1 files changed, 680 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/59363-0.txt b/59363-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b188ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/59363-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,680 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59363 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       ECOLOGY ON ROLLINS ISLAND
+
+                            BY VARLEY LANG
+
+               _Man's every resource was being stripped
+             to feed the millions on Earth ... but George
+                was a throwback, and a poacher, and his
+                 punishment had to fit the crime...._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+              Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1955.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+There's a library in a small town near Charles Neck on Murdock Sound.
+It's so run down and useless that a lot of old books still hang around
+on the shelves, the big kind with stiff backs and all kinds of fancy
+little stars or small, curly designs to show the end of one section
+and the beginning of another. Very quaint. After the WFI took over the
+Sound in our remote area, I didn't have much to do in the day time,
+so I used to walk down the road to town and get a handful of these
+stiff backs once in a while. From reading them I got the notion I'm
+a one man resistance movement, which is pitiful and foolish, and, I
+gather, always has been a seedy, run-down sort of thing, a backward
+state of mind and feelings. That's me, alright: backward. I tried to
+be forward, but it made me hard to live with; and since I live mostly
+with myself, I had to quit. Still, I knew I couldn't get away with
+backwardness, and that sooner or later the WFI would slap me down,
+squash this bussing insect, and get on with its work again as usual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sure enough, one bleak November morning, when I was half through a
+couple of eggs and a cup of coffee, I heard the throb of a motor. I
+walked down to the end of my wharf and looked skyward. I was pretty
+sure they wouldn't come by land, because most of the secondary roads
+were in bad shape; and they wouldn't travel by water, because that took
+too much gas and time. In fact, the WFI never wasted anything. They
+couldn't afford to. Everything went for food, its growth, collection,
+and processing. The big freighters, some of them, had atomic piles,
+but that power was impossibly clumsy and expensive for smaller boats.
+So they came by air in the usual inspection helicopter. The pilot
+dropped her in the cove right alongside the wharf and made fast. Three
+men stepped onto the planks. They had the wheat sheaf insignia of the
+WFI on their overcoat arms and caps, and they looked cold and bored.
+A small sea sucked at the pilings and the helicopter rose and fell,
+grating against the wharf. I looked at the pilot and said, "Better put
+your chafing gear out if you intend staying a while." We all watched
+while the pilot put a few kapoks at the tight spots. Then he looked at
+a notebook and said, "You George Arthur Henry?"
+
+I said, "Call me George."
+
+This inspector was the usual type: tired from long hours, bored from
+doing nothing on a weary round of food inspections. He hunched his
+shoulders against the wind.
+
+I said, "It's warmer inside."
+
+They followed me into the kitchen of the house. All three of them
+started to sit down, then stopped, and walked over to the table in
+perfect step. They looked at the cold remains of my breakfast eggs. The
+WFI inspector shoved his hat up and said, "Eggs." The others nodded,
+wordless with wonder. Then the inspector said, "Chickens?"
+
+"Where," I said, "do you think I got the eggs?"
+
+The little man alongside the inspector came to life. In three dextrous
+movements he had glasses on, a notebook in his hand, and stylus poised.
+"What do you feed them?" he inquired eagerly.
+
+"Seeds," I said, "insects, chopped up garter snakes, mussels, ground up
+oyster shells. You boys have all the grain."
+
+There was an excited light in the little man's eyes. He hurried out to
+a broken down shed to examine the chickens.
+
+That left two of them. The inspector continued to gaze at the remains
+on the plate in a dreamy way. The other man straightened his big
+shoulders, looked at me, and said, jerking his thumb toward the shed,
+"Mr. Carter's an ecologist. He just came along for the trip. He's on
+his way to the Government Experimental Farm over at Murdock. I'm a
+government sociologist. I was sent here to have a talk with you. My
+name is Ranson."
+
+"Sure. Sit down. I guess I'm licked, but there's no use making a rumpus
+about it."
+
+I turned to the inspector whose eyes were still caught in the egg
+plate. I said, "Ever taste them?"
