mankind will be a memory in cosmic history.”

“Balderdash!” yelled Roome, glaring. “Desperate ills need desperate remedies, and I for one refuse to believe that there is an energy that cannot be destroyed! Those plants must die—and every scrap of modern warfare must be utilized for the purpose. I appeal to you, Senator Morgan, sitting up there in silence, to have Congress pass an act permitting immediate attack by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. These infernal plants are not half so intelligent as we are; it’s against all reason. I insist, senator, on behalf of all these people—”

Roome’s insistent and bellicose voice was drowned out by the din of enthusiasm that suddenly burst forth. Through the midst of it all Dr. Blair stood in almost pitying silence. Northern, standing beside him, was openly aggressive. Professor Libby, discreet being, chose the region of neutrality and sat with a saturnine, impassive face.

Senator Morgan rose up with all the pomp his office demanded. With that the noise subsided.

“Congress will, I’m sure, readily grant your request, Mr. Roome,” he said quietly. “Indeed, we have only been waiting for the outcome of this meeting before coming to a decision. Obviously we cannot face starvation and death—and particularly at the hands of so-called intelligent plants”—the sneer in his voice was grimly obvious—“therefore we shall fight to the death. Not only our own resources, but those of every other country will be pressed into commission. England, Germany, Russia, China—every great nation shall unite to fight the common foe!”

Further speech was impossible. The cheering broke out afresh. It was mad and senseless cheering—the safety valve of a panic-stricken people. Any promise of succor from their dilemma was sufficient to precipitate the most extraordinary scenes. Stamping and shouting, the people began to disperse.

Blair watched them go with a sad light in his eyes; he shrugged his shoulders as Senator Morgan and the other members of the opposition stepped down to join them. The air hung heavy now with the odor of rank tobacco fumes. From afar came the sounds of insensate revelry taking place, evidently, in the heart of the city.

Blair turned at last to Northern, Libby, and his friends of Explorations. Inc.

“Well?” Northern asked grimly. “What do we do?”

“Nothing.” Blair compressed his lips with an air of finality. “Let them carry on their silly bombing and poison gas. It will avail them nothing. Doom stares us in the face. That story I told you about the evolution of disease germs has come true. We shall be extinct within two months, unless a miracle happens.”

“You honestly mean then that there is no way out?” Libby insisted.

“I do. The only way would be to stop the bacilli plants getting air, cutting off their supplies of nitrogen, for instance. Then and then only would they die. But that plan is entirely beyond scientific bounds; we cannot interfere with the atmosphere in our present state of knowledge.”

“To me, the whole thing seems to be a vicious circle,” Libby commented pensively. “Even granting that we could ever destroy these damned bacteria and reduce them back to their normal state, we should be no better off without Protozoa. The same thing would happen all over again.”

Blair shook his head grimly. “No, professor, there you are wrong. Do not forget that it was my crossbred animalcule escaping into the Atlantic that caused the death of all Protozoa. Ultimately, when the last Protozoa had been destroyed—even in our very bodies—and that must have occurred long ago—my animalcule would begin to die from lack of specialized nourishment. Once that happened Protozoa would begin to return to the world; there would be bound to be some survivors from which the initial multiplication would take place. Reproducing at the rate they do, they would soon equal the numbers in existence before my colossal blunder. But what use is it? The bacteria have evolved and Protozoa cannot hurt them now. No, mankind is finished. I had thought of many ends for humanity—but never this! Come, gentlemen—we had better be going.”

CHAPTER 6

Within two weeks—the briefest war muster in history—incensed mankind embarked on the most fantastic battle of his existence. Every nation, suddenly realizing the uselessness of attacking his flesh-and-blood neighbor, lent his resources to the all-inclusive ranks. The mightiest numbers of airplanes, ships, shells, missiles, and war materials in earthly history were marshaled for the attack. Each country possessed its own divisional commander; and were all ruled over by Field Marshal Cranbourne, an American, recognized to be the world’s foremost military genius, especially appointed by Congress for the purpose.

Yes it was indeed a peculiar war. Airplanes rained death and destruction upon vast areas of glorious flowers, watched the lovely creations smash and break amidst the thundering debris of up-plowed earth. Machine guns rattled their staccato beating from strategic points, mowing down the moving plants by the hundreds. Shells from long-range guns were incessant.

Tanks lumbered through the confusion, backed by infantry and cavalry, armed, not with rifles, but with gigantic and deadly axes that would have done credit to any medieval high executioner! One singular outcome of this unorthodox war was the ultilization of the armed mower—an ordinary wheat-threshing machine covered in armor plating. Actually, they proved far more useful than the tanks, sweeping down great areas of the bacilli giants everywhere they moved.

Those days did much to reveal the underlying strength and nobility of man when his life and heritage was threatened. He fought with the savage ferocity of the primordial, calling to his aid every known device of destruction that modern science could supply. He fought a grim battle with hunger too, supplies were fast petering out. Strict rationing was enforced, in many cases by no means adequate. Death was already claiming the first members of gallant humanity.

