HOW PEOPLE used to talk and talk back then! Everybody was going, "Blah-blah-blah," all day long. Some of them would even do it in their sleep. My father used to blather in his sleep a lot-especially after Mother walked out on us. I would be sleeping on the couch, and it would be in the middle of the night, and there wouldn't be anybody else in the house but us-and I would hear him going, "Blah-blah-blah," in the bedroom. He would be quiet for a little while, and then he would go, "Blah-blah-blah," again. used to talk and talk back then! Everybody was going, "Blah-blah-blah," all day long. Some of them would even do it in their sleep. My father used to blather in his sleep a lot-especially after Mother walked out on us. I would be sleeping on the couch, and it would be in the middle of the night, and there wouldn't be anybody else in the house but us-and I would hear him going, "Blah-blah-blah," in the bedroom. He would be quiet for a little while, and then he would go, "Blah-blah-blah," again.

And sometimes when I was in the Marines, or later in Sweden, somebody would wake me up to tell me to stop talking in my sleep. I would have no recollection of what I might have said. I would have to ask what I had been talking about, and it was always news to me. What could most of that blah-blah-blahing have been, both night and day, but the spilling of useless, uncalled-for signals from our preposterously huge and active brains?

There was no shutting them down! Whether we had anything for them to do or not, they ran all the time! And were they ever loud! Oh, G.o.d, were they ever loud.

When I was still alive, there were these portable radios and tape-players some young people carried with them wherever they went in cities in the United States, playing music at a volume capable of drowning out a thunderstorm. These were called "ghetto blasters." It wasn't enough, a million years ago, that we already had ghetto blasters inside our heads!

Even at this late date, I am still full of rage at a natural order which would have permitted the evolution of something as distracting and irrelevant and disruptive as those great big brains of a million years ago. If they had told the truth, then I could see some point in everybody's having one. But these things lied all the time! Look at how *James Wait was lying to Mary Hepburn!

And now *Siegfried von Kleist returned to the c.o.c.ktail lounge, having witnessed the shooting of Zenji Hiroguchi and Andrew MacIntosh. If his big brain had been a truth machine, he might have given Mary and *Wait information to which they were surely ent.i.tled, and which might have been very useful to them, in case they wished to survive: that he was in the first stages of a mental crack-up, that two hotel guests had just been shot, that the crowd outside couldn't be held back much longer, that the hotel was out of touch with the rest of the world, and so on.

But no. He maintained a placid exterior. He did not wish his remaining four guests to panic. As a result, they would never find out what became of Zenji Hiroguchi and Andrew MacIntosh. For that matter, they would never hear the news, which would be announced in about an hour, that Peru had declared war on Ecuador, and neither would the Captain. When Peruvian rockets. .h.i.t targets in the Guayaquil area, they would believe the Captain when he said what his big brain honestly believed to be the truth, not that it felt any compunction to tell the truth: that they were being showered by meteorites.

And, as long as there was anybody on Santa Rosalia curious as to why his or her ancestors had come there-and that sort of curiosity would finally peter out only after about three thousand years-that was the story: They were driven off the mainland by a shower of meteorites.

Quoth Mandarax: Happy is the nation without a history.-CESARE BONESANA, MARCHESE DI BECCARIA (1738-1794) So, in a perfectly calm tone of voice, *Siegfried, the Captain's brother, asked *Wait to go upstairs, and to ask Selena MacIntosh and Hisako Hiroguchi to come down, and to help them with their luggage. "Be careful not to alarm them," he said. "Let them know that everything is perfectly all right. Just to be safe, I am going to take you all out to the airport." Guayaquil International Airport, incidentally, would be the first target to be devastated by Peruvian rocketry.

He handed Mandarax to *Wait, so that *Wait would be able to communicate with Hisako. He had recovered the instrument from beside the body of Zenji. Both bodies had been moved out of sight-into the burglarized souvenir shop. *Siegfried himself had covered them with souvenir bedspreads, which bore the same portrait of Charles Darwin which hung behind the bar.

