George sat down beneath the periscope and panted. ‘We’re through?’ he said, half inquiring, half asserting.
‘At this irrevocable point in history,’ said Morning, ‘not one human being exists anywhere – with the frail and tentative exception of this boat.’
The hermit crab had left his shell. He was a shivering mass of tender protoplasm. ‘Nobody can ride a mechanical horse.’
‘True.’
‘Or see the Big Dipper.’
‘Correct.’
‘Or take acting lessons.’
He was weeping now, copiously, and he could not tell whether his tears were for Justine, Holly, the Frenchman who had clawed the potato out of the ground, the Iranian school teacher who had died of louse-borne typhus, the last woman on earth…
Morning knelt beside the hurt man. She hugged him and dried his tears.
He returned her embrace. His bullet wound throbbed like a castanet grafted to his stomach. As if to stop the spasms, he reached into his shirt. His fingers touched glass, and slowly he withdrew his Leonardo.
‘Look at this,’ he said, licking his tears. ‘It’s you. And me. And our child.’
‘I don’t understand. Are you an artist?’
‘I told you about it before. The painter was Leonardo da Vinci. You know – the man with the vulture complex.’
‘A forgery, right?’
‘An original Leonardo – inspired by the brilliant prophet Nostradamus. It predicts the future. See? Holly’s stepsister is coming. You’ll be the mother.’
She took the slide. Light ascended from the glass and ignited her blue-green eyes. ‘It really does look like me. Spooky.’
‘It’s you.’
‘And the child…?’
‘If Justine had gotten pregnant again, we would have named the baby Aubrey. Have you ever had a child?’
‘No.’
‘They do all these amazing things.’
‘I’ve never been married. Aubrey?’
‘Aubrey Paxton.’
‘Pretty name.’
‘And there will be others. Aubrey’s brothers and sisters. Holly always wanted a sister.’
‘Why would anybody want to bring children into—?’
‘Into this world? I may not know about psychology or sundeath, Dr Valcourt, but I did learn something at the Crippen Monument Works. Our children will take whatever world they can get.’
‘You’re sterile.’
‘I have reason to believe the condition is not permanent.’
‘Next you’ll be saying we have the power to restore the race.’
Justine Paxton had frequently accused her husband of lacking ambition. She should hear what I’m about to say, he thought. ‘Maybe we do.’ (Maybe they did!) ‘Maybe it’s one of those unexpected effects of nuclear war you’re always talking about. Your own fertility is…?’
‘No problems that I know about.’ She hefted the slide, ran her fingertips over the tiny bumps and furrows of paint. ‘Where did you get this thing?’
‘A civilian passenger. Nadine Covington. Her blood is black.’
‘Black?’
‘Like ink.’
‘I doubt that she can be trusted.’
‘I trust her.’
Without unlocking arms, they stood up. Again they embraced. George took his Leonardo back and departed with the words ‘restore the race’ ringing in his ears. There, you see, my poor, extinct Justine? You did not marry a lazy man after all.
The extinction of one’s own species is an event not easily comprehended. Only by using Periscope Number One privately, over and over, did George begin to grasp the contours of the event. He studied his planet for hours on end, rubbing his nose in oblivion. He even looked at the stars. Nothing. Nothing save the burned land, the poisoned water, the harsh stillness, the rare clam, the occasional roach, the intermittent swatch of grass, the clusters of salt-pickled corpses floating in the South Atlantic timefolds like barges of flesh.
Brian Overwhite was wrong. The human mind can accommodate anything. Some parents beat their children. Auschwitz. Sundeath. It’s just blood, the mind says. It’s only pain. It’s merely putting people into ovens. It’s simply the end of the world…
Long ago, George’s grandfather had died on the last day of June, an event that had plunged the family into a quandary. Should they hold the usual Fourth of July picnic? George’s grandfather loved the Fourth of July. He always built cherry-bomb-tipped skyrockets for the occasion, deploying them against a balsa wood model of Fort McHenry. During the battle, the family would sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ while toy frigates shot marbles at the ramparts and the cherry bombs detonated around a tattered little American flag.
The solution to the dilemma came from George’s Aunt Isabel. ‘Daddy would want us to celebrate,’ she asserted. ‘Daddy would be angry at us if we didn’t have a good time,’ she insisted.
The picnic happened, and with a vengeance. Horseshoes flew, beer flowed, banjos sang, chickens vanished without a trace, blueberry pies were reported missing in action, and rockets glared redly over Fort McHenry. Everyone agreed that Aunt Isabel had made the right decision.
And so it was that whenever Chief Petty Officer Rush brought the dinner menu around, George always checked off the most opulent and sauce-laden dishes. He began frequenting the Silver Dollar Casino, making wild, Scotch-inspired bets at the blackjack table. The invitation to Captain Sverre’s banquet sent waves of joyous anticipation – food! coffee! dessert! – through his body.
‘Your species would want you to celebrate,’ he told himself. ‘Your species would be angry at you if you didn’t have a good time,’ he decided.
Swathed in velvet drapes, lit by crystal chandeliers, the main mess hall of the City of New York proved just how tasteful and sophisticated defense spending could be. The banquet itself, by contrast, followed the gaudy lines of Imperial Rome, with an eye to Babylon and a nod to Gomorrah – gold plates, bejeweled goblets. The tablecloth was thick enough to blot a liter of priceless wine without leaving a drop. The serving staff – a dozen seamen and noncorns – patrolled the borders in their dress blues, pushing carts brimming with slabs of ham, planks of beef, heaps of bread, cauldrons of soup, and pots of satiny black coffee.
Ceramic dolphins held the place cards. George ended up between Overwhite and Reverend Sparrow – in the crossfire of a debate over the STABLE II treaty. (Evidently one of Sparrow’s broadcasts had figured decisively in the US Senate’s decision not to ratify this agreement.) Sadness and confusion enveloped his friends like gray scopas suits – the human extinction was not sitting well with them. Wengernook sucked on an unlit cigarette. Randstable built strange perpetual-motion devices out of the silverware and then knocked them over. Brat was down to about a hundred and thirty pounds. Overwhite’s beard looked mangy. Sparrow’s voluminous smile had wilted. They should all go see Mrs Covington, George decided. They should find out about their futures.
At the far end of the table Captain Sverre spoke with a civilian, a small, raffish fellow who managed to look youthful and eminent at the same time. Between remarks they stuffed themselves in gluttonous rivalry, Sverre favoring ham, the young man specializing in roast beef. Sverre’s gin bottle sat faithfully at his elbow. Gravy stains bloomed on the young man’s dark suit.