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diff --git a/30044-0.txt b/30044-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cd8b8b --- /dev/null +++ b/30044-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,279 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30044 *** + + the + carnivore + + By G. A. MORRIS + + Illustrated by BURCHARD + + + _Why were they apologetic? It + wasn't their fault that they + came to Earth much too late._ + + +The beings stood around my bed in air suits like ski suits, with globes +over their heads like upside-down fishbowls. It was all like a +masquerade, with odd costumes and funny masks. + +I know that the masks are their faces, but I argue with them and find I +think as if I am arguing with humans behind the masks. They are people. +I recognize people and whether I am going to like this person or that +person by something in the way they move and how they get excited when +they talk; and I know that I like these people in a motherly sort of +way. You have to feel motherly toward them, I guess. + +They all remind me of Ronny, a medical student I knew once. He was small +and round and eager. You had to like him, but you couldn't take him very +seriously. He was a pacifist; he wrote poetry and pulled it out to read +aloud at ill-timed moments; and he stuttered when he talked too fast. + +They are like that, all fright and gentleness. + + * * * * * + +I am not the only survivor--they have explained that--but I am the first +they found, and the least damaged, the one they have chosen to represent +the human race to them. They stand around my bed and answer questions, +and are nice to me when I argue with them. + +All in a group they look half-way between a delegation of nations and an +ark, one of each, big and small, thick and thin, four arms or wings, all +shapes and colors in fur and skin and feathers. + +I can picture them in their UN of the Universe, making speeches in their +different languages, listening patiently without understanding each +other's different problems, boring each other and being too polite to +yawn. + +They are polite, so polite I almost feel they are afraid of me, and I +want to reassure them. + +But I talk as if I were angry. I can't help it, because if things had +only been a little different ... "Why couldn't you have come sooner? Why +couldn't you have tried to stop it before it happened, or at least come +sooner, afterward...?" + +If they had come sooner to where the workers of the Nevada power pile +starved slowly behind their protecting walls of lead--if they had looked +sooner for survivors of the dust with which the nations of the world had +slain each other--George Craig would be alive. He died before they came. +He was my co-worker, and I loved him. + +We had gone down together, passing door by door the automatic safeguards +of the plant, which were supposed to protect the people on the outside +from the radioactive danger from the inside--but the danger of a failure +of politics was far more real than the danger of failure in the science +of the power pile, and that had not been calculated by the builders. We +were far underground when the first radioactivity in the air outside had +shut all the heavy, lead-shielded automatic doors between us and the +outside. + +We were safe. And we starved there. + +"Why didn't you come sooner?" I wonder if they know or guess how I feel. +My questions are not questions, but I have to ask them. He is dead. I +don't mean to reproach them--they look well meaning and kindly--but I +feel as if, somehow, knowing why it happened could make it stop, could +let me turn the clock back and make it happen differently. If I could +have signaled them, so they would have come just a little sooner. + +They look at one another, turning their funny-face heads uneasily, +moving back and forth, but no one will answer. + +The world is dead.... George is dead, that thin, pathetic creature with +the bones showing through his skin that he was when we sat still at the +last with our hands touching, thinking there were people outside who had +forgotten us, hoping they would remember. We didn't guess that the world +was dead, blanketed in radiating dust outside. Politics had killed it. + +These beings around me, they had been watching, seeing what was going to +happen to our world, listening to our radios from their small +settlements on the other planets of the Solar System. They had seen the +doom of war coming. They represented stellar civilizations of great +power and technology, and with populations that would have made ours +seem a small village; they were stronger than we were, and yet they had +done nothing. + +"Why didn't you stop us? You could have stopped us." + + * * * * * + +A rabbity one who is closer than the others backs away, gesturing +politely that he is giving room for someone else to speak, but he looks +guilty and will not look at me with his big round eyes. I still feel +weak and dizzy. It is hard to think, but I feel as if they are hiding a +secret. + +A doelike one hesitates and comes closer to my bed. "We discussed it ... +we voted...." It talks through a microphone in its helmet with a soft +lisping accent that I think comes from the shape of its mouth. It has a +muzzle and very soft, dainty, long nibbling lips like a deer that +nibbles on twigs and buds. + +"We were afraid," adds one who looks like a bear. + +"To us the future was very terrible," says one who looks as if it +might have descended from some sort of large bird like a penguin. "So +much-- Your weapons were very terrible." + +Now they all talk at once, crowding about my bed, apologizing. "So much +killing. It hurt to know about. But your people didn't seem to mind." + +"We were afraid." + +"And in your fiction," the doelike one lisped, "I saw plays from your +amusement machines which said that the discovery of beings in space +would save you from war, not because you would let us bring friendship +and teach peace, but because the human race would unite in _hatred_ of +the outsiders. They would forget their hatred of each other only in a +new and more terrible war with us." Its voice breaks in a squeak and it +turns its face away from me. + +"You were about to come