EXTRATERRESTRIAL TRILOGUE ON TERRAN SELF-DESTRUCTION by Sheri S. Eberhart
The ever-more-pressing probability of planetwide overpopulation is both more real and less remote than it may appear. Certainly, for the smog-breathers of the great centers of modem civilization, as for the emergent peoples of the world’s “underdeveloped” areas, the pressures of the new population explosion are daily more evident. And as the cities grow out, and the primitives grow up, the room in the middle grows steadily less. Each new medical discovery, every agricultural advance, every increment in social security, every headhunter converted to some gentler philosophy, each “international incident” settled however precariously without resort to all-out war — each one of these and a score of other proofs of our progress, adds measurably, if minutely, to the factor by which our fruitfulness constantly multiplies.
The problem, of course, is new only in scope, and (through Malthus back to Moses, and no doubt before) in the more limited test cases, it has proved, drastically, self-regulating. Unless new land was found for the overflow, war, famine, and pestilence have always cut problem and population both down to size.
The recent historical alternatives are especially familiar to Denver’s Regional CARE Director, Sheri Eberhart. An ex-saleswoman, — secretary, — draftswoman, and — pottery-painter, she also became an ex-short-story-writer when after two sales, and “enough rejections to paper a wall” her daughter advised her to quit because, “You don’t think like a grown-up.” Mrs. Eberhart promptly turned to children’s plays — including a handclapping version of the Pentateuch (The Beat Bible), which has made her the swing-ingest Sunday School teacher in town.
Three creatures sat on the sands of Mars,
and the first, to the ancient twiddling bars
that the second played on a twalreg flute
sang a canal lay most convolute,
while the third, with his horn in the sand, sat mute,
considering the stars.
At last the second stilled his fife,
and the third twonged out (his voice was rife
with a hint of fear) “Do you know that there,
where the third planet spins in its veil of air,
I’m convinced there’s a spot, a jot, a hair,
a widge, perhaps, of life.”
The first began an amusement dance,
while the second, fourth eyes crossed, askance,
skibbed with extreme severity,
“You ought to watch your tongues,” quoth he.
“One should not affront the Deity
by mentioning such chance.
“For years our scientists have spent
their time in the establishment
of reasons why the life we know
could not exist above, below,
or any place but here! They show
that fact self evident.”
Just then their eyes were caught, aghast,
for where the air-veiled planet passed
a ball of fire had blossomed wide,
and holocausts together vied
to rip the ravened globe aside
with nothing left at last.
Murmured the first, “You will allow,
by every old and sacred vow,
this proves my point and proves it well.
Those pyrotechnics must compel
you to recant!” The third said, “Hell,
it doesn’t matter now.”
And they sat back down on the sands of Mars
to hear the ancient, twiddling bars
of a Martian dirge or the twalreg flute,
in troches old and dissolute,
while the third, with his horn in the sand, sat mute,
considering the stars.
ТЕЛЕГРАМКанал с обзорами, анонсами новинок и книжными подборками
Книжный Вестник
Бот для удобного поиска и скачивания книг
Книжный Бот
Свежие любовные романы в удобных форматах
Любовные романы
О психологии, саморазвитии и личностном росте
Саморазвитие
Детективы и триллеры, все новинки
Детективы
Фантастика и фэнтези, все новинки
Фантастика
ВКОНТАКТЕ