“So far,” said Tommy. “Listen!” He told curtly just what had happened. “Now, what’s happened on Earth?”
“Hell!” panted Smithers bitterly. “Hell’s been poppin’! The Death Mist’s two miles across an’ still growin an’ movin’. Four townships under martial law an’ movin’ out the people. It got thirty of ’em this morning. An’ they think the professor’s crazy an’ nobody’ll listen to him!”
“Damn!” said Tommy. He considered, grimly. “Look here, Von Holtz ought to convince them.”
“He caved in, outa his head, before I got to Albany. He’s in hospital now, ravin’. He’s got some kinda fever the doctors don’t know nothin’ about. Sick as hell!”
Tommy compressed his lips. Matters were more desperate even than he had believed. He informed his helper measuredly:
“Evelyn and I can’t stay around here, Smithers. The Ragged Men may come back, and it’ll be weeks before you and the professor can get another Tube through. I’m going to make for the Golden City and work on them there to cut off the Death Mist.”
There was an inarticulate sound from Smithers.
“Tell the professor. If he can find Jacaro’s Tube, he’ll work out some way to communicate through it. We’ve got to stop that Death Mist somehow. And we don’t know what else they may try.”
Smithers tried to speak, and could not. He merely made grief-stricken noises. He worshiped Evelyn and she was isolated in a hostile world which was vastly more unreachable than could be measured by millions or trillions of miles. But at last he said unsteadily:
“We’ll be comin’, Mr. Reames. We’ll come, if we have t’ blow half the world apart!”