Critical Threshold Read Online Free PDF

the knowledge bequeathed to it by Earth. Its inhabitants became savages. When new men arrive from Earth, the savages take the newcomers for gods. Just as the South American Indians took the invading Europeans for gods.
    They thought it was God talking, I said to myself. Out of the radio. They think Nathan is God. Come to visit them. Come to rescue them. Come to destroy them. And they don’t seem to care. They haven’t fallen on their knees. They aren’t wailing and gnashing their teeth. They’re just babbling like idiots.
    Maybe, I thought, they’re waiting for a miracle. Or are we miracle enough in ourselves?
    â€œOne thing’s certain,” said Karen. “We aren’t going to spark off a revolution here. They sure as hell aren’t going to think we’ve come to steal their promised land.”
    I turned to Mariel Valory.
    â€œWhat do you make of it?” I asked.
    If anyone could make anything of it, it had to be Mariel. She had a talent, a special understanding. Whether it was mind-reading or not no one was very sure, but she didn’t need words. She could read faces.
    She was staring hard at the screen, trying to see whatever there was to be seen.
    â€œThey don’t understand,” she said. “They just have no idea who or what we are. It’s a complete mystery to them. One or two of them—the ones who came up the hill first—seem hopeful. But they don’t know what to hope for . As an event in their lives, this is meaningless.”
    â€œThey kept saying: ‘Thank God,’ “ said Karen. “Over the radio.”
    â€œSome of them seem to be saying it now,” said Mariel. “But they’re just mouthing it. As if it were a formula, something to repeat over and over in moments of stress. It doesn’t hold any meaning. Nothing seems to hold much meaning. It’s as if they aren’t really there. Not as people. Not as minds.”
    As a reading, it looked pretty good. We all got something of the same impression. These people had forgotten, all right, but they hadn’t merely gone back to being savages. They’d gone back to being ghosts, shadow-people. Savages are survivors, coping with their environment effectively, albeit in a state of ignorance. These people were not coping. They were living very close to the survival margin—to the most critical threshold of all. The decay that was in the fields and the houses was in them, too.
    Nathan signaled to the eye that he was coming back in.
    When he turned around, the crowd just stared after him. They didn’t protest. They didn’t call after him. They didn’t attempt to follow. But when he was back, they began to disperse, slowly. They thought it was over. And it hadn’t even begun.
    Nathan re-entered the room. His face was set like stone. Take it as it comes, he had said. No judgments. No condemnations.
    â€œHow bad is it?” asked Conrad.
    â€œI can’t get through,” said Nathan. “They speak English, they know the words I use. But the message doesn’t get across. It’s not just that they’re stupid. They’re withdrawn. Crazy. Wrapped up in themselves. It’s going to be difficult.”
    Then his voice changed slightly, became more aggressive. “But we can do it,” he went on. “We can make contact. It’s going to take time and work, but we can rescue these people from whatever kind of dead end they’re in. We start right away. Mariel, you come with me to the village. Conrad, you look around the houses, too. A lot of these people are physically sick, find out how many and what we have to cope with. Alex, you and Linda take a walk round the whole settlement, the fields, the edge of the forest. Get a general impression of the state of affairs, and start making guesses as to what might have happened and why.”
    It was no time to object to his handing out orders. He had the right idea. Start