So *Siegfried von Kleist shepherded Mary Hepburn and Hisako Hiroguchi and *James Wait and Selena MacIntosh and *Kazakh out to a gaily decorated bus parked in front of the hotel. This bus was to have carried musicians and dancers out to the airport-to regale the celebrities from New York. The six Kanka-bono girls came right along with them, and I have put a star in front of the dog's name because she would soon be killed and eaten by those children. It was no time to be a dog.

Selena wanted to know where her father was, and Hisako wanted to know where her husband was. *Siegfried said that they had gone ahead to the airport. His plan was to somehow get them on a plane, whether a commercial flight or a charter flight or a military flight, which would get them safely out of Ecuador. The truth about Andrew MacIntosh and Zenji Hiroguchi would be the last thing they heard from him before the plane took off-at which time they might still survive, no matter how frenzied with grief they became.

As a sop to Mary, he agreed to take the six girls along. He could make no sense of their language, even with the help of Mandarax. The best Mandarax could do was to identify one word in twenty, maybe, as being closely related to Quechuan, the lingua franca of the Inca Empire. Here and there Mandarax thought it might have heard a little Arabic, too, the lingua franca of the African slave trade so long ago.

Now, there is a big-brain idea I haven't heard much about lately: human slavery. How could you ever hold somebody in bondage with nothing but your flippers and your mouth?

32.

JUST AS EVERYBODY got nicely settled in the bus in front of the El Dorado, the news came over several radios in the crowd that "the Nature Cruise of the Century" had been canceled. That meant to the crowd, and to the soldiers, too, who were just civilians in soldier suits, that the food in the hotel now belonged to everyone. Take it from somebody who has been around for a million years: When you get right down to it, food is practically the whole story every time. got nicely settled in the bus in front of the El Dorado, the news came over several radios in the crowd that "the Nature Cruise of the Century" had been canceled. That meant to the crowd, and to the soldiers, too, who were just civilians in soldier suits, that the food in the hotel now belonged to everyone. Take it from somebody who has been around for a million years: When you get right down to it, food is practically the whole story every time.

Quoth Mandarax: First comes fodder, then comes morality.-BERTOLT BRECHT (18981956) So there was a rush for the hotel's entrances which momentarily engulfed the bus, although the bus and the people in it were of no interest to the food rioters. They banged on the sides of the bus, however, and yelled-agonized by the realization that others were already inside the hotel, and that there would be no food left for them.

It was certainly very frightening to be on the bus. It might be turned over. It might be set on fire. Rocks might be thrown, making shrapnel of window gla.s.s. The place for survivors to be was on the floor in the aisle. Hisako Hiroguchi performed her first intimate act with blind Selena, instructing her with her hands and murmured j.a.panese to kneel in the aisle with her head down. Then Hisako knelt beside her and *Kazakh, and put her arm across her back.

How tenderly Hisako and Selena would care for each other during the coming years! What a beautiful and sweet-natured child they would rear! How I admired them!

Yes, and *James Wait found himself posing yet again as a protector of children. He was sheltering with his own body the terrified Kanka-bono girls in the aisle. He had meant only to save himself, if he could, but Mary Hepburn had grabbed both his hands and pulled him toward her so that they formed a living fort. If there was to be flying gla.s.s, it would bite into them and not into the little girls.

Quoth Mandarax: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.-ST. JOHN (4 B.C.?30?) It was while *Wait was in this position that his heart began to fibrillate-which is to say that its fibers began to twitch in an uncoordinated manner, so that the march of the blood in his circulatory system was no longer orderly. Here heredity was operating again. He had no way of knowing this, but *Wait's father and mother, who were also father and daughter, were both then dead of heart attacks which had struck when they were in their early forties.

It was a lucky thing for humanity that *Wait did not live long enough to take part in the Santa Rosalia mating games. Then again, it might not have made all that much difference if people today had inherited his time-bomb heart, since n.o.body would have lived long enough for the bomb to go off anyway. Anybody *Wait's age today would be a regular Methuselah.