out into space. We were wondering how to hide!" +That is a quick-talking one, as small as a child. He looks as if he +might have descended from a bat--gray silken fur on his pointed face, +big night-seeing eyes, and big sensitive ears, with a humped shape on +the back of his air suit which might be folded wings. "We were trying to +conceal where we had built, so that humans would not guess we were near +and look for us." + +They are ashamed of their fear, for because of it they broke all the +kindly laws of their civilizations, restrained all the pity and +gentleness I see in them, and let us destroy ourselves. + +I am beginning to feel more awake and to see more clearly. And I am +beginning to feel sorry for them, for I can see why they are afraid. + +They are herbivores. I remember the meaning of shapes. In the paths +of evolution there are grass eaters and berry eaters and root diggers. +Each has its functional shape of face and neck--and its wide, +startled-looking eyes to see and run away from the hunters. In all their +racial history they have never killed to eat. They have been killed and +eaten, or run away, and they evolved to intelligence by selection. Those +lived who succeeded in running away from carnivores like lions, hawks, +and men. + + * * * * * + +I look up, and they turn their eyes and heads in quick embarrassed +motion, not meeting my eye. The rabbity one is nearest and I reach out +to touch him, pleased because I am growing strong enough now to move my +arms. He looks at me and I ask the question: "Are there any +carnivores--flesh eaters--among you?" + +He hesitates, moving his lips as if searching for tactful words. "We +have never found any that were civilized. We have frequently found them +in caves and tents fighting each other. Sometimes we find them fighting +each other with the ruins of cities around them, but they are always +savages." + +The bearlike one said heavily, "It might be that carnivores evolve more +rapidly and tend toward intelligence more often, for we find radioactive +planets without life, and places like the place you call your asteroid +belt, where a planet should be--but there are only scattered fragments +of planet, pieces that look as if a planet had been blown apart. We +think that usually ..." He looked at me uncertainly, beginning to +fumble his words. "We think ..." + +[Illustration] + +"Yours is the only carnivorous race we have found that was--civilized, +that had a science and was going to come out into space," the doelike +one interrupted softly. "We were afraid." + +They seem to be apologizing. + +The rabbity one, who seems to be chosen as the leader in speaking to me, +says, "We will give you anything you want. Anything we are able to give +you." + +They mean it. We survivors will be privileged people, with a key to all +the cities, everything free. Their sincerity is wonderful, but puzzling. +Are they trying to atone for the thing they feel was a crime; that they +allowed humanity to murder itself, and lost to the Galaxy the richness +of a race? Is this why they are so generous? + +Perhaps then they will help the race to get started again. The records +are not lost. The few survivors can eventually repopulate Earth. Under +the tutelage of these peaceable races, without the stress of division +into nations, we will flower as a race. No children of mine to the +furthest descendant will ever make war again. This much of a lesson we +have learned. + +These timid beings do not realize how much humanity has wanted peace. +They do not know how reluctantly we were forced and trapped by old +institutions and warped tangles of politics to which we could see no +answer. We are not naturally savage. We are not savage when approached +as individuals. Perhaps they know this, but are afraid anyhow, +instinctive fear rising up from the blood of their hunted, frightened +forebears. + + * * * * * + +The human race will be a good partner to these races. Even recovering +from starvation as I am, I can feel in myself an energy they do not +have. The savage in me and my race is a creative thing, for in those who +have been educated as I was it is a controlled savagery which attacks +and destroys only problems and obstacles, never people. Any human raised +outside of the political traditions that the race inherited from its +bloodstained childhood would be as friendly and ready for friendship as +I am toward these beings. I could never hurt these pleasant, overgrown +bunnies and squirrels. + +"We will do everything we can to make up for ... we will try to help," +says the bunny, stumbling over the English, but civilized and cordial +and kind. + +I sit up suddenly, reaching out impulsively to shake his hand. Suddenly +frightened he leaps back. All of them step back, glancing behind them as +though making sure of the avenue of escape. Their big luminous eyes +widen and glance rapidly from me to the doors, frightened. + +They must think I am about to leap out of bed and pounce on them and eat +them. I am about to laugh and reassure them, about to say that all I +want from them is friendship, when I feel a twinge in my abdomen from +the sudden motion. I touch it with one hand under the bedclothes. + +There is the scar of an incision there, almost healed. An operation. The +weakness I am recovering from is more than the weakness of starvation. + +For only half a second I do not understand; then I see why they looked +ashamed. + +They voted the murder of a race. + +All the human survivors found have been made sterile. There will be no +more humans after we die. + +I am frozen, one hand still extended to grasp the hand of the rabbity +one, my eyes still searching his expression, reassuring words still half +formed. + +There will be time for anger or grief later, for now, in this instant, I +can understand. They are probably quite right. + +We were carnivores. + +I know, because, at this moment of hatred, I could kill them all. + + --G. A. MORRIS + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ October 1953. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and + typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Carnivore, by G. A. Morris + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30044 *** |