+
+"Once," he said, in a far away voice. I went to the cupboard and came
+back with a paper bag full of eggs and put it in his hands. He held
+them as if someone had just given him the wheat sheaf badge of merit.
+
+"I won't be needing these after our little talk, I expect. Take them
+home to the kiddies."
+
+He smiled, looked at the sociologists, who grinned back and nodded. The
+inspector walked very carefully out of the back door and down to the
+wharf to stow his eggs in the helicopter.
+
+Ranson shifted in his chair. He said, "That was very nice of you, Mr.
+Henry."
+
+"George," I said.
+
+"Against the law, of course." There was a smile around his eyes. "Are
+you against the law, George?"
+
+"Yes. No use bluffing. You know the story. All the waters and
+everything in them are WFI. All the land and everything on it. I don't
+like packaged food. I like real food. I don't like my oysters, crabs,
+clams, fish minced up and blended with chick weed, cereals, yeast,
+algae, plankton, and flavored to taste a little like steak. And plenty
+of others feel the same. I have a market."
+
+"An illegal market."
+
+"Yes," I said. "By God, if you had told my father, before I was born,
+that the oysters he tonged could not be eaten as oysters, he'd have
+laughed in your face. And if you had told him he wouldn't even be
+allowed to tong them, he'd have cussed you good and proper!"
+
+"People have to be fed. The only way we can do it is to combine the
+total food resources of the world, process and package them, and do it
+as efficiently as possible. That means absolute control of _all_ food
+sources and their harvesting. You could work for WFI, George. It would
+be important work."
+
+"I know. It's so important nothing else gets done. Have you seen the
+roads around here? Half the bridges are down across Charles Neck and
+Walter Hook. You can't get gas. You can't get telephones, and if you
+happen to have one, it doesn't work half the time. And the busses don't
+run any more. And--"
+
+Ranson held up his hand. "It's an emergency, George. You have to
+realize that. It's been building up for a long time, long before your
+father worked the oyster beds in Murdock Sound."
+
+"There's another thing," I said. "Before you fellows closed the Sound,
+I was independent. I had my own boat and I made my own way. Now you
+put your WFI scoops in the Sound and the whole job is done in a month
+or two. And who are the watermen? A couple of clerks to every scoop
+who turn a valve every once in a while and draw their packaged food,
+clothing, and entertainment once a week. Do you call that a job? Why,
+those food clerks couldn't even lift a pair of thirty foot rakes, let
+alone tong with them."
+
+"We get more oysters, George, and in less time, and we do it
+scientifically."
+
+Ranson tapped his notebook with the stylus and he looked out of the
+kitchen window. He was giving me time to cool off. He'd been kind and
+patient when he didn't have to be either. With his job he had no time
+to sit and reason with a one man resistance movement. He had no time
+for anything but food, and organizing society to keep it grubbing
+incessantly for food, and, at the same time, to keep society as orderly
+and contented as possible. I was not orderly and I was not contented.
+But I was just one man, not society. I cooled off.
+
+I said, "Look, Ranson. It's like this. I know you're right. I've had a
+look around, and I've thought about it some. The figures are with you:
+too many men and not enough food. Only thing is, even from your point
+of view, I'm not fit for WFI. I have to be on my own. There ought to be
+somewhere, someplace for a man, instead of a food clerk--–" I trailed
+off unhappily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm afraid you have no alternative, George. You are a criminal in the
+eyes of the WFI. Either you will work for WFI or you will be punished."
+He paused.
+
+"I won't work for them."
+
+Carter, the ecologist, burst in at the door, slammed his gloves down
+in the middle of the kitchen table. "Ranson, you never saw anything
+like it. Fifty in the flock, two roosters, all in fine shape. Lice of
+course, some bone malformation in the legs. But healthy."
+
+He began to ask me dozens of questions, but Ranson interrupted.