Down at the waterfront, meanwhile, another mob, another fibrillating organ in the social system of Ecuador, was stripping the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin not only of its food, but of its television sets and telephones and radar and sonar and radios and light bulbs and compa.s.ses and toilet paper and carpeting and soap and pots and pans and charts and mattresses and outboard motors and inflatable landing craft, and on and on. These survivors would even try to steal the winch which lowered or raised the anchors, but succeeded only in damaging it beyond repair. not only of its food, but of its television sets and telephones and radar and sonar and radios and light bulbs and compa.s.ses and toilet paper and carpeting and soap and pots and pans and charts and mattresses and outboard motors and inflatable landing craft, and on and on. These survivors would even try to steal the winch which lowered or raised the anchors, but succeeded only in damaging it beyond repair.

At least they left the lifeboats-but bereft of their emergency food supplies.

And Captain von Kleist, in fear of his life, had been driven up into the crow's nest, clad only in his underwear.

The crowd at the El Dorado swept past the bus like a tidal wave-leaving it high and dry, so to speak. It was free to go where it pleased. There was n.o.body much around, except for a few people lying down here and there, injured or killed in the rush.

So *Siegfried von Kleist, heroically suppressing the spasms and ignoring the hallucinations symptomatic of Huntington's ch.o.r.ea, took his place in the driver's seat. He thought it best that his ten pa.s.sengers stay in the aisle where they were-invisible from the outside, and calming one another with body heat.

He started the engine, and saw that he had a full tank of gasoline. He turned on the air conditioning. He announced in English, the only language he had in common with any of his pa.s.sengers, that it would be very cool inside in a minute or two. This was a promise he could keep.

It was twilight outside now, so he turned on his parking lights.

It was at about that time that Peru declared war on Ecuador. Two of Peru's fighter bombers were then over Ecuadorian territories, one with its rocket tuned to the radar signals coming from Guayaquil International Airport, and the other with its rocket tuned to radar signals coming from the naval base on the Galapagos Island of Baltra, lair of a sail training ship, six Coast Guard ships, two oceangoing tugs, a patrol submarine, a dry dock, and, high and dry in the dry dock, a destroyer. The destroyer was the largest ship in the Ecuadorian Navy, save for one-the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin.

Quoth Mandarax: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.-CHARLES d.i.c.kENS (18121870)

33.

I SOMETIMES SPECULATE SOMETIMES SPECULATE as to what humanity might have become if the first settlers on Santa Rosalia had been the original pa.s.senger list and crew for "the Nature Cruise of the Century"-Captain von Kleist, surely, and Hisako Hiroguchi and Selena MacIntosh and Mary Hepburn, and, instead of the Kanka-bono girls, the sailors and officers and Jacqueline Ona.s.sis and Dr. Henry Kissinger and Rudolf Nureyev and Mick Jagger and Paloma Pica.s.so and Walter Cronkite and Bobby King and Robert Pepin, "the greatest chef in France," and, of course, Andrew MacIntosh and Zenji Hiroguchi, and on and on. as to what humanity might have become if the first settlers on Santa Rosalia had been the original pa.s.senger list and crew for "the Nature Cruise of the Century"-Captain von Kleist, surely, and Hisako Hiroguchi and Selena MacIntosh and Mary Hepburn, and, instead of the Kanka-bono girls, the sailors and officers and Jacqueline Ona.s.sis and Dr. Henry Kissinger and Rudolf Nureyev and Mick Jagger and Paloma Pica.s.so and Walter Cronkite and Bobby King and Robert Pepin, "the greatest chef in France," and, of course, Andrew MacIntosh and Zenji Hiroguchi, and on and on.

The island could have supported that many individuals-just barely. There would have been some struggles, some fights, I guess-some killings, even, if food or water ran short. And I suppose some of them would have imagined that Nature or something was very pleased if they emerged victorious. But their survival wouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans, as far as evolution was concerned, if they didn't reproduce, and most of the women on the pa.s.senger list were past child-bearing age, and so not worth fighting for.

