Dollard's pudgy features relaxed. "Just you and I, Garth ... to survive. The others—stupid sheep—let them die!" Lust spread his heavy cheeks into a wide grin. "As for women, there'll be time enough for them ... on Venus."
"I know," said Garth slowly. "Plague-untouched women. It'll be like being reborn again." His pained somber eyes lit up. "It's right good we understand each other...."
"Just see that we continue understanding one another," Edwin Dollard snapped. "I'm still the boss."
The last of America's industrial tycoons refocussed his attention on the world telecasts. Since breakfast, he had sat glued to the news while a battery of video announcers reported from central strongholds on the progress of the bacterial epidemic that already had swept the Atlantic seaboard.
"Any late news?" Garth asked, over Dollard's shoulder.
"For your information, I picked up a flash from Denver. Just before you came in—"
"Bad, eh?"
"You said it, Garth. A thousand new cases. Some think the Asiatics got another two or three missiles through the Canadian radar barrier. More likely, the germs hitch-hiked westward on human carriers, gangs of them streaming out of the eastern states. The mobs are like vermin; you can't hold 'em back. They sneak through the quarantine at a hundred points."
"They're people, aren't they?" said Garth, quietly.