Collectivum.

by Mike Lewis.

The Oren were one and their strength was legion. They had it all figured out, in their own parasitical, cold-blooded way.

But they'd neglected one she-cat of a girl....

He crossed the rickety bridge at sundown and saw the squat, fat fellow whipping the girl with a board. His mind leaped to a conclusion: _an Orenian prowler, convincing his victim to hold still_. He clubbed the fat fellow with a rock and toppled him over the seawall into the lagoon where he floated face-down.

"Are you stung?" he asked the girl.

She picked herself up weakly, and she was a gold-bronze beauty with a black mane of hair and long, narrow eyes. She shook her head to his question and whimpered slightly while she examined her bruises.

"He was my husband," she explained.

"Not an Orenian?" he gasped.

She shook her head. "But he was going to kill me."

Morgan shot a horrified glance at the body floating far out on the swift tide. Three sharks were circling lazily. He looked around for a boat, saw none. He swiftly estimated his chances of swimming out after the fat man and towing him in. The chances appeared to be nil.

Nevertheless, he began stripping off his shirt.

"Don't bother," said the girl. "He was stung last week."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Morgan stared at her silently for a moment. She seemed not in the least perturbed. If the man had been stung by an Orenian, he was lost anyway. Ruefully, he reb.u.t.toned his shirt.

"I leapt to a bad conclusion."

"That he was an Orenian? He would have been, soon. Besides--you _have_ to leap to conclusions nowadays, to stay alive."

"You don't seem to worry."

"I told you, he was going to kill me."

"Why?"

"Because--" She paused and stared out across the twilight water, gathering a slow frown. "Because he was crazy."

Morgan's eyes flickered over her trim figure, and he thought--_maybe_.

She had a trace of Seminole blood, he decided--with the quiet sultriness that it leant to her face.

"I'm heading west," he announced.

"To the cypress?" She cooly inspected his st.u.r.dy arms, clipped features, and the hatchet in his belt-rope. She nodded faintly to herself. "Want company?"

He shrugged and turned half away. "It's okay with me." He set off down the road and she followed a few feet to the rear.

"Florida coast's getting to be lousy with them," she called.

"Orenians?"

"Yeah. Whole truckload of them pa.s.sed through yesterday. On their way to Miami, I guess. One man said he saw an airplane yesterday."

"They must be reviving the industry up north."

"Yeah. Trucks by the dozen. Say--where've _you_ been hiding?"

"Mangrove island. Been there six months."

"Get lonesome?"

"And tired of sitting still. Small island."

"You should have stayed--but I'm glad you didn't."

He shot her a sharp glance. She failed to look bereaved at the loss of her mate. But that was not unusual. Most marriages nowadays were contracted by brute force--and dissolved the same way. She probably felt that rolling the fat one in the drink gave her a claim on him.

When the last trace of gray fled from the west, they walked westward along the old highway beyond the limits of the coastal town which was now nearly deserted. They talked softly as they trudged along, and he learned that her name was Shera and that she had been a dancer in a small Miami nightspot, before the Orenians came. She had joined the fat one a year ago--because he owned a gun, and was therefore good insurance against wandering Orenians. But when the ammunition was gone, she tried to leave him, which resulted in the incident by the waterfront.

Morgan was irked that he had blundered into a family affair, and troubled that he had relieved the fellow of all worldly cares.

Nevertheless, if the man had been stung, the free world would say--"job well done." For in a few weeks he would have ceased to be strictly human, becoming a dangerous threat to his fellows. And if the girl had been unable to escape from him before that time, she would have been subject to the same plight. Morgan decided that he would have done the same thing if given time to weigh the situation beforehand.

"How far are we going?" she asked.

"We're turning off on the next side-road," he grunted.

"You know the country?"

"I used to." He waved his arm to the south. "Road winds through a swamp, then climbs to high ground. Ends in a spruce forest."

"Got any food?"

"Will have, tomorrow. Ditches are full of warmouth perch. Plenty of swamp cabbage, wild oranges, bull frogs, papaya."

"I'm hungry now."

"That's tough."

She whimpered a little but soon fell silent. He saw she was limping, and he slowed his pace. Pity was a lost emotion in an age of chaos; but she was strong, healthy, and appeared capable of doing a day's work. He decided to humor her, lest she decide to trudge alone.

When they reached the swamp, branches closed over the narrow trail road, screening off the sky and hiding the thin slice of moon. The girl hung close to his elbow. A screech owl hooted in the trees, and a thousand frogs clamored in the blackness. Once the scream of a panther split the night, and the girl sobbed as if echoing the cry. They hurried ahead through the overgrown weeds.