CHAPTER 15During the two weeks of Court’s unconsciousness, a great deal had happened. Many large cities, like Manhattan, had been evacuated. If many Carriers had appeared at once, chaos might have been the result. But the Plague came with comparative slowness at first. Martial law, of course, had been declared, resulting in less indirect mortality than might have been expected.
The refugees faced neither starvation nor epidemic. With well-oiled speed, the Federal Government had swung into action. All over the country, the evacuated populations of such cities as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and New Orleans were billeted in hospitable homes.
But the danger remained. More and more of the carriers appeared. Shining, nebulous clouds of glowing fog, they slew by touch alone. There was no
