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Science Fiction Savant, issue 5, Summer 1946
Page 4
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By Fred W. Fischer John Herndon was the last man on earth. He, who had once been acclaimed by millions as the world's greatest scientist and inventor, was now acclaimed by no one. For as far as his eye could have seen from the top of the highest mountain, and beyond, he was master of all he surveyed -- not only master, but sole owner, for where there is but one claimant there are no contestants. From Tycho on the moon, immured in the first space-ship to hurl across the star-spattered void, Herndon had seen the yellow blight which had erased all animal life from the earth as if it had never been; a huge and gaseous envelope swirling from the depths of space to enshroud and suffocate a world. Rockets flaming in a symphony of power, Herndon had cruised again the ether lanes to his homeland, but the journey was not completed until Earth had five times circled the golden sun. Then -- where had been beasts and birds and crawling things, and men and the denizens of the seven seas, there was only an aching silence and a vast depopulation. Only plant life survived, preserved by some miraculous property of chlorophyll from the universal doom. The only sounds were the voices of the hurricane, the stormy thunder, and the mournful winds; or the lapping of waves upon deserted strands, the tinkle of water falling, the whispering breezes in the leafy trees. Herndon perforce retired to the place he loved, his laboratory with its white cottage beside it, to live out his days. A pact with loneliness to be ended with his death. For ten long years, by the old earth system of calendaring the monotonous days which slowly dragged by, he lived there in his small house, puttering by day over his fruitless experiments in the laboratory -- experiments which could never be beneficial to any save himself. And one sunlit summer afternoon, as he relaxed in the depths of a comfortable lawn chair and silently contemplated the green lush valleys far below his mountain retreat -- valleys fast becoming again the forest primeval -- he felt that his time on earth was come to an end. He knew with a calm and satisfied certainty beyond mere premonition, that this night he would die. He was not unhappy that this should be so. His tired and lonely spirit longed to wing again among its kindred souls so long since vanished from the blessed sphere he had so catastrophically inherited. It would even be good to die, to penetrate the darkness beyond life, and to solve the ultimate problem. Let tonight, then, be the time. Thoughtfully, Herndon arose and went into the house to prepare one last tasteless and vegetarian meal before settling down to his nightly routine of reading. He would go on to the very end with the same routine as always, and whenever a bony finger beckoned or a
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By Fred W. Fischer John Herndon was the last man on earth. He, who had once been acclaimed by millions as the world's greatest scientist and inventor, was now acclaimed by no one. For as far as his eye could have seen from the top of the highest mountain, and beyond, he was master of all he surveyed -- not only master, but sole owner, for where there is but one claimant there are no contestants. From Tycho on the moon, immured in the first space-ship to hurl across the star-spattered void, Herndon had seen the yellow blight which had erased all animal life from the earth as if it had never been; a huge and gaseous envelope swirling from the depths of space to enshroud and suffocate a world. Rockets flaming in a symphony of power, Herndon had cruised again the ether lanes to his homeland, but the journey was not completed until Earth had five times circled the golden sun. Then -- where had been beasts and birds and crawling things, and men and the denizens of the seven seas, there was only an aching silence and a vast depopulation. Only plant life survived, preserved by some miraculous property of chlorophyll from the universal doom. The only sounds were the voices of the hurricane, the stormy thunder, and the mournful winds; or the lapping of waves upon deserted strands, the tinkle of water falling, the whispering breezes in the leafy trees. Herndon perforce retired to the place he loved, his laboratory with its white cottage beside it, to live out his days. A pact with loneliness to be ended with his death. For ten long years, by the old earth system of calendaring the monotonous days which slowly dragged by, he lived there in his small house, puttering by day over his fruitless experiments in the laboratory -- experiments which could never be beneficial to any save himself. And one sunlit summer afternoon, as he relaxed in the depths of a comfortable lawn chair and silently contemplated the green lush valleys far below his mountain retreat -- valleys fast becoming again the forest primeval -- he felt that his time on earth was come to an end. He knew with a calm and satisfied certainty beyond mere premonition, that this night he would die. He was not unhappy that this should be so. His tired and lonely spirit longed to wing again among its kindred souls so long since vanished from the blessed sphere he had so catastrophically inherited. It would even be good to die, to penetrate the darkness beyond life, and to solve the ultimate problem. Let tonight, then, be the time. Thoughtfully, Herndon arose and went into the house to prepare one last tasteless and vegetarian meal before settling down to his nightly routine of reading. He would go on to the very end with the same routine as always, and whenever a bony finger beckoned or a
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