+
+"I need your help, Carter, and time's wasting. Among other
+depredations, George Henry, here, has been robbing government oyster
+beds, trapping government crabs, netting government fish, presumably
+at night. I needn't add that he has a ready and lucrative market. In
+effect, he refuses to cease his depredations, he refuses to join the
+WFI, and he is generally uncooperative."
+
+Carter said, "uncooperative," in an absent way. He dragged his mind
+away from a flock of fifty fowl living in a most unusual ecology,
+narrowed his eyes, and asked a shrewd question.
+
+"How did he get there?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"To the beds."
+
+Ranson said, "Where did you get the gas, George?"
+
+"I didn't. Took the engine out, put in a well and center-board, shipped
+a mast, and rigged her for sail. She's tucked away up in Marshwater
+Creek."
+
+They were astounded. Nobody had sailed pleasure craft for a generation:
+no leisure and no money for such a waste of time; and sail craft were
+too inefficient for food collecting.
+
+"My God, George," Ranson said, "you're a living anachronism!"
+
+Carter nodded. He adjusted his glasses, looked at me, and said quietly,
+"He is also an able man."
+
+"His abilities will be largely wasted in a Penal Food Processing
+Plant," Ranson said grimly.
+
+"Oh, I agree, I agree." Carter nodded his head emphatically. "The wrong
+environment entirely. No scope. No initiative." He gave me a glance of
+understanding that warmed me right through and also had the unfortunate
+effect of taking some of the starch out of me. I had been prepared for
+hostility and indifference. I stood up and walked to the sink for a
+glass of water I didn't want.
+
+"Now," Carter said, talking to Ranson, "you take the way he walks.
+Notice how he swings his arms, with his hands a little forward, as if
+ready to grip, and the tilt of his head, alert, watchful. You don't see
+that often. Different attitude, different environment."
+
+Ranson sighed. "Get down to business."
+
+"Yes. There's always this terrible lack of manpower, machine power,
+everything, all swallowed up in food. And besides, the men can't stand
+those bird stations. Too lonely. Can't meet an emergency. Four of them
+died on Rollins Island three winters ago when the power plant failed.
+Just sat there and froze. Terrible thing. Had to install emergency
+two-way radios; need the equipment elsewhere."
+
+"They died of loneliness, if you ask me," Ranson said.
+
+Carter nodded. "And no gas available for boat inspection. Helicopter
+too wasteful for a single station. Put George out there with one or two
+others. Could you sail out? Seaworthy? Big enough?"
+
+I said yes.
+
+"Good. Food processing all done by machines. Just feed birds in. Take
+up to half the colony of young birds when bred, half the old ones when
+coming to nest. Regular inspection of tern colonies by sail, your boat.
+Helicopter lands June twenty, small freighter in July to load processed
+birds in Rollins Harbor. Just the thing."
+
+He took off his glasses to show that the problem had been solved.
+
+"Look," Ranson said. "I don't have anything against George personally.
+I want him to be useful and contented. If he can't be contented,
+then at least I want him to be useful, instead of wasteful. Robbing
+government food resources is a grave offense, but even that doesn't
+justify putting him down in the middle of a pile of excrement where no
+ordinary man can breathe for more than a few minutes without stifling."
+
+"Healthy," Carter said. "Healthy. It does stink. That's one reason we
+have such trouble keeping the stations manned."
+
+"Boys," I said. "What is this pile of dung I'm supposed to sit on? And
+what birds? And why?"
+
+Carter explained. In the desperate search for food, the sea birds were
+now being subjected to an annual harvest. From various nesting places
+along all the ocean coasts in the world, birds were harvested, to
+say nothing of their eggs, in large numbers. It was simply a matter
+of catching and killing the birds, gathering their eggs, and feeding
+the processing hoppers with same. These foods were later shipped to
+Food Processing Plants to be added to other harvests and packaged for
+consumption. In some cases, more specialized processing was necessary,
+as with the fulmars on Rollins Island. The fulmars were much prized
+because their alimentary system contained an especially stinking oil
+rich in fat and vitamin A. In their case, no eggs were collected,
+since they bred only once in a season, and the birds were separately
+processed to retrieve the oil.
