 What is the true cause of Earth’s “plague” and what is its purpose?
There should be an epitaph for every man, big or little, but a really grand and special one for Loner Charlie. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1954. A year ago she had been unattainable, a face to conjure with in erotic dreams, far beyond his ken. Meanings and answers to his questions slithered out of his reach. He touched buttons by the edge of the bed and the illumination quieted to a soft glow, wrapping her in a radiant halo. New York lay quietly below him. It was the hour of indecision when day has not quite made up its mind to leave and night has not yet attacked in force. To any man, WHO HAPPENED TO BE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH! I just don't know—" A paroxysm of sobbing shook his body. On sudden impulse he switched it on, turned the volume up full, and in grim jest left it playing Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead on full automatic. The street that led towards the Bureau of Vital Statistics was a mess of desolate carnage. Shop fronts smashed, stores looted, gyro-cars wrecked, proud buildings defaced. Buildings were taller, men were healthier, most of the problems of humanity seemed licked, or nearly so. It was a time of free power, each small unit of population, each section of town operating on perpetual, ever-lasting, automatic atomic piles. Sales of poison dropped, scientific laboratories chained to a perpetual rodent-cycle began to complain bitterly.
 The plague was facilitated by aliens, described as invisible, ovular beings. Their purpose is to move from planet to planet exterminating living systems.
 The plague was facilitated by aliens, described as invisible, ovular beings. Their purpose is to clear Earth of all life and start their own colony.  The plague’s true cause is never revealed. Just as Charles suspects at the time of his death, the fall of the human race is completely unreasonable and meaningless.  The plague was facilitated by aliens, described as invisible, ovular beings. Their purpose is to exterminate all of Earth’s life in order to start their own planetary garden.  The plague was facilitated by aliens, described as invisible, ovular beings. Their purpose is to move from planet to planet exterminating living systems.