the carnivore ,by ,g4 ,a4 ,,morris ,illustrated by ,,burchard ,why were they apologetic8 ,it wasn't their fault that they came to ,earth much too late4 ,the beings stood around my bed in air suits like ski suits1 with globes over their heads like upside-down fishbowls4 ,it was all like a masquerade1 with odd costumes and funny masks4 ,i know that the masks are their faces1 but ,i argue with them and find ,i think as if ,i am arguing with humans behind the masks4 ,they are people4 ,i recognize people and whether ,i am going to like this person or that person by something in the way they move and how they get excited when they talk2 and ,i know that ,i like these people in a motherly sort of way4 ,you have to feel motherly toward them1 ,i guess4 ,they all remind me of ,ronny1 a medical student ,i knew once4 ,he was small and round and eager4 ,you had to like him1 but you couldn't take him very seriously4 ,he was a pacifist2 he wrote poetry and pulled it out to read aloud at ill-timed moments2 and he stuttered when he talked too fast4 ,they are like that1 all fright and gentleness4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i am not the only survivor--they have explained that--but ,i am the first they found1 and the least damaged1 the one they have chosen to represent the human race to them4 ,they stand around my bed and answer questions1 and are nice to me when ,i argue with them4 ,all in a group they look half-way between a delegation of nations and an ark1 one of each1 big and small1 thick and thin1 four arms or wings1 all shapes and colors in fur and skin and feathers4 ,i can picture them in their ,,un of the ,universe1 making speeches in their different languages1 listening patiently without understanding each other's different problems1 boring each other and being too polite to yawn4 ,they are polite1 so polite ,i almost feel they are afraid of me1 and ,i want to reassure them4 ,but ,i talk as if ,i were angry4 ,i can't help it1 because if things had only been a little different 444 ,why couldn't you have come sooner8 ,why couldn't you have tried to stop it before it happened1 or at least come sooner1 afterward4448 ,if they had come sooner to where the workers of the ,nevada power pile starved slowly behind their protecting walls of lead--if they had looked sooner for survivors of the dust with which the nations of the world had slain each other--,george ,craig would be alive4 ,he died before they came4 ,he was my co-worker1 and ,i loved him4 ,we had gone down together1 passing door by door the automatic safeguards of the plant1 which were supposed to protect the people on the outside from the radioactive danger from the inside--but the danger of a failure of politics was far more real than the danger of failure in the science of the power pile1 and that had not been calculated by the builders4 ,we were far underground when the first radioactivity in the air outside had shut all the heavy1 lead-shielded automatic doors between us and the outside4 ,we were safe4 ,and we starved there4 ,why didn't you come sooner8 ,i wonder if they know or guess how ,i feel4 ,my questions are not questions1 but ,i have to ask them4 ,he is dead4 ,i don't mean to reproach them--they look well meaning and kindly--but ,i feel as if1 somehow1 knowing why it happened could make it stop1 could let me turn the clock back and make it happen differently4 ,if ,i could have signaled them1 so they would have come just a little sooner4 ,they look at one another1 turning their funny-face heads uneasily1 moving back and forth1 but no one will answer4 ,the world is dead4444 ,george is dead1 that thin1 pathetic creature with the bones showing through his skin that he was when we sat still at the last with our hands touching1 thinking there were people outside who had forgotten us1 hoping they would remember4 ,we didn't guess that the world was dead1 blanketed in radiating dust outside4 ,politics had killed it4 ,these beings around me1 they had been watching1 seeing what was going to happen to our world1 listening to our radios from their small settlements on the other planets of the ,solar ,system4 ,they had seen the doom of war coming4 ,they represented stellar civilizations of great power and technology1 and with populations that would have made ours seem a small village2 they were stronger than we were1 and yet they had done nothing4 ,why didn't you stop us8 ,you could have stopped us4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a rabbity one who is closer than the others backs away1 gesturing politely that he is giving room for someone else to speak1 but he looks guilty and will not look at me with his big round eyes4 ,i still feel weak and dizzy4 ,it is hard to think1 but ,i feel as if they are hiding a secret4 ,a doelike one hesitates and comes closer to my bed4 ,we discussed it 444 we voted4444 ,it talks through a microphone in its helmet with a soft lisping accent that ,i think comes from the shape of its mouth4 ,it has a muzzle and very soft1 dainty1 long nibbling lips like a deer that nibbles on twigs and buds4 ,we were afraid1 adds one who looks like a bear4 ,to us the future was very terrible1 says one who looks as if it might have descended from some sort of large bird like a penguin4 ,so much-- ,your weapons were very terrible4 ,now they all talk at once1 crowding about my bed1 apologizing4 ,so much killing4 ,it hurt to know about4 ,but your people didn't seem to mind4 ,we were afraid4 ,and in your fiction1 the doelike one lisped1 ,i saw plays from your amusement machines which said that the discovery of beings in space would save you from war1 not because you would let us bring friendship and teach peace1 but because the human race would unite in hatred of the outsiders4 ,they would forget their hatred of each other only in a new and more terrible war with us4 ,its voice breaks in a squeak and it turns its face away from me4 ,you were about to come out into space4 ,we were wondering how to hide6 ,that is a quick-talking one1 as small as a child4 ,he looks as if he might have descended from a