+
+Literally millions of sea birds and their eggs were cropped yearly
+from nesting sites on the east coast of North America alone. It was a
+regular and assured source of food on an enormous scale the world over.
+The thousands of tons of excrement were also gathered every five years
+to be used in food processing and in agriculture. It was the policy of
+the WFI to waste nothing and to use everything.
+
+The cropping of the young birds took place in the spring and early
+summer, depending on the species. The adult birds were trapped by
+various devices when they returned to their nests. Over-cropping was
+carefully avoided to insure a steady annual production.
+
+"If it's the island or a Penal Food Plant, I'll take the island. I'm a
+waterman, not a bird collector. At least I'll get a chance to use the
+boat once in a while."
+
+Both the WFI men looked relieved. Then Ranson put a question.
+
+"Do you know of anyone else around here who might be fitted for such
+work? I'm not asking you to inform. I know there's been a good deal of
+discontent in this Sound region, which is one reason why I'm here. The
+island may be a solution for other misfits as well."
+
+I thought it over. "The Jackson boys aren't very happy. They were the
+best men with drift nets this Sound has ever seen. Now they sit on
+stools all day long and watch a row of bottles pass in front of lights.
+Once in a while they lift a bottle out of the line and put it aside.
+They get very drunk every night on some stuff they make out of berries
+and dandelions from the marsh."
+
+Ranson sighed. Carter again passed a warming look of complete
+understanding, and nodded encouragement.
+
+"Then there's Pete Younger. He was a trapper before WFI closed the
+muskrat areas. He turns a valve several hundred times a day in the
+Small Fish Processor. He oils his traps and talks to himself. He may be
+too far gone. I think he is."
+
+"Anyone else?"
+
+"Others. But the WFI has a bight on them for good, I guess. They were
+men, once."
+
+"Are the Jackson men married?"
+
+I smiled. "No. We're dying out."
+
+Carter chuckled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a twenty-five mile sail to Rollins Island. The Jackson boys and
+I loaded the boat with clothing mostly. Food was stored on the island.
+I took along four pairs of oyster rakes, I didn't have the heart to
+leave them behind. And Bill and Joy took a huge ball of linen twine,
+ropes, corks, rings, all the makings for a drift net.
+
+Unexpectedly, Carter showed up at the last minute by helicopter to see
+us off. He jumped up on the wharf smiling.
+
+"About those chickens," he said, "they're condemned stock of course.
+Better take them along. And keep an eye on them. Want to know how they
+make out in a new environment."
+
+Then he took me aside and handed me a small book.
+
+"Lot of information in this. Written by a small animal ecologist. Read
+it. Read it carefully. Think about it. Read it again, and think some
+more. Got that?"
+
+I said, "Sure. I'll read it." I had the notion he was trying to get
+something over without actually coming out with it flat, so I listened
+carefully.
+
+He paused for a while, wiping his glasses and pursing his lips.
+
+"That island's not right for fulmars and gannets. Wrong environment.
+Never have multiplied as they should. Whole thing should be
+concentrated north. Plenty of cliff sites north. None here. Won't do.
+Terns, yes. Fulmars and gannets, no. Trouble is, WFI is tenacious.
+Stupidly so. It works, they say. I tell them it works badly. It's going
+to take a lot to move them: total failure of a colony or two.
+
+"You're intelligent, George. Put two and two together. Wish you luck."
+
+He shook my hand quickly and jumped into the helicopter. Bill and Joy
+had to call me twice before I could come out of a trance of bewildered
+speculation. In a daze I helped the boys load our last piece of
+equipment: a huge barrel of salt they had pilfered from the local Food
+Plant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The island is big, about five by fifteen miles, and it must have been
+a fine piece of land. It still was, even though mucked everywhere with
+white-to-greenish bird dung. There were steep hills on the mainland
+side, marshes to seaward, and in the middle natural meadowland broken
+by woods containing pine, and some beech and maple. We moored in a
+small but fairly deep harbor at a wharf for loading foods. Our barracks
+stood just off the wharf. In addition to all the necessities, there was
+a two-way radio, marked "Use in emergency only", and a handbook with
+information on approximate numbers of birds to be taken, locations
+of nesting sites, and so on. Equipment, including snares and nets,
+was stored in an equipment room. And there was a storeroom containing
+packaged foods, no freezing or cooling necessary for preservation.
