“Now an actual physical change takes place. The brain expands. The body hair drops away. Evolution had adapted him to his climate, but that was when he had hair. Now he’s got to use his intelligence to keep from freezing to death. He’ll discover fire. He’ll move out into areas he couldn’t live in before. Eventually he’ll cover the whole planet, and he’ll build spacecraft and head for the stars.”
Jase shook his head. “But why would they change back, Doc?”
“Something in the genes, maybe. Something that didn’t mutate.”
“Not how, Doc. We know it’s possible. Why?”
“We’re going back to being grasshoppers. Maybe we’ve reached our evolutionary peak. Natural selection stops when we start protecting the weak ones, instead of allowing those with defective genes to die a natural death.”
He paused, smiling. “I mean, look at us, Jase. You walk with a cane now. I haven’t been able to read for five years, my eyes have weakened so. And we were the best Earth had to offer; the best minds, the finest bodies. Chris only squeaked by with his glasses because he was such a damn good meteorologist.”
Jase’s face held a flash of long-forgotten pain. “And I guess they still didn’t choose carefully enough.”
“No,” Doc agreed soberly. “They didn’t. On Earth we protected the sick, allowed them to breed, instead of letting them die…with pacemakers, with insulin, artificial kidneys and plastic hip joints and trusses. The mentally ill and retarded fought in the courts for the right to reproduce. Okay, it’s humane. Nature isn’t humane. The infirm will do their job by dying, and no morality or humane court rulings or medical advances will change the natural course of things for a long, long time.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know how stable they are. It could be millions of years, or…?” Doc shrugged. “We’ve changed the course of our own development. Perhaps a simpler creature is needed to colonize a world. Something that has no choice but to change or die. Jase, remember the Cold War?”
“I read about it.”
“And the Belt Embargo? Remember diseromide, and smog, and the spray-can thing, and the day the fusion seawater distillery at San Francisco went up and took the Bay area with it, and four states had to have their water flown in for a month?”
“So?”
“A dozen times we could have wiped out all life on Earth. As soon as we’ve used our intelligence to build spacecraft and seed another world, intelligence becomes a liability. Some old anthropologist even had a theory that a species needs abstract intelligence before it can prey on its own kind. The development of fire gave Man time to sit back and dream up ways to take things he hadn’t earned. You know how gentle the children are, and you can remember how the carefully chosen citizens of Ridgeback acted the night we voted on the children’s right to reproduce.”
“So you gave that to them, Doc. They are reproducing. And when we’re gone they’ll spread all over the world. But are they human?”
Doc pondered, wondering what to say. For many years he had talked only to the children. The children never interrupted, never disagreed…“I had to know that too. Yes. They’re human.”
Jase looked closely at the man he had called friend so many years ago. Doc was so sure. He didn’t discuss; he lectured. Jase felt an alienness in him that was deeper than the mere passage of time.
“Are you going to stay here now?”
“I don’t know. The children don’t need me anymore, though they’ve treated me like a god. I can’t pass anything on to them. I think our culture has to die before theirs can grow.”
Jase fidgeted, uncomfortable. “Doc. Something I’ve got to tell you. I haven’t told anyone. It’s thirty years now, and nobody knows but me.”
Doc frowned. “Go on.”
“Remember the day Roy died? Something in the Orion blew all the motors at once? Well, he talked to Cynnie first. And she talked to me, before she disappeared. Doc, he got a laser message from Earth, and he knew he couldn’t ever send it down. It would have destroyed us. So he blew the motors.”
Doc waited, listening intently.
“It seems that every child being born on Earth nowadays bears an uncanny resemblance to Pithecanthropus erectus. They were begging us to make the Ridgeback colony work. Because Earth is doomed.”
“I’m glad nobody knew that.”
Jase nodded. “If intelligence is bad for us, it’s bad for Earth. They’ve fired their starships. Now they’re ready for another cycle.”
“Most of them’ll die. They’re too crowded.”
“Some will survive. If not there, then, thanks to you, here.” He smiled. A touch of the old Jase in his eyes. “They’ll have to become men, you know.”
“Why do you put it like that?”
“Because Jill uncrated the wolves, to help thin out the herds.”
“They’ll cull the children, too,” Doc nodded. “I couldn’t help them become men, but I think that will do it. They will have to band together, and find tools, and fire.” His voice took on a dreamy quality. “Eventually, the wolves will come out of the darkness to join them at their campfires, and Man will have dogs again.” He smiled. “I hope they don’t overbreed them like we did on earth. I doubt if chihuahuas have ever forgotten what we did to them.”
“Doc,” Jase said, urgently, “will you trust me? Will you wait for a minute while I leave? I…I want to try something. If you decide to go there may never be another chance.”
Doc looked at him, mystified. “Alright, I’ll wait.”
Jase limped out of the door. Doc sat, watching his charges, proud of their alertness and flexibility, their potential for growth in the new land.
There was a creaking as the door swung open.
The woman’s hair had been blond, once. Now it was white, heavy wrinkles around her eyes
