Part 36 (1/2)

>From the tone more than her words, Kalus knew that he had stung her, and that she did not quite forgive him. Again he felt that she was holding him responsible for the harshness of his world, as if it were somehow his fault. Again the chasm opened between them, and now he was too tired to fight it. Imperceptibly he shook his head, breathed out, and returned his attention to the sh.o.r.eline.

They were now less than a mile out, and the half-forgotten, ruinous landscape once more absorbed them.

All was flat on a large scale, and crumpled on a small: hard, bitter rock like cubes set on edge, careening madly this way and that. Within its valleys were patches of earth, green with gra.s.s and weeds, punctured ever and again by corroded girders and iron masonry-bars, to which clung bits of ornamental stone and naked, crumbling concrete. Trees were scarce and never large, their greatest numbers cl.u.s.tered in isolated patches a short distance from the coast, which seemed to have received the largest deposits of earth.

Sylviana easily saw what she had always known, that the skyline of Manhattan had been built upon solid bedrock. For this reason alone had the Island survived at all, blasted as it must have been by successive nuclear explosions. And with this she realized suddenly where the deposits of earth had come from. Besides the fact that the continental coast had been ravaged..... Long Island was gone! Just GONE. Nothing but ocean stretched eastward as far as the eye could see.

And this made her see, vividly, what she had hitherto thought of and imagined as little as possible. While her father had whisked her away and put her to sleep, like an enchanted princess, in the Canadian Rockies, an entire world had been pounded and burned to death. And the remote, less habited places of the globe had been no better off, their children, both man and animal alike, left to die and distort in the slower ravages of radiation poisoning. She did not even know how her father had protected her from the fallout, or indeed, if he had been able. Horrible thought! Would she one day die of cancer, too?

The only comfort, and it wasn't much, was that it had all happened so long ago: that the hurts had long since been healed. But what was Time, really? Had the Island forgotten? The grim hunks of marble, were they not tombstones, the remains of a pillaged graveyard? Were the gnarled trees not alive with the ghosts of the past? She could not elude the pain, or the bludgeoning sense of complicit guilt.

Had he wanted to, Kalus could have torn her apart in those moments merely by pointing, as if to say. 'Is this the humanity you mock me with? Is this the world and way of life I should mourn?' But he said nothing because he, too, seeing her spirit crushed so completely, felt through her the reality and pain of the score of books she had read to him, and realized that every book ever written was but a grain of sand in the vast desert of human struggles and emotions. Six billion intelligent beings at once sharing the globe. . .and then this. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, and s.h.i.+eld her forever from the horror.

But he could not. 'I wish this day would end,' was the best he could manage.

But the day would not end. For good or ill, there remained yet one more scene for them to witness. And this, a vision of the inextinguishable nature of life, was in that hour both a joy and an indescribable sadness to behold. As the boat rounded a high promontory, a hidden inlet was revealed to them. Sylviana gasped, and Kalus lifted his spear in alarm.

But there was no danger. No physical danger at least.

Thirty-three naked human forms sat, or stood, or lay placidly like seals among the rocks and mossy earth of a steep embankment, with the ruins of the United Nations building standing in broken silhouette behind them.

And before them, in the deep and still waters of the inlet, a dozen fins and sleek backs rested peacefully while others moved, as if on guard, among the waters farther out. It was impossible that the whales, at least, should be unaware of their slowly logging craft; but apparently some understanding had been reached. The guards came no closer, and the Children showed no fear.

And children they truly were: none exceeded the age of sixteen. Their bodies had no hair, only the scruffy heads and thick eyebrows, the straggle of mane down neck and spine---all curly blond and brown. Their cream-colored skin was smooth and tough, and the eyes of all resembled more closely the eyes of a statue than any human's. Indeed, their very placidness was almost cold, animal in its indifference. Upon closer inspection an abnormality of the hands and feet could be seen.

The fingers were long, bony and webbed, like the sea-creatures they were, the feet slightly longer and similarly arrayed.

But in the face of all contradictory evidence, Sylviana clung with sudden conviction to the belief (perhaps unfounded) that inside them remained some spark of humanity, and a soul that might somehow be wakened.

But who would wake it? They had tarried here in their winter home long enough, and must soon return to the seal rich waters of the North.

Perhaps they would return again in autumn; perhaps they would move on. Though she could not have known this, Sylviana hung her head in unknown harmony.

At last as the day wore thin, they reached a tenable stretch of beach, and in the failing light safely landed the water-soaked craft. The smallish waves could not overturn its heavy bulk, which now served them.

They dragged it as far ash.o.r.e as they could, which wasn't far, and lit a fire to replace the sunken sun. There in the lee of a group of rocks they huddled together and slept in the sand, unable yet to think of tomorrow.

They slept, and dreamed, in sorrow.

Chapter 37

The next day brought unexpected hope. As the sun rose, dazzling, across the vast Atlantic, one of its urchins stood up among the wave-ends and stepped cautiously ash.o.r.e.