“We may wind up a herd of cows after all,” I countered darkly.
He shrugged. “Starts are starts. Man was at an end. Now we start him again. I leave it to generations un-born to do it again differently. In two years, maybe less man will know he’s a dinosaur. In three, that’s what he’ll be. And man will be the Chosen, starting new.”
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“We could get shot out of the sky on the second try,” I noted.
He shook his head. “Oh, no. We’ve come too far done too much. This is what had to happen. Bar!’ Nobody would have accepted it until now, but I knew I’ve always known. We’ll win. Bar! We were destined to win! That’s why all this has happened. God works in mysterious ways. His wonders to performi”
Twenty
And, of course, you know he was right. I still haven’t been able to accept George’s ideas of God and destiny but we seeded almost half the human worlds before anybody really caught on; we hit all hundred and four before we were through.
The ships and personnel that took off and landed helped us, carried the virus faster than we could.
They finally did surrender when they realized just how extensive the seeding was. They’d killed a lot of us. But of the original twelve hundred, some four hundred and eighty survived.
A much better percentage than that of humanity when it Changed.
But, that’s all right, too. George knew more about the virus than anybody, and when the top scientists of humanity themselves were Choz, they took his brilliant work and amplified it.
The social system’s still in flux, of course. Not everyone is a revolutionary or a world-beater. Still, it’s a new age, and, as George predicted, it was a new beginning.
And there were robots, and there were computers, to help design new devices, new ways of adapting things of technology, factories, and salve jars, to Choz form and requirements.
So here we are, a race of near-immortals, a race more in control of its body and its destiny than any one human ever could have been.
Oh, there are still some humans about. Some of
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them in ships, stations, and the like who held out as we held out, but who could not hold out forever. We’ve managed almost total control of the virus now;
the few thousand remaining humans were protected from it, and a small colony remains, a curiosity in the backwaters of history.
The corporations collapsed, of course. A Choz is totally self-sufficient if it has an adequate food supply.
In a way, Moses’ plans for humanity were carried out, although I’m sure not to the result he intended.
We often think of that as we’re out in the unknown sectors, looking for new worlds to conquer, looking for a new race with a different culture, an alien race that is no longer as frightening as it was. It’s out there the odds say it is.
Moses is out there, too, of course, and he did have organic material to work with. We worry about that a lot; there might well be another race of proto-Choz out there, one not to our liking. We’re ready for it, I think. Ready and waiting.
I say “we” of course. Oh, I could have been the leader of this new order, but that’s more in George’s line. I’m just happy that many of my children, including Eve, are so prominent in building the new society.
As for mewell, things are rather too hectic, too confused in a program so total, so complete.
I like being out with the stars, out finding new worlds, making those first discoveries.
And I’m not alone. Marsha pulled through, incredibly, by willpower alone. Pulled through and waited, a helpless cripple, the three agonizing years until the new Choz science could produce a massive regeneration.
So there it isthe oral record everybody’s wanted of what happened from the great Bar Holliday’s point of view. Do with it what you will, judge me as you will; I’ll be out among my stars, looking for what no-body’s seen before.
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With the stars, a good ship, and Marsha, I have what/waS.Yougo find your own place in the scheme
of things. Just remember:
Nobody beats Bar HoUiday, _ .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JACK L. CHALKER was bom in Norfolk, Virginia, on December 17, 1944, but was raised and has spent most of his life in Baltimore, Maryland. He learned to read almost from the moment of entering school, and by working odd jobs amassed a large book collection by the time he was in junior high school, a collection now too large for containment in his quarters. Science fiction, history, and geography all fascinated him early on, interests that continue.
Chalker joined the Washington Science Fiction Association in 1958 and began publishing an amateur SP journal. Mirage, in 1960. After high school he decided to be a trial lawyer, but money problems and the lack of a firm caused him to switch to teaching. He holds bachelor degrees in history and English, and an M.L.A. from Johns Hopkins University. He taught history and geography in the Baltimore public schools between 1966 and 1978 and now makes his living as a freelance writer. Additionally, out of the amateur journals he founded a publishing house. The Mirage Press, Ltd., devoted to nonfiction and bibliographic works on science fiction and fantasy. This company has produced more than twenty books in the last nine years. His hobbies include esoteric audio, travel, working on science-fiction convention committees, and guest lecturing of SF to institutions such as the Smithsonian. He is an active conservationist and National Parks supporter, and he has an intense love of ferryboats, with the avowed goal of riding every ferry in the world. In fact, in 1978 he was married to Eva Whitley on an ancient ferryboat in midriver. They live in the Catoctin Mountain region of western Maryland with their son, David.
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