The Seeds of Time

He had wondered if it and the passiveness which was also so different a characteristic from the nature of the Earthmen might be due to their never having been the dominant race on the planet until there was little left to dominate. The mysterious Great Ones who had built the canals, the now fallen buildings and cities, and who had in some way vanished, centuries or perhaps thousands of years ago, had been the rulers: it seemed as if under them the idea of warring and fighting had had no chance to develop, and the mechanical sense no need. If so, it was a tradition planted firmly enough never to be lost. At times he felt that there was a lingering subconscious sense of taboo about such things. They still looked for their blessings to the Great Ones who ‘remembered.’ Bert would have very much liked to know what those Great Ones were and even how they had looked, but no one could tell him.

After they had eaten he went outside to build himself a little fire and lay out his tools. They brought him pans, hoes and other things to mend, and then disappeared about various jobs. The three children stayed to watch, sitting on the ground playing with the scampering little bannikuks, and chattering to him as he worked. They wanted to know why he was different from Tannack and the others, why he wore a jacket and trousers, what use his beard was. Bert began to tell them about Earth; about great forests and soft green hills, of the huge clouds which floated in summer in skies that were bright blue, of great green waves with white tops, of mountain streams, of countries where there were no deserts, and flowers grew wild everywhere in the spring, of old towns and little villages. They did not understand most of what he said, and perhaps they believed less, but they went on listening and he went on talking, forgetting they were there until Annika interrupted to send them off to their mother. She sat down near him when they had gone.

The sun would soon be down, and he could feel the chill already in the thin air. She seemed not to notice it.

‘It is not good to be lonely, Earthman,’ she said. Tor a time, when one is young and there is much to see, it seems so, though it is better shared. Later it is not good.’

Bert grunted. He did not look up from the iron pot he was mending.

‘It suits me to be on my own. I ought to know,’ he told her. She sat looking far away; beyond the twinkling tinkerbells, and beyond the smooth water behind them.

‘When Guika and Zaylo were children you used to tell them tales of the Earth-but they weren’t the tales you were telling just now. In those days you talked about huge cities where millions of your people lived, of great ships that were like lighted castles by night, of machines travelling on the ground at unbelievable speeds and others that flew above, even faster; of voices that could speak through the air to the whole Earth, and many other marvellous things. And sometimes you sang queer, jerky Earth songs to make them laugh. You did not talk of any of those things tonight.’

‘There are plenty of things to talk about. I don’t need to go on telling of the same things each time,’ he said. ‘Why should I?’

‘What you should say matters less than what you do say, but why you say it matters more than either,’ she murmured. Bert blew on his glowing little fire and turned the iron in it. He made no reply.

‘Yesterday was never the future. One cannot live backwards,’ she told him.

‘Future! What future has Mars? It is senile, dying. One just waits with it for death,’ he said, with impatience. ‘Was not Earth, too, beginning to die from the moment it started to cool?’ she asked. ‘Yet it was worth building upon, worth raising civilizations there, wasn’t it?’

‘Well-was it?’ he enquired bitterly. ‘For what?’

‘If it were not, it would be better if we had never been.’

‘Well?’ he said again, challengingly.