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ravaged; it had seemed for a time that even the ingenuity, technology and
power of the New Hexamon itself could not make the situation right.
Yet, as Lenore--his wife of four years--reminded him during his worst, most
discouraged moments, "They managed to climb back up even without our
help---our presence has to make things move faster."
But even hope and the prospects of a brighter future could not take the edge
off, or reduce the bitter gall of what he saw in the course of a single day's
surveying.
India, Africa, Australia and New Zealand and much of South America had emerged
from the Death with minor damage. North America, Russia and
Europe had been practically sterilized. China had lost a quarter of its
population in the nuclear exchange;' another two-thirds had died of starvation
during the Long Winter, which was subsiding only now, with help from the
orbiting precinct. Southeast Asia had crumbled into anarchy and revolution
and genocide; the destruction there was almost as complete.
Ashes, barren plains, snow-covered valleys and hills soon to become glaciers;
scudding gray, snow-thick clouds casting black shadows over fallow earth;
continents given over to bacteria and cockroaches and ants, and among these
new ecologies, a few scattered animals who had once called themselves human
beings, who had once lived in comfortable houses and known the basics of
electrical wiring and taken newspapers and subscribed to provincial points of
view about reality .
. .
Who had once had time for the luxury of thought.
It was heartbreaking. Heineman came to think of his kind--the engineers and
scientists and technicians of the Earth---as the very tools of Satan himself.
His latent Christianity returned with a vengeance. He knew he severely tried
Lenore's patience, but from his meandering visions of apocalypse and angels
and resurrection he could at least take some solace, find meaning, and search
for destiny and
God's plan. If he had once been an agent of Satan, now--without switching
occupations he was an agent of the angels, of those who would transform Earth
into paradise ....
Lenore tried, again and again, to point out that engineers were as much
responsible for saving the Earth as for destroying it. Without the orbital
platforms and the whole paraphernalia of space-based defense, the Earth would
have been wiped utterly clean of life; the NATO and
Soviet platforms managed to destroy some forty percent of all missiles.
Not enough, not enough . . .
And how many children, how many animals, how many innocent and-But, Lenore
would counter, no one born with a mouth and a need is innocent
....
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She was often right, Of course.
The masters he served now were not perfect, hardly angelic.
They 'were intelligent, powerful, reasonable; their leaders lacked the
ignorant erratic blindness of Earth's leaders. But they still differed with
each other, sometimes strongly.
So Heineman, with his wife, flew the skies of Earth and charted the damage,
and hoped for a day when grasses would grow and flowers bloom, when snows
would recede and the air would be clear of radioactivity.
He worked hard for that day.
And he was faithful to his new masters, for he was born again in more ways
than one. On his first day back on Earth, he had suffered a fatal heart
attack.
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Larry Heineman was on his second body. Lenore assured him it was better than
his first.
He had his doubts, but it certainly felt better.
New Zealand dusk, with another spectacular sunset in the offing.
Overhead, the large beacon of the Thistledown rose clear and unobscured, and
not far away, the speeding point of the orbiting precincts crossed the sky in
the opposite direction.
Garry Lanier emerged from the Talsit tent and saw Karen Lanier speaking with a
group of farmers at the camp fence.
The farmers had brought their children to the camp two weeks before for
Talsit cleansing; they, at least, would not give birth to monsters, or suffer
the long-term effects of radiation poisoning. But for the adults, there was
still much suspicion and distrust; the early rumors of alien invasions and
hordes of sky-traveling devils had seemed peculiarly convincing in the
aftermath of the world's end. Karen's obvious pregnancy--six months
along--did much to reassure them they were dealing with real human beings.
Lanier still had not told their story to any Earth-bound survivors.
Who could absorb such an incredible and complicated tale when one's thoughts
were on simple survival and the health of one's children, or sheep, or
townspeople?
He stood with his hands in his overalls pockets and watched Karen talking
quietly with the shepherds. They had lived and worked together since
returning to Earth and had married two years ago. Their life was busy, and
they were good for each other, but . . .
He was not yet content, not yet free of the manifold neuroses he had picked up
in the past decade. At least he could feel the edges of his mental wounds
puckering and healing, scarring up, perhaps even smoothing away.
Lanier only took physical Talsit sessions to cleanse his body; they were
required at least every six months to prevent ill effects from the atmospheric
radiation. He did not indulge in mental Talsit, whatever
Olmy's urging; he was, after all, a rugged individualist, and he would rather
accomplish those things on his own.
In a few months, he and Karen, if they could be spared from their labor here,
would join Hoffman and Olmy and perhaps even Larry and Lenore.
They would reload their temporary implants with new training, new data, and
work with Earth's corprep, Rosen Gardner, and Earth's senator, Prescient Oyu,
to coordinate the massive task of cleansing the atmosphere and reorganizing
the survivors.
Paradoxically, the Naderites would soon have to deal with the.
infant cries of their own creed, which was rapidly gaining power in areas not
yet touched by the reconstruction.
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