Clifford Simak - Our Children's Children

"In a short while," said Howard, "there may be no need. One tunnel has shut down of itself. There will be others of them. In a few hours, maybe, all of them."

"I hope not," said the President. "No matter what else happens, no matter what problems they may bring us, I can't help but hope all the people do get through."

Kim stuck her head in' the door. "Mr. Gale is here, sir."

"OK. Send him in."

Gale came into the room. He half-stumbled as he walked, across the room, then stiffened and marched up to within a few feet of the desk. His face was haggard.

"I am so sorry, sir," he said. "I can't properly express the regrets of myself or of my people. We thought we had taken safeguards."

"Please sit down, Mr. Gale," said the President. "You can help us now. We need your help."

Gale sat carefully in the chair. "You mean about the alien. You want to know more about it. I could have told you more this afternoon, but there was so much to tell and I never thought…"

"I'll accept your word for that. You did make provisions to guard against what happened. Perhaps you did the best you could. Now we need your help to find this creature. We need to know something about its habits, what we can expect. We have to hunt it down."

"Luckily," said Reynolds, "there is only one of them. When we get it…"

"It is unfortunately," said Gale, "not as lucky as you think. The aliens are bisexual creatures…"

"You mean…"

"That's exactly what I mean," said Gale. "The young are hatched from eggs. Any of the adults can lay fertilized eggs. And lay them in great numbers. Once hatched, the young need no care, or at least are given no care and…"

"Then," said the President, "we must find it before it starts laying eggs."

"That is right," said Gale, "although I fear you may be too late already. From what we know of them, I would suspect that the creature would start laying eggs within a few hours after its emergence from the tunnel. It would recognize the crisis. You must, first of all, disabuse yourself of any thoughts you may have suggesting that the aliens are no more than monsters. They are a great deal more than that. They are highly intelligent. Their mental and physical processes are geared to a ritualistic violence — at least we think it's ritualistic — but that doesn't mean they're stupid. This creature knows that it's the sole representative of its species in this particular time, and it will realize, as well, that it may remain the only one, that the future of the species in this time bracket may rely upon it alone. This will not be an intellectual realization only, but I would suspect, from what I know of them, that its body will realize and respond to the situation as well and that all its physical resources will be aimed at producing eggs, as many eggs as it can manage. Furthermore, realizing that eventually it will be hunted down and slain and that the nests of eggs will be hunted as well, it will scatter its clutches of eggs over as much territory as it can. It will seek out desolate and uninhabited spots in which to make its nests, it will hide them carefully, it will locate them in the least accessible spots. It is fighting, you understand, not only for itself, but for the species. Perhaps not at all for itself, but only for the species."

The other four in the office sat in stricken silence. Finally the President stirred uneasily and spoke. "You give us no chance, then, of finding it before it has laid its eggs."

"I would think there is no chance at all," said Gale. "It probably already has laid some of them. It will continue laying them. I suppose I should give you some hope, if for no other reason than to lighten my own guilt, the guilt of my people. But it would be unfair to tell you less than truth. I am very sorry, sir."

"I would suspect," said the 'President, "that it might be heading for the mountains. But that supposition is based only on my knowledge there are mountains to the west."

"It would know as well," said Gale. "It has as good a geographical knowledge of this area as any of us here. The geography is the same five hundred years into the future as it is today."

"Then," said the President, "assuming that it would have headed for the mountains, we must not only head it off, but we will have to give some thought to evacuating the people from that area as well."

"You're thinking nuclear," said Wilson. "Blanketing the area with bombs. You can't do that, sir. Only as a last resort and perhaps not even then. The tonnage would have to be massive and the fallout…"

"You're jumping to conclusions, Steve. I agree with you- only as a last resort and perhaps not even then."

"There is one thing I must speak of," said Gale. "Do not underestimate the enemy. Either its intelligence or its ferocity. It is a killer. Even with great odds against it, it still is a killer. Now, under these circumstances, it probably will try to avoid confrontation, will run rather than fight, will try to keep itself alive to build up whatever margin it can for the survival of the species. But get it into a corner and it will strike back. You see, it doesn't mind dying. It has no fear of death."

The President nodded gravely. "I appreciate that," he said. "But there is something else."

"Anything," said Gale.

"You told us your people could supply us with specifications for the building of the tunnels."

"That is true," said Gale.

"The point is this," said the President. "If we are to do anything at all we should do it quickly. If we delay, a dangerous social and economic, not to say political, situation may build up. I am sure that you can understand this. And this matter of the monster has given us even less time than I thought we had. For that reason it seems to me important that we have the specifications and talk with your people who can explain them to us as soon as possible."

"Mr. President," said Reynolds, "we have less than two hours to get your talk shaped up."

"Certainly," said the President. "I am sorry to have held you up. Steve, you can stay a moment, please."

"Thank you, sir," said Howard, following Reynolds toward the door.

"Now, where were we?" said the President. "Oh, yes, I was saying that we need to get to work on the matter of the tunnels. I plan to have some of our physicists and engineers come in and confer with your people…"

"Does that mean, sir, that you will help us?"

"I would think so, Mr. Gale, although at the moment I'm in no position to make a positive commitment. But I don't see much else that we can do. We can't keep you here. We can't possibly absorb you into our population. It would wreck our economy. The first step would seem to be to talk with your physicists and find out what's involved-what kind of fabrications we will need, what kind of engineering, how much labor. Until we know that, we can't do any planning. And there's the matter, as well, of selecting sites."

"We have that all worked out," said Gale. "Our geologists have made a study, as well as is possible, of the Miocene terrain. It would be an easy matter to have a tunnel emerge above an oceanic arm or in the middle of a lake or a volcanic area. Stable land surfaces have been pinpointed and mapped out. We can't be entirely sure, of course, but our people, operating within their best knowledge, have done at least the preliminary work."

"Then," said the President, "we won't have to worry about that. But we do need something to get started on."

"The men you want to talk with," said Gale, "were among the first to come through the tunnel. I presume they are wherever you have been taking the people who came from the Virginia tunnel."

"Fort Myer," said the President. "Or at least the most of them went there. The army set up a number of inflatable shelters."

"I can give you their names," said Gale, "but I'll have to go with whoever is sent to contact them. Without me, they'd refuse to come. You can understand our situation, sir. We could take no chances of our men or their information falling into other than official hands."