control its numbers, and as its technology and medical skills grew, billions of babies were born each year to parents who procreated in the blind faith that procreation was the ultimate goal of life.
The planet-girdling society became schizophrenic, rewarding fruitful parents with honors and blessings on the one hand, while tacitly condoning genocidal wars and mass murders on the other. Laws prohibited birth control while exacting the death penalty for minor theft. Scientists produced medical miracles for prolonging life and nerve poisons that could wipe out a city overnight.
The entire species was insane. Yet it continued to grow, continued to enlarge its numbers, spread across the surface of its world like a crawling, writhing cancer until it covered even the barren wastelands with cities bursting with overcrowded buildings where murder was as commonplace as birth.
And then the planet itself exacted its revenge. The air became poisonous, the oceans too fouled to support life. Glaciers crept down from the mountains to cover the land in glittering sterile ice. Life ended. The planet waited for eons before the first faint stirrings of protoplasm could begin again in a sea that had at last cleansed itself of the last traces of those who had come before.
Stoner shuddered in the darkness. He knew that the world he had just seen was real; it existed somewhere out among the starry deeps. His star brother had been there.
“Jo, we’re in a race against time. We’ve got to learn how to control our population growth. Sooner or later somebody’s going to stumble onto the technology that the starship carried, discover it independently. The biochips are only the first step in that direction. Somebody’s going to move on into nanotechnology, you know they will. If we haven’t curbed our population growth by then…”
Jo leaned back on the pillows without replying.
“If we fail, the human race dies. Not tomorrow. Not even in the next decade or two. But we’ll kill ourselves off eventually and that will be the end of humanity.”
Jo said to herself, Maybe we’d be better off dead. Most of the human race is despicable scum. What difference does it make if we survive or disappear?
But she did not voice the thought.
Turning on his side to face her, Stoner urged, “We’re close, Jo. Very close. It’s all coming to a climax. The biochips are the big test. If we can absorb that technology, use it to help the human race instead of harm it, then we’ll be ready for the final step.”
Even though his face was shadowed in darkness, Jo could feel the intensity of purpose blazing in him. She wondered if the we he spoke of referred to her, or to the others.
She tried to see his eyes in the moonlit shadows, tried to peer into his soul. Keith had worked so hard since being revived, since coming back to life after being on the alien star ship. Like a man possessed, like a saint or a holy man who saw a vision beyond what ordinary human eyes could see.
“It’s almost finished,” he repeated, in a whisper that held regret as well as anticipation. “All the threads are coming together, the task is almost complete.”
“Almost,” Jo echoed.
BANGKOK
SHE was in such excruciating pain. It was necessary to sedate her so heavily that her labor stopped altogether. The delivery team performed a caesarian section, something they had done countless times before. But once they had exposed the baby the surgical nurse gagged and slumped to the floor. The two assistants stared as if unable to turn away.
The baby was already dead, and the mother died minutes later.
Now Dr. Sarit Damrong paced nervously along the roof of the hospital, the cigarette in his shaking fingers making a small coal-red glow in the predawn darkness.
The baby had been a bloody, pulpy mess, already half eaten from within. The mother also; her abdominal cavity was an oozing hollow of half-digested organs. It was the agony of having her innards eaten alive that had
The planet-girdling society became schizophrenic, rewarding fruitful parents with honors and blessings on the one hand, while tacitly condoning genocidal wars and mass murders on the other. Laws prohibited birth control while exacting the death penalty for minor theft. Scientists produced medical miracles for prolonging life and nerve poisons that could wipe out a city overnight.
The entire species was insane. Yet it continued to grow, continued to enlarge its numbers, spread across the surface of its world like a crawling, writhing cancer until it covered even the barren wastelands with cities bursting with overcrowded buildings where murder was as commonplace as birth.
And then the planet itself exacted its revenge. The air became poisonous, the oceans too fouled to support life. Glaciers crept down from the mountains to cover the land in glittering sterile ice. Life ended. The planet waited for eons before the first faint stirrings of protoplasm could begin again in a sea that had at last cleansed itself of the last traces of those who had come before.
Stoner shuddered in the darkness. He knew that the world he had just seen was real; it existed somewhere out among the starry deeps. His star brother had been there.
“Jo, we’re in a race against time. We’ve got to learn how to control our population growth. Sooner or later somebody’s going to stumble onto the technology that the starship carried, discover it independently. The biochips are only the first step in that direction. Somebody’s going to move on into nanotechnology, you know they will. If we haven’t curbed our population growth by then…”
Jo leaned back on the pillows without replying.
“If we fail, the human race dies. Not tomorrow. Not even in the next decade or two. But we’ll kill ourselves off eventually and that will be the end of humanity.”
Jo said to herself, Maybe we’d be better off dead. Most of the human race is despicable scum. What difference does it make if we survive or disappear?
But she did not voice the thought.
Turning on his side to face her, Stoner urged, “We’re close, Jo. Very close. It’s all coming to a climax. The biochips are the big test. If we can absorb that technology, use it to help the human race instead of harm it, then we’ll be ready for the final step.”
Even though his face was shadowed in darkness, Jo could feel the intensity of purpose blazing in him. She wondered if the we he spoke of referred to her, or to the others.
She tried to see his eyes in the moonlit shadows, tried to peer into his soul. Keith had worked so hard since being revived, since coming back to life after being on the alien star ship. Like a man possessed, like a saint or a holy man who saw a vision beyond what ordinary human eyes could see.
“It’s almost finished,” he repeated, in a whisper that held regret as well as anticipation. “All the threads are coming together, the task is almost complete.”
“Almost,” Jo echoed.
BANGKOK
SHE was in such excruciating pain. It was necessary to sedate her so heavily that her labor stopped altogether. The delivery team performed a caesarian section, something they had done countless times before. But once they had exposed the baby the surgical nurse gagged and slumped to the floor. The two assistants stared as if unable to turn away.
The baby was already dead, and the mother died minutes later.
Now Dr. Sarit Damrong paced nervously along the roof of the hospital, the cigarette in his shaking fingers making a small coal-red glow in the predawn darkness.
The baby had been a bloody, pulpy mess, already half eaten from within. The mother also; her abdominal cavity was an oozing hollow of half-digested organs. It was the agony of having her innards eaten alive that had
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