During the first thirteen years on Santa Rosalia, before Akiko reached p.u.b.erty, in fact, the only fertile women would have been Selena, who was blind, and Hisako Hiroguchi, who had already given birth to a baby all covered with fur, and three others who were normal. And probably all of them would have been impregnated by victors, even against their will. But in the long run, I don't think it would have made much difference which males did the impregnating, Mick Jagger or Dr. Henry Kissinger or the Captain or the cabin boy. Humanity would still be pretty much what it is today.

In the long run, the survivors would still have been not the most ferocious strugglers but the most efficient fisherfolk. That's how things work in the islands here.

There were live Maine lobsters who also came within a hair of having their survival skills tested by the Galapagos Archipelago. Before the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin was looted, there were two hundred of them in aerated tanks of salt.w.a.ter in the hold. was looted, there were two hundred of them in aerated tanks of salt.w.a.ter in the hold.

The waters around Santa Rosalia were surely cold enough for them, but perhaps too deep. There was this about them, at any rate: They were like human beings in that they could eat almost anything, if they had to.

And Captain von Kleist, when he was an old, old man, remembered those lobsters in their tanks. The older he became, the more vivid were his recollections of events of the long ago. And after supper one night, he amused Akiko, the furry daughter of Hisako Hiroguchi, with a science-fiction fantasy whose premise was that the Maine lobsters had made it to the islands, and that a million years had pa.s.sed, as they have indeed pa.s.sed now-and that lobsters had become the dominant species on the planet, and had built cities and theaters and hospitals and public transportation and so on. He had lobsters playing violins and solving murders and performing microsurgery and subscribing to book clubs and so on.

The moral of the story was that the lobsters were doing exactly what human beings had done, which was to make a mess of everything. They all wished that they could just be ordinary lobsters, particularly since there were no longer human beings around who wanted to boil them alive.

That was all they had had to complain about in the first place: being boiled alive. Now, just because they hadn't wanted to be boiled alive anymore, they had to support symphony orchestras, and on and on. The viewpoint character in the Captain's story was the underpaid second chair French horn player in the Lobsterville Symphony Orchestra who had just lost his wife to a professional ice hockey player.

When he made up that story, he had no idea that humanity elsewhere was on the verge of extinction, and that other life forms were facing less and less opposition, in case they had a tendency to become dominant. The Captain would never hear about that, and neither would anybody else on Santa Rosalia. And I am speaking only of the dominance of large life forms over other large life forms. Truth be told, the planet's most victorious organisms have always been microscopic. In all the encounters between Davids and Goliaths, was there ever a time when a Goliath won?

On the level of the big creatures, then, the visible strugglers, lobsters were surely poor candidates for becoming as elaborately constructive and destructive as humankind. If the Captain had told his mordant fable about octopi instead of lobsters, though, it might not have been quite so ridiculous. Back then, as now, those squishy creatures had highly developed brains, whose basic function was to control their versatile arms. Their situation, one might think, wasn't all that different from that of human beings, with hands to control. Presumably, their brains could do other things with their arms and brains than catch fish.

But I have yet to see an octopus, or any sort of animal, for that matter, which wasn't entirely content to pa.s.s its time on earth as a food gatherer, to shun the experiments with unlimited greed and ambition performed by humankind.

As for human beings making a comeback, of starting to use tools and build houses and play musical instruments and so on again: They would have to do it with their beaks this time. Their arms have become flippers in which the hand bones are almost entirely imprisoned and immobilized. Each flipper is studded with five purely ornamental nubbins, attractive to members of the opposite s.e.x at mating time. These are in fact the tips of four suppressed fingers and a thumb. Those parts of people's brains which used to control their hands, moreover, simply don't exist anymore, and human skulls are now much more streamlined on that account. The more streamlined the skull, the more successful the fisher person.

If people can swim as fast and far as fur seals now, what is to prevent their swimming all the way back to the mainland, whence their ancestors came? Answer: nothing.

Plenty have tried it or will try it during periods of fish shortages or overpopulation. But the bacterium which eats human eggs is always there to greet them.

