that the ocean might be in the same condition—that was unthinkable.
Their chief hope was that the Earth had survived. Somewhere there must be seeds sprouting in the warm soil, survivors like themselves, from whose flowering the earth might be made green again.
But their cardinal hope without which all hopes else were vain, was that the Plant had had its season, long though it had been, and that that season was over. The armored spheres had left with the rape of a planet, the fires had burnt over the stubble, and the land would now wake from the nightmare of that second alien creation. That was their hope.
Then everywhere the land was covered with a carpet of the richest green. The rains that had washed the sky clean of the smoke of the burning had also borne the billion spores of the second planting. Like all hybrids, the Plant was sterile, and could not reproduce itself. A new crop had to be planted every spring.
In two days the Plants were already ankle-deep.
The survivors spread out over the flat green uniformity of the plain resembled the figures in a Renaissance print illustrating the properties of perspective. The nearest three figures, in the middle distance, comprised a sort of Holy Family, though moving closer, one could not help but note that their features were touched by some other emotion than quiet happiness. The woman sitting on the ground was, in fact, weeping bitterly, and the man on his knees behind her, his hands planted on her shoulders as though to comfort her, was barely able to restrain his own tears. Their attention was fixed upon the thin child in her arms, who was futilely puffing at her dry breast.
A little farther on was another figure—or should we say two?—without any iconographic parallel, unless we allow this to be a Niobe sorrowing for her children. However, Niobe is usually depicted alone or in the prospect of all fourteen children; this woman was holding the skeleton of a single child in her arms. The child had been about ten years of age when it died. The woman’s red hair was a shocking contrast to the green everywhere about her.
Almost at the horizon one could make out the figures of a man and woman, nude, hand in hand, smiling. Certainly these were Adam and Eve before the Fall, though they appeared rather more thin than they are usually represented. Also, they were rather ill-matched with respect to age: he was forty if he was a day; she was barely into her teens. They were walking south, and occasionally they would speak to each other.
The woman, for instance, might turn her head to the man and say, “You never told us who your favorite actor is.” And the man would reply, “David Niven, I always liked David Niven.” Then how beautifully they would smile!
But these figures were very, very small. The landscape dominated them entirely. It was green and level and it seemed of infinite extent. Vast though it was, Nature—or Art—had expended little imagination upon it. Even viewed closely, it presented a most monotonous aspect. In any square foot of ground, a hundred seedlings grew, each exactly like every other, none prepossessing.
Nature is prodigal. Of a hundred seedlings only one or two would survive; of a hundred species, only one or two.
Not, however, man.
Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.
How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?
Copyright
COPYRIGHT 1965, by THOMAS M. DISCH
Published by arrangement with the author’s agent
BERKLEY MEDALLION EDITION, DECEMBER, 1965
BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation 15 East 26th Street, New York, N. Y. 10010
Printed in the United States of America
