“Yes, yes, you shall hear about that straightaway. As you know, I have toured the Midlands extensively during my centuries of duty. In many respects, I am a Byronic figure, forced to wander and to suffer…
During my peregrinations, I have rarely seen any children. Of course we know there are supposed to be none.
Yet my reason has led me to consider that the actual position may be vastly different from the apparent one.
In reaching this conclusion, I considered a number of factors, which I will now lay before you.
“If you can recall that distant epoch before the ancient technological civilizations crumbled, back in the twentieth century A.D., you will remember that many specialists gave conflicting diagnoses of what was going to happen when the full effects of the space bombs were upon us. Some thought that everything would return to normal within a few years, others that accumulating radioactivity would wipe all life of every kind from this sinful but rather desirable world. As we who have the benefit of surviving now know, both these views were mistaken. Am I right?”
“Right. Proceed.”
“Thank you, I will. Other specialists suggested that the radio-activity from the big accident might be absorbed into the soil in the course of years. I believe this prediction to have come to pass. And I further believe that with it, some younger women have recovered the power to bring forth young.
“Now, I have to confess that I have come across no fertile women myself, although in my new calling I have been vigilant for them. So I have been forced to ask myself, ‘What would I do if I were a woman of approximately sixty summers who discovered she could produce what we call the Second Generation? This is rather a theoretical question; how would you answer it, madam?”
Martha said slowly, “If I were to have a baby? I should be delighted, I suppose. At least, I have spent a number of years supposing I would be delighted. But I should be reluctant to let anyone see my child.
Certainly I should be reluctant to come forward to someone like you and declare my secret, for fear that I would be forced into – well, some form of compulsory breeding.”
Jingadangelow nodded magisterially. As talking soothed him, his manner acquired more of its old panache.
“Thank you, madam. You are saying you would hide yourself and your offspring. Or you would exhibit yourself and might well get killed, as happened to a foolish woman who bore a girl child near Oxford. If we suppose that a small number of women have borne children, we must remember that many must have done so in the isolated settlements that now lie off any beaten track. The news of the birth would not circulate.
“Next, consider the plight of the children. You might hold that their lot would be enviable, with all the adults in the neighbourhood to spoil and protect them. Deeper knowledge of humanity will persuade you
otherwise. The rancorous envy of those people without children would be insupportable, and aged parents would be unable to ward off the tangible effects of that envy. Babies would be stolen by motherhood-mad harridans, by crazy sterile old men. Young children would be the constant prey of the sort of blackguards I was forced to associate with some eighty years ago, when I travelled with an itinerant fair for my own protection. By the time the children – boys or girls – reached their early teens, one can only draw back aghast at the thought of the sexual indignities to which they would be exposed -”
“Chammoy’s experience must bear out all you say,” Greybeard cut in. “Leave out the hypocrisy, Jingadangelow, and get to the point.”
“Chammoy needed my protection and my moral influence; besides which, I am a lonely man. However, my point is this: that the biggest menace any child could face would be – human society! If you wonder why there are no children, the answer is that if they exist, they hide from us in the new wilds, away from men.”
Martha and Greybeard looked at each other. They read in each other’s eyes an acknowledgement of the likelihood of this theory. In its support, they could recall the persistent rumours, dating back at least ten years, that there were gnomes and small human-like shapes in the bush that vanished when a man went near.