So much for exploration.

Then again, it is so peaceful here, why would anybody want to live on the mainland? Every island has become an ideal place to raise children, with waving coconut palms and broad white beaches-and limpid blue lagoons.

And all the people are so innocent and relaxed now, all because evolution took their hands away.

Quoth Mandarax: In works of labour, or of skill, I would be busy, too; For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.-ISAAC WATTS (16741748)

34.

THERE WAS THIS P PERUVIAN PILOT a million years ago, a young lieutenant colonel who had his fighter-bomber skipping from wisp to wisp of finely divided matter at the very edge of the planet's atmosphere. His name was Guillermo Reyes, and he was able to survive at such an alt.i.tude because his suit and helmet were inflated with an artificial atmosphere. People used to be so marvelous, making impossible dreams they made come true. a million years ago, a young lieutenant colonel who had his fighter-bomber skipping from wisp to wisp of finely divided matter at the very edge of the planet's atmosphere. His name was Guillermo Reyes, and he was able to survive at such an alt.i.tude because his suit and helmet were inflated with an artificial atmosphere. People used to be so marvelous, making impossible dreams they made come true.

Colonel Reyes had had an inconclusive discussion with a fellow airman one time as to whether anything felt better than s.e.xual intercourse. He was in contact on his radio now with that same comrade, who was back at the air base in Peru, and who was to tell him when Peru was officially at war with Ecuador.

Colonel Reyes had already activated the brain of the tremendous self-propelled weapon slung underneath his airplane. That was its first taste of life, but already it was madly in love with the radar dish atop the control tower at Guayaquil International Airport, a legitimate military target, since Ecuador kept ten of its own warplanes there. This amazing radar lover under the colonel's plane was like the great land tortoises of the Galapagos Islands to this extent: It had all the nourishment it needed inside its sh.e.l.l.

So the word came that it was all right for him to let the thing go.

So he let the thing go.

His friend on the ground asked him what it felt like to give something like that its freedom. He replied that he had at last found something which was more fun than s.e.xual intercourse.

The young colonel's feelings at the moment of release had to be transcendental, had to be entirely products of that big brain of his, since the plane did not shudder or yaw or suddenly climb or dive when the rocket departed to consummate its love affair. It continued on exactly as before, with the automatic pilot compensating instantly for the sudden change in the plane's weight and aerodynamics.

As for effects of the release visible to Reyes: The rocket was much too high to leave a vapor trail, and its exhaust was clean, so that, to Reyes, it was a rod which quickly shrank to a dot and then to a speck and then to nothingness. It vanished so quickly that it was hard to believe that it had ever existed.

And that was that.

The only residue of the event in the stratosphere had to be in Reyes's big brain or nowhere. He was happy. He was humble. He was awed. He was drained.

Reyes wasn't crazy to feel that what he had done was a.n.a.logous to the performance of a male during s.e.xual intercourse. A computer over which he had no control, once he had turned it on, had determined the exact moment of release, and had delivered detailed instructions to the release machinery without any need of advice from him. He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.

The launching of the missile, in fact, was virtually identical with the role of male animals in the reproductive process.

Here was what the colonel could be counted on to do: deliver the goods in an instant.

Yes-and that rod which became a dot and then a speck and then nothingness so quickly was somebody else's responsibility now. All the action from now on would be on the receiving end.

He had done his part. He was sweetly sleepy now-and amused and proud.

And I worry now about skewing my story, since a few characters in it were genuinely insane, and giving the impression that everybody a million years ago was insane. That was not the case. I repeat: that was not the case.

Almost everybody was sane back then, and I gladly award Reyes that widespread encomium. The big problem, again, wasn't insanity, but that people's brains were much too big and untruthful to be practical.

No single human being could claim credit for that rocket, which was going to work so perfectly. It was the collective achievement of all who had ever put their big brains to work on the problem of how to capture and compress the diffuse violence of which nature was capable, and drop it in relatively small packages on their enemies.