+
+Behind the barracks stood a warehouse for storing processed birds, and
+a shop with the processors themselves. Everything looked orderly and
+efficient. A small plant supplied us with light and heat and power for
+the machines.
+
+We arrived in November. By December, the first sea birds began to
+return to their nesting sites, a few at a time. Soon we were so busy
+snagging them as they came to land that we had little time for anything
+but work and sleep. Even so, Bill took the time to salt several dozens
+of gannets and fulmars for future eating, and he was looking forward to
+the eggs.
+
+Spring and early summer soon rolled around, and we were collecting
+young birds, the nestlings. So it went.
+
+I can't say any of us liked the work. For one thing we all sickened
+of the endless slaughter. For another, the stench and dirt were
+overwhelming. The island should have been a fine place for living.
+There were sheltered spots for houses, a small harbor, woodlots,
+meadows for cattle and pigs, some bottom land for food crops, the sea
+for fish--a fine location; but it was ruined by birds. It was a slimy,
+stinking hell.
+
+The birds flew everywhere in huge flocks, especially in the morning
+when the gannets and fulmars came back from fishing at sea. Excrement
+fell from the sky like a stinking sleet. We couldn't get away from the
+smell or the smell away from us. It was in our clothing, hair, under
+our fingernails. No watermen ever washed so often or so thoroughly as
+we did, but the stink remained. We lost weight and appetite steadily,
+for the packaged food tasted of excrement soon after it was opened, or
+seemed to, which is just as bad.
+
+However, by the end of June most of the birds had left, and we had our
+helicopter inspection. The same man who was fascinated by the cold
+remains of a couple of eggs in my kitchen was on this route, and we
+cooked three or four of our chickens. His enormous appetite sharpened
+ours, and we had a feast. He was almost tearfully grateful. By July,
+the freighter had put in, loaded, and left. For the first time in many
+months, we were unoccupied.
+
+Bill and Joy immediately set about knitting a large drift net. They
+were happily excited at the prospect of gilling large numbers of
+government fish. As for me, I sat down to read a book on small animal
+ecology.
+
+I read that book through three times. I kept at it night and day, and
+it was the hardest work I've ever done, because I wasn't reading just
+to pass the time. There was a message in that book, I was sure of it, a
+message from Carter, a man I liked and trusted.
+
+By the time I began to get a glimmering of an idea as to what Carter's
+message was, the boys had their net knitted and hung. I went back to
+the book to find out what to do about this idea, and the boys sailed
+out to drift the net. I waited for them in a sweat of impatience. They
+came back at dawn the next day with a boat load of food fish. I met
+them at the wharf.
+
+"Bill," I said, "what are you going to do with that load of fish?"
+
+Bill looked at the fish. He said with slow and tremendous satisfaction,
+"I aim to eat them fish, George Henry."
+
+"Bill," I said, "not even you can eat all those fish. I've got a
+scheme. Save back some of the fish, sure. Let Joy smoke a few even. But
+take the rest into Murdock tonight and sell them to Hornsby. He used to
+buy my oysters. He'll buy your fish."
+
+"What for?" Bill asked.
+
+"Get some bootleg gin," I said.
+
+"That makes sense. What else?"
+
+"Rats," I said. "I want rats. Buy some traps or get Pete Younger to
+make some. Not muskrats. Barn rats. As many as you can catch."
+
+"Fish," Bill said. "Fish for rats. Boy, the birds has got you."
