...Blind burrowers burrowing deeper; offal-eating murk-beasts nowshowing formidable incisors and great rows of ridged molars; giantcaterpillars growing smaller but looking larger because of increasing coats.

...The contours of valleys still like the torsos of women, flowing androlling, or perhaps like instruments of music.

...Gone much windblasted stone, but ever the frost.

...Sounds in the morning as always, harsh, brittle, metallic.

They were sure that they were halfway to heaven.

Picture that.

The Deadland log told him as much as he really needed to know. But he readback through the old reports, too.

Then he mixed himself a drink and stared out the third floor window.

"...Will die," he said, then finished his drink, outfitted himself, andabandoned his post.

It was three days before he found a camp.

He landed the flier at a distance and approached on foot. He was far tothe south of Deadland, where the air was warmer and caused him to feelconstantly short of breath.

They were wearing animal skins--skins which had been cut for a betterfit and greater protection, skins which were tied about them. He countedsixteen lean-to arrangements and three campfires. He flinched as he regardedthe fires, but he continued to advance.

When they saw him, all their little noises stopped, a brief cry wentup, and there was silence.

He entered the camp.

The creatures stood unmoving about him. He heard some bustling withinthe large lean-to at the end of the clearing.

He walked about the camp.

A slab of dried meat hung from the center of a tripod of poles.

Several long spears stood before each dwelling place. He advanced andstudied one. A stone which had been flaked into a leaf-shaped spearhead wasaffixed to its end.

There was the outline of a cat carved upon a block of wood...

He heard a footfall and turned.

One of the Redforms moved slowly toward him. It appeared older than theothers. Its shoulders sloped; as it opened its mouth to make a series ofpopping noises, he saw that some of its teeth were missing; its hair wasgrizzled and thin. It bore something in its hands, but Jarry's attention wasdrawn to the hands themselves.

Each hand bore an opposing digit.

He looked about him quickly, studying the hands of the others. All ofthem seemed to have thumbs. He studied their appearance more closely.

They now had foreheads.

He returned his attention to the old Redform.

It placed something at his feet, and then it backed away from him.

He looked down.

A chunk of dried meat and a piece of fruit lay upon a broad leaf.

He picked up the meat, closed his eyes, bit off a piece, chewed andswallowed. He wrapped the rest in the leaf and placed it in the side pocketof his pack.

He extended his hand and the Redform drew back.

He lowered his hand, unrolled the blanket he had carried with him andspread it upon the ground. He seated himself, pointed to the Redform, thenindicated a position across from him at the other end of the blanket.

The creature hesitated, then advanced and seated itself.

"We are going to learn to talk with one another," he said slowly. Thenhe placed his hand upon his breast and said, "Jarry."

Jarry stood before the reawakened executives of December.

"They are intelligent," he told them. "It's all in my report."

"So?" asked Yan Turl.

"I don't think they will be able to adapt. They have come very far,very rapidly. But I don't think they can go much further. I don't think theycan make it all the way."

"Are you a biologist, an ecologist, a chemist?"

"No."

"Then on what do you base your opinion?"

"I observed them at close range for six weeks."

"Then it's only a feeling you have...?"

"You know there are no experts on a thing like this. It's neverhappened before."

"Granting their intelligence--granting even that what you have saidconcerning their adaptability is correct--what do you suggest we do aboutit?"

"Slow down the change. Give them a better chance. If they can't make itthe rest of the way, then stop short of our goal. It's already livable here.We can adapt the rest of the way."

"Slow it down? How much?"

"Supposing we took another seven or eight thousand years?"

"Impossible!"

"Entirely!"

"Too much!"

"Why?"

"Because everyone stands a three-month watch every two hundred fiftyyears. That's one year of personal time for every thousand. You're askingfor too much of everyone's time."

"But the life of an entire race may be at stake!"

"You do not know that for certain."

"No, I don't. But do you feel it is something to take a chance with?"

"Do you want to put it to an executive vote?"

"No--I can see that I'll lose. I want to put it before the entiremembership."

"Impossible. They're all asleep."

"Then wake them up."

"That would be quite a project."

"Don't you think the fate of a race is worth the effort? Especiallysince we're the ones who forced intelligence upon them? We're the ones whomade them evolve, cursed them with intellect."

"Enough! They were right at the threshold. They might have becomeintelligent had we not come along"

"But you can't say for certain! You don't really know! And it doesn'treally matter how it happened. They're here and we're here, and they thinkwe're gods--maybe because we do nothing for them but make them miserable. Wehave some responsibility to an intelligent race, though. At least to theextent of not murdering it."

"Perhaps we could do a long-range study..."

"They could be dead by then. I formally move, in my capacity asTreasurer, that we awaken the full membership and put the matter to a vote."

"I don't hear any second to your motion."

"Selda?" he said.

She looked away.

"Tarebell? Clond? Bondici?"

There was silence in the cavern that was high and wide about him.

"All right. I can see when I'm beaten. We will be our own serpents whenwe come into our Eden. I'm going now, back to Deadland, to finish my tour ofduty."

"You don't have to. In fact, it might be better if you sleep the wholething out..."

"No. If it's going to be this way, the guilt will be mine also. I wantto watch, to share it fully."

"So be it," said Turl.

Two weeks later, when Installation Nineteen tried to raise the DeadlandStation on the radio, there was no response.

After a time, a flier was dispatched.

The Deadland Station was a shapeless lump of melted metal.

Jarry Dark was nowhere to be found.

Later than afternoon, Installation Eight went dead.

A flier was immediately dispatched.

Installation Eight no longer existed. Its attendants were found severalmiles away, walking. They told how Jarry Dark had forced them from thestation at gunpoint. Then he had burnt it to the ground, with thefire-cannons mounted upon his flier.

At about the time they were telling this story, Installation Six becamesilent.

The order went out: MAINTAIN CONTINUOUS RADIO CONTACT WITH TWO OTHERSTATIOINS AT ALL TIMES.

The other order went out: GO ARMED AT ALL TIMES. TAKE ANY VISITORPRISONER.

Jarry waited. At the bottom of a chasm, parked beneath a shelf of rock,Jarry waited. An opened bottle stood upon the control board of his flier.Next to it was a small case of white metal.

Jarry took a long, last drink from the bottle as he waited for thebroadcast he knew would come.

When it did, he stretched out on the seat and took a nap.

When he awakened, the light of day was waning.

The broadcast was still going on...