bat--gray silken fur on his pointed face1 big night-seeing eyes1 and big sensitive ears1 with a humped shape on the back of his air suit which might be folded wings4 ,we were trying to conceal where we had built1 so that humans would not guess we were near and look for us4 ,they are ashamed of their fear1 for because of it they broke all the kindly laws of their civilizations1 restrained all the pity and gentleness ,i see in them1 and let us destroy ourselves4 ,i am beginning to feel more awake and to see more clearly4 ,and ,i am beginning to feel sorry for them1 for ,i can see why they are afraid4 ,they are herbivores4 ,i remember the meaning of shapes4 ,in the paths of evolution there are grass eaters and berry eaters and root diggers4 ,each has its functional shape of face and neck--and its wide1 startled-looking eyes to see and run away from the hunters4 ,in all their racial history they have never killed to eat4 ,they have been killed and eaten1 or run away1 and they evolved to intelligence by selection4 ,those lived who succeeded in running away from carnivores like lions1 hawks1 and men4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i look up1 and they turn their eyes and heads in quick embarrassed motion1 not meeting my eye4 ,the rabbity one is nearest and ,i reach out to touch him1 pleased because ,i am growing strong enough now to move my arms4 ,he looks at me and ,i ask the question3 ,are there any carnivores--flesh eaters--among you8 ,he hesitates1 moving his lips as if searching for tactful words4 ,we have never found any that were civilized4 ,we have frequently found them in caves and tents fighting each other4 ,sometimes we find them fighting each other with the ruins of cities around them1 but they are always savages4 ,the bearlike one said heavily1 ,it might be that carnivores evolve more rapidly and tend toward intelligence more often1 for we find radioactive planets without life1 and places like the place you call your asteroid belt1 where a planet should be--but there are only scattered fragments of planet1 pieces that look as if a planet had been blown apart4 ,we think that usually 444 ,he looked at me uncertainly1 beginning to fumble his words4 ,we think 444 ,illustration ,yours is the only carnivorous race we have found that was--civilized1 that had a science and was going to come out into space1 the doelike one interrupted softly4 ,we were afraid4 ,they seem to be apologizing4 ,the rabbity one1 who seems to be chosen as the leader in speaking to me1 says1 ,we will give you anything you want4 ,anything we are able to give you4 ,they mean it4 ,we survivors will be privileged people1 with a key to all the cities1 everything free4 ,their sincerity is wonderful1 but puzzling4 ,are they trying to atone for the thing they feel was a crime2 that they allowed humanity to murder itself1 and lost to the ,galaxy the richness of a race8 ,is this why they are so generous8 ,perhaps then they will help the race to get started again4 ,the records are not lost4 ,the few survivors can eventually repopulate ,earth4 ,under the tutelage of these peaceable races1 without the stress of division into nations1 we will flower as a race4 ,no children of mine to the furthest descendant will ever make war again4 ,this much of a lesson we have learned4 ,these timid beings do not realize how much humanity has wanted peace4 ,they do not know how reluctantly we were forced and trapped by old institutions and warped tangles of politics to which we could see no answer4 ,we are not naturally savage4 ,we are not savage when approached as individuals4 ,perhaps they know this1 but are afraid anyhow1 instinctive fear rising up from the blood of their hunted1 frightened forebears4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the human race will be a good partner to these races4 ,even recovering from starvation as ,i am1 ,i can feel in myself an energy they do not have4 ,the savage in me and my race is a creative thing1 for in those who have been educated as ,i was it is a controlled savagery which attacks and destroys only problems and obstacles1 never people4 ,any human raised outside of the political traditions that the race inherited from its bloodstained childhood would be as friendly and ready for friendship as ,i am toward these beings4 ,i could never hurt these pleasant1 overgrown bunnies and squirrels4 ,we will do everything we can to make up for 444 we will try to help1 says the bunny1 stumbling over the ,english1 but civilized and cordial and kind4 ,i sit up suddenly1 reaching out impulsively to shake his hand4 ,suddenly frightened he leaps back4 ,all of them step back1 glancing behind them as though making sure of the avenue of escape4 ,their big luminous eyes widen and glance rapidly from me to the doors1 frightened4 ,they must think ,i am about to leap out of bed and pounce on them and eat them4 ,i am about to laugh and reassure them1 about to say that all ,i want from them is friendship1 when ,i feel a twinge in my abdomen from the sudden motion4 ,i touch it with one hand under the bedclothes4 ,there is the scar of an incision there1 almost healed4 ,an operation4 ,the weakness ,i am recovering from is more than the weakness of starvation4 ,for only half a second ,i do not understand2 then ,i see why they looked ashamed4 ,they voted the murder of a race4 ,all the human survivors found have been made sterile4 ,there will be no more humans after we die4 ,i am frozen1 one hand still extended to grasp the hand of the rabbity one1 my eyes still searching his expression1 reassuring words still half formed4 ,there will be time for anger or grief later1 for now1 in this instant1 ,i can understand4 ,they are probably quite right4 ,we were carnivores4 ,i know1 because1 at this moment of hatred1 ,i could kill them all4 --,g4 ,a4 ,,morris ,transcriber's ,note3 ,this etext was produced from ,galaxy ,science ,fiction ,october #aiec4 ,extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the ,u4,s4 copyright on this publication was renewed4 ,minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note4