+
+He gave in after a while, more to keep me good natured than for any
+other reason, that and the gin. He came back with two dozen live,
+healthy specimens, and watched with an open mouth as I let them loose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The months passed, and I was worried. To drive the problem from my
+head, I took the boat out and surveyed the shallow waters off the
+island. I found something. I found a bed of oysters in broken rock,
+a bed not marked on WFI charts, because you could see it hadn't been
+worked for a long time. Later, I located clam beds on the marshy side
+of the island. The damn place was a paradise, or might be, once those
+birds were cut down, but I couldn't eliminate them by sheer slaughter
+because of the WFI.
+
+There didn't seem to be many rats around. December came and all the
+filthy, stinking work with it, and still no rats. Once in a while, eggs
+would be missing from occupied nests, and that was all. Gulls could
+have gotten those. We toiled through stinking February, foul March,
+odiferous April, and evil-smelling May. Still no rats.
+
+I sent Bill back to the mainland for more; and by September, rats were
+everywhere. Bill looked at me from his bunk one night and said, "I hope
+you're satisfied."
+
+I was more than that. I was terrified. They absolutely swarmed. It
+was impossible to walk from the barracks to the boat at mid-day
+without having to kick rats off the path. They consumed most of the
+non-metallic gear in the boat, including the sail. So far, they hadn't
+gnawed a way into our barracks store room, or we'd have literally
+starved to death.
+
+"Boys," I said, "just sit tight. Wait till December. These rats are the
+best friends you ever had. They're going to make this island livable.
+No more stink and stench."
+
+"What," said Bill, "are you going to do with the rats when the birds
+are gone?"
+
+Joy merely moaned.
+
+"We'll kill them."
+
+"If they don't get us first," Bill said.
+
+It was an awesome and bloody slaughter. The fulmars and gannets, most
+of the gulls, some of the terns, were either wiped out or harried
+off the island in a single season. And the island became a heaving,
+moving, revolting mass of rats, and nothing but rats. They attacked us
+on sight, from sheer hunger. Not a blade of grass grew anywhere on the
+island, and rats are not grass eaters as an ordinary thing. There was
+one hopeful sign. They were beginning to eat each other.
+
+Day after day we were caged in our barracks. The constant squealing and
+scratching under the barracks was bad enough. What made us desperate
+was the fact that they had gnawed a way into the store room and most of
+the packaged food was gone. We still had some smoked fish hung on the
+rafters, and a few salted fulmars in the barrel, but that was all. It
+was then that we remembered the two-way radio, marked "Use in emergency
+only". Bill said, after weighing all the evidence coolly and carefully,
+that this here, in his opinion, was an emergency.
+
+I got WFI mainland and finally persuaded them to put me in touch
+with Carter, Bird Stations Ecologist. I told him we were having a
+little trouble with the genus Rattus, and would he, for God's sake,
+do something about it, quick. I can still near him laughing. It was a
+while before he could speak at all.
+
+"Keep them at bay, general. I'll be over early tomorrow morning."
+
+I don't believe any men have ever been so happy to see Carter as we
+were.
+
+"They'll balance," he said. "Starvation will do its work. I've brought
+along a couple of pairs of barn owls. They'll help a lot. I see you
+read that ecology book. Good job. Station virtually wiped out. I'm
+sending supplies over in a week's time. Anybody wants to know, you're
+supposed to be helping extend and restore the tern and gull colonies.
+Wouldn't be a bad idea to try a few other animal experiments. Milder,
+though. Smaller scale. Send canvas for a sail too."
+
+He was gone before we could answer. The small freighter put in July
+fifteenth. She had no cargo of processed birds to take back, of course.
+The captain detailed a few men to unload our supplies, and we helped
+them eagerly. There were six calves and heifers, two cows and a bull,
+five pigs, one boar and two sows, several dozen hens and a rooster.
