Worlds Apart Read Online Free PDF Page B

twenty-four hours a day pumping up water from an underground spring. The sounds of cattle brought fourteen light-years to a world which had never had animal life of its own didn't seem in the slightest strange to them. The cattle were much more at home on Mundis than they had been in space. The horses and pigs and sheep had never taken to free fall.
    The hens had. For a few generations the hens had become once more birds of the air, flying gracefully and competently about their pens on the spaceship, as if they had been created for free fall. There was no opportunity to see what real birds would have made of it. The Mundis carried none.
    Rog wondered whether June would like him to get it over with, or to allow her to think, to get used to the idea that Rog Foley was going to propose to her -- to get used to Rog Foley. He decided that if she wanted him to hurry she could hurry him, but if he rushed the affair she could hardly stop him. So he took her arm and just walked.
    "It's funny to think of all the other birds and animals and insects Earth had," June ventured, for something to say. "Thousands of species, and only a few given a chance to live."
    "There were too many," said Rog. "Hundreds of different kinds of cats alone, without considering other animals."
    "Yes, but the other ark took two of everything, and every animal had a chance."
    "That just couldn't be done this time. Anyway, June, what seems to me more important than the end of a lot of different kinds of animals is the end of the different kinds of men."
    "Of men?" June echoed, stopping abruptly.
    "Haven't read about that? Yes, black men, red men, yellow men, brown men -- and the corresponding women."
    "But they weren't really . . . "
    "Yes, they were black, red, yellow, and brown. It's in the records. But there's nothing about why there's none of them here. Nobody knows. I asked John Pertwee about it. He said nobody told him about it, and now we'll never find out how it came about."
    "It's just as well we're all the same, isn't it?" said June diffidently. "I mean, we don't agree so terribly well as it is, and if there were a lot of different races represented . . . "
    "True enough. But I wonder what a yellow man's point of view on it would be. I wonder if the whites fought off the yellows and blacks, or refused to let any of them go in the Mundis, or if the other races were big enough to agree that only one should go."
    "They'd have to be big for that."
    "Wouldn't they? Imagine half a dozen different races of men coming together and agreeing it would be better for the future of mankind if only one of them went forward. One to represent them all."
    "I hope it was like that!" exclaimed June.
    "So do I. I'm afraid it's hardly likely. I expect the whites were just tougher and stronger and further advanced, and brushed off all the others. If it really /was/ agreement -- if the blacks worked so that the whites could carry on the race -- there should have been some record of it, so that we'd know about it . . . "
    There was silence for a while. Then June said: "But no one would care, Rog. Except a few like you."
    Rog turned in surprise. There was a strange warmth in her tone. "Too few of us have any imagination," she said. "We don't see the other point of view. The old folk don't see our problems. And I suppose," she added reluctantly, "we don't always see theirs."
    It was strange love-making. But it /was/ love-making. June wasn't gasping with admiration and saying how strong Rog was, but she was talking herself into admiring him a little more.
    Rog looked down at her. He could see her quite plainly in the starlight, though every shadow was black. The contrasting light made her skin white, the pink of her ket gray, and the cherry jet black. She was lovely. He said so, tentatively.
    But she still wasn't ready. She moved on rapidly, and he had to hurry to catch up with her. She talked quickly, nervously, of Toni and how she became a different person when she sang; then she