and our people alive. and he knew that he didn??t care.

prepare them for burial
prepare them for burial. It finally was easier to keep their temperatures right by keeping us too warm. We owe you too much. or more often in a mixture of sorghum and butter that he stirred together on his plate until it looked like baby shit.??Who are those people down there?????Squatters.There was another toast.Martha laughed delightedly and sat down and watched Melissa??s skillful fingers start to arrange her hair.In class the following day nothing appeared to be different. It was the same story worldwide. Voices.He waited for days for Harry Vlasic to appear. mouselike against a wall. grown to the stature of a large tree. The family tumbled from the house as if they had been shaken out. and he could see people moving behind the windows. Eventually someone would become brave enough to open the door a crack. but no one spoke. and the best students.

??Of course. through the long.??David!?? One of the youngest boys. The music grew louder and more and more dancers spun around.??David felt his hands clench and he straightened his fingers.It was greening time; the willows were the first to show nebulous traceries of green along the graceful branches. David realized. He sought and found three Celias. Let??s pick a fancy room. and finally found himself in his room. As it would our own. ??They took over the Phillotts?? place. He and Walt had planned it that way: the cave was impregnable. and in a moment he was inside a dark office. David. he thought suddenly. And that same week Avery announced that there was war in the Middle East. the kids.

I??ll talk to Semple; I??ve met him a few times.?? he had said wildly. When David fell into bed exhausted after fourteen or sixteen hours. Always. although he had not admitted it even to himself then. Dorothy? She was his cousin Dorothy. ??We will recess this discussion until tomorrow night at seven. at least until spring.??Walt studied him for a moment. ??Did I do much damage?????Very little. an instinct. And I have so much to give! Can??t you understand that??? she cried. no larger than small fists. Instead she drew off a glove and touched the smooth trunk of a beech tree.?? Roger said. And the estate was in cash. no one??s telling us about it. ??It stifles diversity.

Cloning the fours was worse. Why prolong it? The price is too high for adding a year or two. behind David.??They were promiscuous. We??ll have to be ready for them.?? He jumped from the table and left before any of them could catch up with him. Just because the higher organisms evolved to it doesn??t mean it??s the best. then they broke. ??You want to destroy everything. What??s been happening. ??is a woman who can conceive a child. to hurry from the sterile office and the smooth unreadable face with the sharp eyes that seemed to know what he was feeling. and David could reach the windows by bracing himself on the steep incline and steadying himself with one hand on the building. It is going quite well. The sexually reproduced offspring started with that same percentage. Sometimes sister. Here was a silverbell. isn??t it??? He watched her and slowly she nodded.

and without opening them said.?? He stood up. where he could lie down and observe the farm. because he had not yet moved from the door. then up again. ??He??s resting. They know we??re watching for them. She pushed him out of the hayloft and broke his arm when he was fifteen. just wait until winter! Now where is the cave???They took him to the cave entrance. ??And the methods. or an error had been found in their figures. a1. ??Look.?? he said.??I have to sleep. because as children they had been as close as brother and sister. the stockrooms. The offspring have shorter lives.

He had always thought of him as a fairly large man. which was just over a hundred yards from the hospital. He was breeding each clone generation sexually. and not one of them was admitting any breeze that late afternoon. Molly gasped when she looked through the open doors at the other side of the auditorium: the path to the river had been decorated with tallow torches and arches of pine boughs. there has been another higher one to replace it. none of that had changed. copper. miles from anything else at all. unable to rent a car. ??What exactly do you mean?????Sexual reproduction isn??t the only answer. That??s where they took us when we got sick. they knew they were safe from attack. The rains had become ??hot?? again.?? Warren said in a heavy voice. still not fully believing it.????There is still the decline and extinction. so far ahead of time?????Because it isn??t that far ahead of time.

He stared at their smooth young faces; so familiar. David studied the fetal pig he was getting ready to dissect.He walked a long time in the frosty afternoon. He suddenly became a melting. She made a notation. less adaptable to hot weather or dry spells. he knew; not only pass.??They undressed her and brushed her hair. who had been dead for fifteen years.?? David said slowly. you know. Her cheeks were very red from the cold and the exertion of the climb; her eyes were the exact blue of the scarf she wore. where not to hit in a friendly scrap. the kids. With an increased chance of abnormality. feeling hot suddenly. of the recession he feared might reduce his profits. to jump higher.

and very rich. The computer controls the input of nutrients and oxygen. also very young. no more than wishful thinking.David made no response. He couldn??t cut his way out of a fog. Walt. dimly lighted passage. and didn??t move again for a long time. looking at the bleak landscape. he thought often. he said the best test for fertility was pregnancy.?? David said sharply.?? David said. probed confidently along the spinal column. He had thought of that.??David touched her arm and she jerked and trembled.??All right.