+Best of all, there was a big case containing seeds: corn, barley, oats,
+seed potatoes, melons, beets, kale, dozens of others. A plow and two
+draught horses, mare and stallion. Several pounds of rat poison. A hand
+forge and several tons of coke. Iron. A hundred pounds of linen twine
+for nets, as well as ropes of all sizes. Canvas. Tools of all kinds. A
+big medical kit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a year's time, we had prospered. No richer land, due to the bird
+droppings, was ever farmed. And the sandier areas could be depended
+upon for melons and other crops demanding a lighter, drier, and not
+so rich soil. Not only that, but we were five, now, instead of three.
+The Jackson boys had lured a couple of husky girls to the island in the
+boat. The boys claimed the women fell in love with them. I think they
+fell in love with the island.
+
+This fast work on the part of the Jacksons seemed a little rash to me.
+I was still not at all sure we'd be allowed to remain and enjoy the
+work we had done. Several times, I was tempted to use the radio again,
+but decided to wait. I'm glad now I did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In August, a little more than a year after his last visit, Carter set
+his helicopter down at the wharf again.
+
+After lunch in the barracks of baked fish, fresh milk, potatoes, salad,
+and melons, he pushed back his chair and said, "I suppose you've been
+wondering."
+
+"We'd like to know," I said.
+
+He nodded. "The mainland's going to pieces. So is the whole world. It
+isn't just food. We can still produce that. Remember what you said
+about the bad roads, bad telephones? You put your finger on it. So
+much manpower, machinery, energy, material is used up in getting food
+and processing it and distributing it, there isn't enough for other
+things. A tenth of the world's population and a quarter of its total
+power resources go into processing plankton alone. We are literally
+eating ourselves to death. Utilities and services are breaking down
+rapidly. No new dwellings of any kind have been built for ten years
+or more. Oil is short, cement, iron, steel, coal, plastics, wiring,
+radios, telephones, everything is in short supply and getting shorter.
+Transport is staggering to a halt."
+
+He paused, took off his glasses, and twirled them by one side piece.
+
+"Many of us saw it coming. A few decided to do something. We thought
+there should be undisturbed nuclei, a few able people with ample food
+supplies. You are one such center. There are others at various bird
+stations along the coast. You'll be joined shortly by a few more
+people, young men and women, among them a trained nurse, a doctor, a
+skilled carpenter, so on."
+
+Bill cleared his throat.
+
+"What you said, I guess it was all around me, only I never seen it, not
+to put together. Just one thing. The manager at the Food Plant, he used
+to stop and kid me about all the fish I'd stole from the government in
+my time. He was abraggin' about how WFI had newer and better ways of
+gettin' things done, always newer and better every year. How come they
+couldn't keep caught up?"
+
+"Bill, those new techniques that manager talked about were old stuff a
+hundred, two hundred years ago. The applications are new, some of them,
+but the basic ideas are old.
+
+"The World Food Institute drew off all the scientific, inventive brains
+of the world, and put them to chasing food. No time for basic research,
+basic development; just time for tinkering and retinkering old ideas.
+Been no new basic idea for a couple of centuries. Too much need for
+immediate, practical results. The well is dry, and it won't be filled
+again with a reservoir of new, big ideas, not in our time. Been living
+off the past; and the present has caught up with us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Carter left the island to visit the other stations, I had a
+chance to have a talk with him.
+
+"Was that sociologist, Ranson, in on this?"
+
+"No. We had to be careful. Still have to be. Just a few of us. That's
+why the loss of the bird colonies here had to seem natural, or at least
+a natural accident. And I had to keep clear of it. You can see that."
+
+"Carter, what happens on the mainland when things break up?"
+
+"Won't be pretty. Bad. Very bad."
+
+"For example?"
+
+"You read the ecology book. What happens when a species multiplies
+beyond its ability to feed itself?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A dozen new Rollins Islanders showed up a few at a time in Carter's
+helicopter. We've been working and waiting a long time now, waiting for
+Carter to come back. For over a year now, our boat has made no crossing
+to the mainland. Last night, over twenty-five miles of sea in clear
+weather, we saw the sky lit by a great fire.
+
+I haven't forgotten those rats. I dream about them, tearing one another
+with bloody fangs.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ecology on Rollins Island, by Varley Lang
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59363 ***