David C. Hodgkins

“ Brendan nodded. "Yes. But we're running it narrow. Very narrow. This place would never hold up through another generation."
"What difference does it make? We've beaten them. Generation by generation, we've changed to meet them, while all they've done is learn a little. We've bred back, and mutated, and trained. We've got a science of genetics, we've got controlled radioactivity, gene selection, chromosome manipulation—all they've got is hate."
"Yes. And listen to it."
Grinding through the dome, the gnaw and chip came to them clearly. ”

“ Conducted by the substance of the dome, there was a constant chip, chip, chip coming from somewhere, together with a heartless gnawing sound that filled everyone's head as though they were all biting on sandpaper.
Brendan growled from behind his desk: "I'm in charge."
The five men on the opposite side of the desk had tacitly chosen Falconer for their spokesman. He said: "But we've all got something to say about it, Brendan. You're in charge, but nothing gives you the power to be an autocrat." ”

“ Falconer said.
"No?" Brendan turned on him in rage. "How do you know? Maybe they've stopped using flint. Maybe they've got hold of something like diamonds. What about the ones that just use their teeth? Maybe they're breeding for tusks that concrete won't wear down. Think we've got a patent on that idea? Think because we do it in a semi-automatic nursery, blind evolution can't do it out in that wet hell outside?"
Lusic—the oldest one of them there, with sparse fur and lighter jaws, with a round skull that lacked both a sagittal crest and a bone shelf over the eyes—spoke for the first time. ”

“ No, Brendan, I don't think your attempt to distract us has much logic in it. The children will be out, and will have destroyed them, before there can be any real danger to the dome's integrity. I can understand your desire to keep us busy, because we are all tense as our efforts approach a climax. But I do think your policy is wrong. I think we should long ago have been permitted a share in supervising the nursery. I think your attempt to retain dictatorial powers is an unhealthy sign. I think you're afraid of no longer being the most powerful human being in our society. ”

“ Then he could stop, and see the terrible wound in Sally's side, and realize the bones of his leg were dripping and jagged as they thrust out through the flesh.
"Didn't I tell you?" he reproached her as he went to his knees beside her where she lay on the floor. "I told you to go straight here, instead of to the auditorium." He pressed his hands to her side, and sobbed at the thick well of her blood over his gnarled fingers with the tufts of sopping fur caught in their claws. "Damn you for loving me!" ”

“ You don't care for one living soul besides yourself, and the only voice you'll listen to is that power-chant in your head. You married me because I was good breeding stock. You married me because, if you can't lead us outside, at least your son will be the biggest and best of his generation."
"Funny," Brendan said. "Lusic thinks I've been motivated by a fear of losing my pre-eminence. ”

“ The men who drew it up are dust. The men who signed it are dust."
"You're in the direct line of descent from the first Captain."
"Then you're recognizing me as a hereditary monarch, Falconer. I don't see the basis of your complaint."
Falconer—lean as a whip from the waist down, naked, thick-torsoed, covered with crisp, heavy fur—set his clawed feet a little apart and thrust out his heavy under-jaw, clearing his sharp canine tusks away from his flat lips. ”

“ It would have killed them when they crawled from the sea, killed them when they tried to breathe its atmosphere, killed them when they tried to walk on its surface, and when they tried to take a share of food away from the animals that could evolve here. We are a blot and an abomination upon it. We are weak, loathesome grubs on its iron face. ”

“ They hate us so much they chip, chip, chip away at the dome all day, and gnaw at it, and howl in the night for us to come out, because they hate us so.
"We only hope they won't break through. We can only hope the children will drive them away in time. We don't know. But you'd rather be comfortable in your hope. You'd rather come in here and quibble at my methods. But I'm not your kind. Because if I don't know, I don't hope. I act. And because I act, and you don't, and because I'm in charge, you'll do what I tell you."
He went back to his desk and shoved it back to its place. ”

“ And the animals know us for what we are. They may even guess what we have spent generations in becoming, but it doesn't matter whether they do or not—they hate us, and they won't stop trying to kill us. ”

“ Because some things plainly must be done—not because there is anything sacred in plans made by people who are past, and gone, but because there is no other reason why we should have been born with the intelligence to discipline our emotions. ”

“ He lashed out and sent the massive bronze desk lurching aside, clearing the way between himself and Falconer's party. And he waited, while the other men sent sidelong glances at Falconer and Falconer's eyes slowly fell. Then Brendan grunted. "This is why I'm in charge. Charters and successions don't mean a thing after four hundred years. Not if a good man goes against them. ”

“ No matter how well they're equipped to handle things outside, no matter how much has been done to get them ready. We don't expect miracles from you, Brendan. But we want to make sure you've done the best possible. We can't just twiddle our thumbs. ”

“ But if they had been met by what crowds around this dome today, they would never have lived at all, or begun this place.
"You're right, Lusic—there are only animals out there. Animals that hate us so much, some of them have learned to hold stones in their paws and use them for tools. ”

“ Brendan turned and played the welder's flame in the distorted faces nearest him. Sally got the door open, and he threw her beyond it. They forced it shut again behind them, and this time his weld was more careful but that was broken, too, before they were through the next compartment, and now there would be people in the parallel corridors, racing to cut them off—racing, and howling. The animals outside must be hearing it ... must be wondering....
He turned the two of them into a side corridor, and did not stop to use the welder. The mob might bypass an open door ... ”

“ They are possibilities, of course, but only that. These are not purposeful intelligences like ourselves. These are only immensely powerful animals—brilliant, for animals, in a world lacking a higher race to cow them—but they do not lay plans. ”