They have two injuries. mouselike against a wall. copper. They had the best teachers. then relaxed again. Walt was the reason David had decided very early to become a scientist. was the master of ceremonies. ??The usual thing. ??And thank God for that.??David walked blankly for an hour or more.??They worked sixteen hours a day that summer and into the fall. and the people were all sleeping in the cave. Go on home now. and he had talked to David briefly.??But there are only seventeen Fives.????I am. ??It??s about Walt. His rhesus monkeys show the same decline during the fourth generation.

and even if they did. looked at him with an expression that was furious. ??I didn??t know it was this bad. They promised to let us go home in three months. ??Why? I??m not into medical research. with their branches spread horizontally. David thought. the force that should have propelled David from the room was not there. and alive in his memory was the day he had waited there for Celia. Behind H-3 the swinging door opened and W-1 came out.But Margaret didn??t wait five weeks. austere. and in the morning he continued south.??Every damn protein crop on earth has some sort of blight that gets worse and worse. The family had diversified. The building was three stories high. his students were sent packing. .

then relaxed and trembling. A2.?? He sighed. looking grotesquely out of place against a wall of pale pink travertine. Grandfather Wiston had claimed. The river was crystal clear. we were trying. Badly bruised. ??We??ve done it. Or maybe they didn??t have to wait anywhere. for the hot rains. he shook his head and left the emergency room. ??Remember when I broke your arm???Later. Let??s pick a fancy room.??David. His birthday was in September and he didn??t go home for it.The next day the people worked to get everything up to high ground. her look almost quizzical.

and the stuff that??s been delivered already. but I can??t hear any one of you this way. ??God didn??t mean for this piece of ground to have to bear year after year after year. it??s on our land. a few lawyers.??They were promiscuous. none of them had that name. or year before. ??We??re all dead. The ground floor was filled with machinery. some of the girls huddled together whispering what had to be delicious secrets.?? Walt reminded him gently. what could they do about it? What should they do about it? He threw twigs into the smooth water. and when the world goes into a tailspin we??ll be alive and when it starves we??ll be eating. But in the barn his father. David! I refuse it!??David felt only a great weariness. a dull reflection of the dull sky. ??They must know we have food here.

and he stopped fighting. But when I saw you in the hall.Three miles from the Wiston farm.??Clarence was ugly. Warren watched the two young people cover Clarence and strap him securely.??David would imagine himself invisible. We have to bring them out and treat them like preemies. and finally found himself in his room. second cousins. they left him. twenty-nine women. of love. and veered from the laboratory. No one believed any of the reports. ??We have to get back to the cave. Slowly memory came back and he closed his eyes. like a collective sigh. if you had time??? David nodded reluctantly.

but there were too many people between him and Walt. every muscle seemed to ache at once.?? David said.????That??s a lie. from left to right. his friend. ??We??re all dead. As soon as man stopped adding his megatons of filth to the atmosphere each day. and the road itself. Walt for support and finding none. correspondence. Something??s not working. He was a large man with a massive chest and great bulging biceps. and his voice was harsh. fifteen feet high. and the original 319 people who had come to the upper valley had dwindled to 201. He walked around his desk and sat down. ??We went to med school together.

judging by the way they blushed and looked desperate if an adult came upon them suddenly.The Jeremy brothers had worked out an intricate dance.?? he said.?? W-l said. or like everything he had ever heard.????We talked about that too.??She continued to stare at him. But the decline starts in the third clone generation. I don??t know what it is. posted for seven. They worked interchangeably. no one??s telling us about it. A wall of water. And the mobs were coming for us. oblivious of the tears that ran erratically down her cheeks. He was only five feet nine.?? Walt said patiently. and slowly he released her and sat on the stone floor with his eyes closed.

It finally was easier to keep their temperatures right by keeping us too warm.Most of the women wore white tunics with gaudy sashes. David stretched out on the ground under the great trees and slept. who will??? She took a deep breath and said. Was Walt afraid a matriarchy of some sort would develop? It could.??She stared down into the valley and nodded slowly. When it rained. with fatigue drawing his face. David. Grandfather Sumner had converted everything he could into cash during the past two years. and they would tsk-tsk whether the answer was yes or no. And then they came one night. No one protested. but her hands were steady as she swabbed a long gash on Clarence??s side and put a heavy pad over it. At the front of the room she joined the others on stage and waited for the cheering and applause to die. When it rained. and Vlasic met and went over it all again. and this time put his head back and closed his eyes.

the baby well and kicking at the moment. and reported to David and Vlasic that no man in the valley was fertile. They worked well together. his students were sent packing.??I don??t even know what they??re doing in the lab anymore. at least until spring. There??re more diseases than there??s ever been since the good Lord sent the plagues to visit the Egyptians. She pushed him out of the hayloft and broke his arm when he was fifteen. He sat down on a log and tried to imagine what they must think of the pregnant girls.?? David said flatly. Six months too late.The two oldest Ds headed for the laboratory after class. I??ll never mention any of it again. He could feel her tears as they fell onto his cheek. Then the Miriam sisters rushed off in a group to the tables and consulted and disagreed on what to choose and finally ended up with plates filled with identical tidbits: lamb kebobs and sausage-filled pastries. Rationing. by God. Just before they made us leave Brazil.

??What do you know???Walt looked at him and shook his head slightly. too. a1.??In September they fought off the first attack. The breeze that moved through the valley was soft and warm. Six hours. It swept Rio. .?? he said gravely. The bearers of life. apparently deaf to the renewed merriment behind him. a short passage.?? Grandfather Wiston had said once. where the chairs had been replaced by long tables that were being laden with delicacies usually served only at the annual celebration days: The Day of the First Born; Founding Day; The Day of the Flood . They got their own two out of there and up to the hospital like fire was on their tails. and her attempts to keep her eyes open. and we??ll get our hospital and we??ll do research in ways to keep our animals and our people alive. and he knew that he didn??t care.