I myself had had some highly personal experiences with dreams-come-true of that sort in Vietnam-which is to say, with mortars and hand grenades and artillery. Nature could never have been that predictably destructive in such small s.p.a.ces without the help of humankind.

I have already told my story about the old woman I shot for throwing a hand grenade. There are plenty of others I could tell, but no explosion I saw or heard about in Vietnam could compare with what happened when that Peruvian rocket put the tip of its nose, that part of its body most richly supplied with exposed nerve endings, into that Ecuadorian radar dish.

No one is interested in sculpture these days. Who could handle a chisel or a welding torch with their flippers or their mouths?

If there were a monument out here in the islands, though, celebrating a key event in the past, that would be a good one: the moment of mating, right before the explosion, between that rocket and that radar dish.

Into the lava plinth beneath it these words might be incised, expressing the sentiments of all who had had a hand in the design and manufacture and sale and purchase and launch of the rocket, and of all to whom high explosives were a branch of the entertainment industry: ... 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (15641616)

35.

TWENTY MINUTES before the rocket gave that French kiss to the radar dish, Captain Adolf von Kleist concluded that it was now safe for him to come down from the crow's nest of the before the rocket gave that French kiss to the radar dish, Captain Adolf von Kleist concluded that it was now safe for him to come down from the crow's nest of the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin. The ship had been picked clean, and had fewer amenities and navigational aids, even, than had Her Majesty's Ship Beagle Beagle when that brave little wooden sailboat began her voyage around the world on December 27, 1831. The when that brave little wooden sailboat began her voyage around the world on December 27, 1831. The Beagle Beagle had had a compa.s.s, at least, and a s.e.xtant, and navigators who could imagine with considerable accuracy the position of their ship in the clockwork of the universe because of their knowledge of the stars. And the had had a compa.s.s, at least, and a s.e.xtant, and navigators who could imagine with considerable accuracy the position of their ship in the clockwork of the universe because of their knowledge of the stars. And the Beagle Beagle, moreover, had had oil lanterns and candles for the nighttime, and hammocks for the seamen, and mattresses and pillows for the officers. Anyone determined to spend the night on the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin now would have to rest his or her weary head on nude steel, or perhaps do what Hisako Hiroguchi would do when she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Hisako would sit on the lid of the toilet off the main saloon, and lay her head on her arms, which were folded atop the washbasin in there. now would have to rest his or her weary head on nude steel, or perhaps do what Hisako Hiroguchi would do when she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Hisako would sit on the lid of the toilet off the main saloon, and lay her head on her arms, which were folded atop the washbasin in there.

I have likened the mob at the hotel to a tidal wave, whose crest swept past the bus, never to return again. I would say that the mob at the waterfront was more like a tornado. Now that ferocious whirlwind was moving inland in the twilight, and feeding on itself, since its members had themselves become worth robbing-carrying lobsters and wine and electronic gear and drapes and coat hangers and cigarettes and chairs and rolls of carpeting and towels and bedspreads, and on and on.

So the Captain clambered down from the crow's nest. The rungs bruised his bare and tender feet. He had the ship and the entire waterfront all to himself, as far as he could see. He went to his cabin first, since he was wearing only his undershorts. He hoped that the looters had left him a little something to wear. When he turned on the light switch in there, though, nothing happened-because all the light bulbs were gone.

There was electricity, anyway-since the ship still had her banks of storage batteries down in the engine room. The thing was: The light-bulb thieves had blacked out the engine room before the batteries and generators and starter motors could be stolen. So, in a sense, they had unwittingly done humanity a big favor. Thanks to them, the ship would still run. Without her navigational aids, she was as blind as Selena MacIntosh-but she was still the fastest ship in that part of the world, and she could slice water at top speed for twenty days without refueling, if necessary, provided nothing went wrong in the pitch-dark engine room.

As things would turn out, though: After only five days at sea, something would go very much wrong in the pitch-dark engine room.

