Poul Anderson: The Long Night

Laure shook himself, as if he were cold. He continued to look at the glowing fog. “You can’t call them nonhuman on that account.”

“A question of semantics. Hardly an important one.

Except for the fact that Kirkasanters apparently are under an instinctual compulsion to have children.”

“I know,” Laure said.

And after a time: “Good thing, really. They’re a high-class breed. We could use a lot of them.”

“Your own genes are above average,” Jaccavrie said. “Maybe. What of it?”

Her voice turned alive again. “I’d like to have grandchildren,” she said wistfully.

Laure laughed. “All right,” he said. “No doubt one day you will.” The laughter was somewhat of a victory.

And now a new cycle turns on Fortune’s cosmic wheel. Another brilliant era races to its apogee. What hidden flaws will send the Commonalty spinning downward into darkness like the Empire and the League before it? Let its free and lively people prosper while they may, for as a proverb handed down from Old Earth puts it,