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visible under the coy moon, then vanished again in blackness.
He had not seen her.
"Willie!"
Only the breakers' growl responded. And a glimmer of
phosphorescence from the waves,
"Willie!" He slipped down from the seawall and began
feeling along the jagged rocks that lay beneath it. She could
not have gotten down without faffing. Then he remembered
a rickety flight of steps just to the north, and he trotted
quickly toward it.
The moon came out suddenly. He saw her, and stopped.
She was sitting motionless on the bottom step, holding her
face in her hands. The crutches were stacked neatly against
the handrail. Ten yards across the sand slope lay the hungry,
devouring surf. Paul approached her slowly. The moon went
out again. His feet sucked at the rain-soaked sand.
He stopped by the handrail, peering at her motionless
shadow. "Willie?"
A low moan, then a long silence. "I did it, Paul," she mut-
tered miserably. "It was like a dream at first, but then... you
shouted.,. and..."
He crouched in front of her, sitting on his heels. Then he
took her wrists firmly and tugged her hands from her face.
"Don't,,,"
He pulled her close and kissed her. Her mouth was fright
ened. Then he lifted her being cautious of the now-sodden
cast. He climbed the steps and started back to the hospital.
Willie, dazed and weary and still uncomprehending, fell
asleep in his arms. Her hair blew about his face in the wind.
It smelled warm and alive. He wondered what sensation it
would produce to the finger-pore receptors. "Wait and see,"
he said to himself.
The priest met him with a growing grin when he brought
her into the candlelit corridor. "Shall we forget the boat,
son?"
Paul paused. "No... I'd like to borrow it anyway."
Mendelhaus looked puzzled,
Seevers snorted at him: "Preacher, don't you know any
reasons for traveling besides running away?"
Paul carried her back to her room. He meant to have a
long talk when she awoke. About an island until the world
sobered up.
5
CIVI
LIZA
TION
DES
TRO
YED
Even if humanity survives, the civilization it developed over
the last ten thousand years may not, in a "Catastrophe of the
Fifth Class."
We are, for instance, beginning to suspect that the Sun is
not quite as reliable a luminary as we have been taking for
granted. Suppose the Sun undergoes a small hiccup, nothing
of importance to itself, or very noticeable from out in space
yet enough to introduce sufficient change on Earth to break
down humanity's fine-tuned system of society ("Last Night
of Summer" by Alfred Coppel).
Or humanity can do it to itself. Wars have been endemic
since the beginning of civilization, certainly, and they have
been growing steadily more deadly as technology advances.
With the coming of the nuclear bomb, the true Armageddon
has finally become possible. ("The Store of the Worlds" by
Robert Sheckley).
Consider, though, that civilization is the product of hu-
manity's three-pound brain, the most magnificently orga-
nized bit of matter we have any knowledge of. What if some-
thing goes wrong with it whether other-induced or self-
induced ("How It Was When the Past Went Away" by Robert
Silverberg)?
And finally, what of the sword of Damocles that truly
hangs suspended over humanity; the one catastrophe that is
visible, perhaps even inevitable, and is eating away at us
now overpopulation. What if we continue to increase our
numbers and if the mere weight of flesh and blood breaks us
down ("Shark Ship" by C. M. Kornbluth)?
Last Night of Summer
ALFRED COPPEL
There were fires burning in the city. With the house dark
the power station was deserted by this time Tom Henderson
could see the fires clearly. They reflected like bonfires against
the pall of smoke,
He sat in the dark, smoking and listening to the reedy
voice of the announcer that came out of the battery-powered
portable radio,
" mean temperatures are rising to abnormal heights all
over the world. Paris reports a high yesterday of 110
degrees .,. Naples was 115... astronomers predict... the
government requests that the civil population remain calm.
Martial law has been declared in Los Angeles "
The voice was faint. The batteries were low. Not that it
mattered. With all our bickering, Henderson thought, this is
the finish. And we haven't got what it takes to face it. It was
so simple, really. No war of the worlds, no collision with
another planet. A slight rise in temperature. Just that. The
astronomers had discovered it first, of course, And,there had
been reassuring statements to the press. The rise in temper-
ature would be small. Ten percent give or take a few million
degrees. They spoke of surface-tensions, internal stresses and
used all the astrophysical terms not one man in two million
had ever taken the trouble to understand. And what they
said to the world was that on the last night of summer it
would die.
It would be gradual at first. Temperatures had been high
all summer. Then on September22nd, there would be a sud-
den surge of heat from that familiar red ball in the sky. The
surface temperature of the earth would be raised to 200°
centigrade for seventeen hours. Then everything would be
back to normal.
Henderson grinned vacuously at the empty air. Back to
normal. The seas, which would have boiled away, would con-
dense and fall as hot rain for a month or so, flooding the land,
washing away all traces of man's occupation those that
hadn't burned. And in two months, the temperature would
be down to where a man could walk on the surface without
protective clothing.
Only there would not be very many men left. There would
only be the lucky ones with the talismans of survivals, the
metal disks that gave access to the Burrows. Out of a pop-
ulation of two billions, less than a million would survive.
The announcer sounded bone-weary. He should, Hender-
son thought. He's been on the air for ten hours or more without
relief. We all do what we can. But it isn't much,
" no more applicants are being taken for the Burrows "
I should hope not, Henderson thought. There had been so
little time. Three months. That they had been able to build
the ten Burrows was tribute enough. But then money hadn't
mattered, had it? He had to keep reminding himself that the
old values didn't apply. Not money, or materials, or even
labor that stand-by of commerce. Only time. And there
hadn't been any of that.
" population of Las Vegas has been evacuated into sev-
eral mines in the area "
Nice try, but it wouldn't work, Henderson thought lan-
guidly. If the heat didn't kill, the overcrowding would. And
if that failed, then the floods would succeed. And of course [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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