The Captain certainly had no plans for putting out to sea as he groped about his cabin for more clothes to hide his nakedness. There wasn't even a handkerchief or a washcloth in there. Thus was he having his first taste of a textile shortage, which at the moment seemed merely inconvenient, but which would be acute during the thirty years of life still ahead of him. Cloth to protect his skin from sunburn in the daytime and from chills at night simply would not be available anymore. How he and the rest of the first colonists would come to envy Hisako's daughter Akiko for her coat of fur!

Everybody but Akiko, until Akiko herself had furry babies, would in the daytime have to wear fragile capes and hats made of feathers tied together with fish guts.

Quoth Mandarax to the contrary: Man is a biped without feathers.-PLATO (427?347 B.C.) The Captain remained calm as he searched his cabin. The shower in the head was dripping, and he turned it off tight. That much he could make right, anyway. That was how composed he was. As I have already said, his digestive system still had food to process. Even more important to his peace of mind, though, was that n.o.body was counting on him for anything. Those who had looted the ship almost all had numerous relatives in dire need, who were starting to roll their eyes and pat their bellies and point down their throats like the Kanka-bono girls.

The Captain was still in possession of his famous sense of humor, and freer than ever to indulge it. For whose sake was he now to pretend that life was a serious matter? There weren't even rats left on the ship. There had never been rats on the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin, which was another lucky break for humankind. If rats had come ash.o.r.e with the first human settlers on Santa Rosalia, there would have been nothing left for people to eat in six months or so.

And then, after that, the rats, after having eaten what was left of the people and each other, would themselves have died.

Quoth Mandarax: Rats!

They fought the dogs and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles, And ate the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles, Split open the kegs of salted sprats, Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, And even spoiled the women's chats By drowning their speaking By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats.-ROBERT BROWNING (18121889) The Captain's clever fingers, working in the blacked-out head, now encountered what would prove to be half a bottle of cognac sitting atop the tank of his toilet. This was the last bottle of any sort still aboard the ship, and its contents were the last substance to be found, from stem to stern and from crow's nest to keel, which a human being could metabolize. In saying that, of course, I exclude the possibility of cannibalism. I ignore the fact that the Captain himself was quite edible.

And just as the Captain's fingers got a firm grip on the bottle's neck in the darkness, something big and strong outside gave the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin an authoritative b.u.mp. Also: There were male voices from the boat deck, one deck below. The thing was: The tugboat crew which had delivered fuel and food to the Colombian freighter an authoritative b.u.mp. Also: There were male voices from the boat deck, one deck below. The thing was: The tugboat crew which had delivered fuel and food to the Colombian freighter San Mateo San Mateo was now preparing to haul away the was now preparing to haul away the Bahia de Darwin's Bahia de Darwin's two lifeboats. They had cast off the ship's bowline, and the tug was nosing her bow into the estuary, so that the lifeboat on her starboard side could be lowered into the water. two lifeboats. They had cast off the ship's bowline, and the tug was nosing her bow into the estuary, so that the lifeboat on her starboard side could be lowered into the water.

So that the ship was now married to the South American mainland by a single line at her stern. Poetically speaking, that stern line is the white nylon umbilical cord of all modern humankind.

The Captain might as well have been my fellow ghost on the Bahia de Darwin Bahia de Darwin. The men who took our lifeboats never even suspected that there was another soul aboard.

All alone again, except for me, he proceeded to get drunk. What could that matter now? The tugboat, with the lifeboats following obediently, had disappeared upstream. The San Mateo San Mateo, all lit up like a Christmas tree, and with the radar dish atop her bridge revolving, had disappeared downstream, so that the Captain felt free to shout whatever he pleased from the bridge without attracting unfavorable attention. His hands on the ship's wheel, he called into the starlit evening, "Man overboard!" He was speaking of himself.

Expecting nothing to happen, he pressed the starter b.u.t.ton for the port engine. From the bowels of the ship came the m.u.f.fled, deep-purple rumble of a great diesel engine in perfect health. He pressed the other starter b.u.t.ton, giving the gift of life to the engine's identical twin. These dependable, uncomplaining slaves had been born in Columbus, Indiana-not far from Indiana University, where Mary Hepburn had taken her master's degree in zoology.