Our Children's Children

25

"So now you'll explain to me, perhaps," said Alice Gale, "what a picnic is. You told me this afternoon you had been going on a picnic."

The Secret Service man hunched forward on the seat. "Has Steve been talking picnic to you? Don't ever chance it with him…"

"But, Mr. Black," she said, "I don't even know what a picnic is."

"It's fairly simple," Wilson told her. "You pack a lunch and you go out in a park or woods and you eat it there."

"But we did that up in our time," she said. "Although we did not call it picnic. I don't think we called it anything at all. I never heard it called anything at all."

The car rolled slowly down the drive, heading for the gate. The driver, in the seat up front, sat erect and straight. The car slowed to a halt and a soldier came up to the driver's window. There were other military men stationed by the gate.

"What is going on?" asked Wilson. "I had not heard of this."

Black shrugged. "Someone got the wind up. This place is closed in tight. It's stiff with military. There are mortars scattered through the park and no one knows what else."

"Does the President know about it?"

"I'm not sure," said Black. "No one might have thought to tell him."

'The soldier stepped back and the gate came open and the car went through. It proceeded silently along the street, heading for the bridge.

Wilson peered out the window. "Where is everyone?" he asked. "A Sunday night and the tourist season and there's no one here."

"You heard the news," said Black.

"Of course I heard the news."

"Everyone's holed up. Everyone's indoors. They expect a monster to come leaping out at them."

"We had such lovely places we could go out on picnics," said Alice Gale. "So many parks, so much wild land. More open spaces than you have. Not as crowded as you have it now, although somehow I like it crowded. There are so many people; there is so much to see."

"You are enjoying it," said Wilson.

"Yes, of course, enjoying it. Although I have the feel of guilt in my enjoyment. My father and I should be with our people. But I was telling you of our time. It was a good time to live in. Until the aliens came, of course. And even then part of the time, in the earlier days, before there were so many of them. They were not at our throats all the time, you know, except in the last few years. Although I don't think we ever were unaware of them. We always talked about them. We never really forgot them, no matter what. All my life, I think, they have been in my mind. There were times, in the later years, when we were obsessed with them. We continually looked over our shoulders to see if they were there; we were never free of them. We talked of them and studied them…"

"You say you studied them," said Wilson. "Exactly how did you study them? Who studied them?"

"Why," she said, "biologists, of course. At times they came into possession of an alien's body. And the psychologists and psychiatrists, as well. The evolutionists…"

"Evolutionists?"

"Certainly, evolutionists. For these aliens were very strange evolutionarily. They seemed to be creatures that were consciously in control of their evolutionary processes. There are times when you are inclined to suspect they can order their evolutionary processes. My father, I think, explained some of this to you. In all their long history of evolution they apparently gave up no evolutionary advantage they had gained. They made no compromises, trading one thing for another. They kept what they had and needed and added whatever else they could develop. This, of course, means they are adaptive creatures. They can adapt to almost any condition or situation. They respond almost instantly to stresses and emergencies…"

"You almost sound," said Black, "as if you-well, not you, perhaps, but your people-might admire these creatures."

She shook her head. "We hated them and feared them. That is quite apparent, for we ran away from them. But, yes, I suppose we might have felt something like awed admiration, although we did not admit it. I don't think anyone ever said it."

"Lincoln is coming up ahead," said Wilson. "Naturally, you know Lincoln."

"Yes," she said. "My father has Lincoln's bedroom."

The memorial loomed ahead, softly lit against the night-black sky. The statue sat deep within the recess, brooding in the marble chair. The car moved past and the memorial was left behind.

"If we can find the time," said Wilson, "in the next few days, we'll go out and see it. Or, perhaps, you may have seen it. But you said the White House…"

"The memorial, too," she said. "Part of it is left, but less than half of it. The stones are fallen down."

"What is this?" asked Black.

"Up in the time the people of the tunnel came from," said Wilson, "Washington had been destroyed. The White House is a wilderness."

"But that's impossible. I don't understand. A war?"

"Not a war," said Alice Gale. "It's hard to explain, even if you know it and I have little understanding of it — I have read little of it. Economic collapse, perhaps, is the best name for it. Probably some ethical collapse as well. A time of mounting inflation that reached ridiculous heights, matched by a mounting cynicism, a loss of faith in government, which contributed to the failure of government, a growing gap of resources and understanding between the rich and poor. It all grew up and up and then it all collapsed. Not this nation only, but all the major powers. One after one they fell. The economy was gone and government was gone and mobs ran in the street. Blind mobs striking out, not at anything in particular, but at anything at all. You must excuse me, please; I tell it very badly."

"And this is all ahead of us?" asked Black.

"Not now," said Wilson, "Not any more it isn't. Or at least it doesn't have to be. We're on a different time track now."

"You," said Black, "are as bad as she is. You don't, either one, make sense."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Black," said Alice. "Don't mind me," said Black. "I'm not the intellectual sort. I'm just an educated cop. Steve will tell you that."