And through it all, to the hopelessness, of the fighters and the intense chagrin of Marshal Cranbourne, came the knowledge that they were losing—hour by hour! How truly Blair had spoken when he had said the plants were indestructible! They were! As they were destroyed the broken sections resprouted in incredible multiplicity. Where two hundred plants were destroyed, two thousand sprang up in their stead, casting their pungent and now defensive odors to the shell-ridden sky.

After a fortnight of this feverish battling Marshal Cranbourne called a halt. It was useless—all wasted effort. Reports revealed that the plants were far thicker than they had been before the war had started! Countless millions of them were now in every corner of the earth, jammed tightly together with hardly enough room for further expansion. And more were still coming—thousands, tens of thousands, sprouting from the shattered remnants of the old.

Finally, by special request of Congress, Marshal Cranbourne—along with Blair and the others—presented himself at a special meeting of crisis. There he made clear the position, convinced his hearers of the impossibility of success.

“You were right, Dr. Blair,” was his concluding words. “We have at most no more than a month to live.”

Blair smiled strangely as he rose to his feet. “Frankly, marshal, I’m afraid you are laboring under a big delusion—if you will pardon my saying so. You imagine you have lost the battle; I venture to aver that you have won it! By tomorrow morning, I am convinced, mankind will be freed from this bacteria invasion.”

The field marshal smiled gratefully. “Your optimism is appreciated, doctor, but quite unfounded. Where there were formerly thousands of plants, there are now absolute millions. Every scrap of available space is being used by them. They are infinitely thicker than the undergrowth of an African jungle.”

“I know,” Blair answered quietly “That is what I am counting on. Suppose—and I know this is an unusual request—we wait here until tomorrow morning? That is a matter of some twelve hours. I have taken the liberty of believing you will acquiesce and have instructed radio reports to be sent in from all countries as notable bacilli changes occur. What say you, gentlemen?”

“Well, we have nothing to lose by doing so,” the chairman answered, “but what you hope to achieve is a mystery, doctor.”

Blair said nothing to that—not even to Northern and Libby, who were persistent in their questioning. And so, gradually, the hours passed on in the great executive hall. Very meager refreshment was brought in at midnight, after which the majority of the men present began to doze from sheer boredom. Then, suddenly, they were shot into wakefulness, at one a.m., as a radio report came through from England.

“Listen, gentlemen!” Blair cried exultantly. “England reports that the bacilli are dying! Rapidly! Like plants before a blazing fire!”

“Impossible,” said Professor Libby, and the others looked on skeptically. Gradually, however, other reports came through—all in the same strain. From Russia, China, the remoter parts of America itself, Germany, Africa—everywhere the plants were wilting and collapsing. Hour after hour during that unparalleled crisis came those welcoming messages, until at last in the cold hours of before dawn an airplane pilot was admitted. It appeared Blair had specially commissioned him.

“The districts around New York are free, sir,” he announced eagerly, his eyes glowing. “There’s bare ground and some wilted remains of plants—that’s all. Everywhere my searchlight touched I beheld the same thing.”

Blair smiled triumphantly into the dazed eyes of those gathered about him.

“Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “the bacteria menace has gone; the dynasty of the small has collapsed before its mission, whatever it was, could be achieved. Crops will grow again; there are bound to be some seeds left in the earth; trees will return to life. Those few cattle we saved can be released to carry on the work of reproduction. The seas will glow again at night; the earth will return slowly to normalcy. We have met and mastered the greatest scourge that ever threatened us, and, unwittingly, it was Caleb Roome’s demand for war that saved us! The war itself delivered us, after all.”

“Blair, what are you getting at?” demanded marshal Cranbourne, his face strained and anxious. “Why have the plants died? It’s all so inexplicable.”

“On the contrary,” Blair smiled. “You see, it never occurred to me until I heard the reports of the plants’ multiplicity how the whole business was going to end. Overpopulation killed them!”

“But—how?” demanded Professor Libby.

“Just the essential equilibrium of nature. Any region of nature left to itself rapidly attains a state of equilibrium, a balance being reached and maintained between the various forms of life that inhabit it. Sometimes there are outbreaks of overpopulation, but through disease or maybe war, the balance is restored again. Take the monsters that inhabited the world millions of years ago. They banked on size and strength—so much so that finally they became too unwieldy to hunt their food, and as a consequence became extinct—or, more correctly, took on smaller forms through the process of evolution.”

“Well?” the Chairman asked quickly.

“Well, these bacteria plants, thanks to the terrible hammering we gave them, multiplied so fast that they had no room to take nourishment—probably, even, they could not get enough air. They exhausted their supplies utterly and died thereby. Jam humans closely together—as for instance the Black Hole of Calcutta—and death is inevitable. That is just what happened here. The plants died from lack of space, and the result is that that particular species of giant bacteria has gone forever. The normal type will resume—must be doing so even now; but since Protozoa are also present, they will be kept in check as of yore. Yes, my dear friends, mankind is free.”

“You’re right,” muttered Libby, glancing at the first rays of the morning sun through the window. “Man is born anew.”

“Exactly,” Blair nodded. “The people must be told. As for myself, I’m leaving now to perform a very important mission.”

“It is?” Northern inquired.

“I’m through with trying to stop disease. Better to have disease than wholesale annihilation! I’m going back to our laboratory at once to destroy that formula for my animacule!”