in a little clearing before a cave.
She was quite the loveliest creature he had ever seen. She was starknaked, and showed no fear when she saw him. She showed, instead, alively curiosity. She jabbered and smiled at him and came to him,open-handed, interested, friendly.
I'll kill her, he told himself, when the pain is too bad, when I can'tstand it any longer. She can't get away. She expects nothing, nothing.Meanwhile, he decided to spend the last months of his life with thiswoman....
* * * * *
There was no reason to expect that she had been monogamous. One man oranother would be all the same to her, if they could leave this area. Ifshe wouldn't find the corpse of her mate. Jason took her hand, and theywalked. They walked for a long time. Then they slept, then ate, thenwalked again. The woman jabbered. Jason Wall talked. He was enjoyinghimself immensely. There was no hurry. This was a new kind of life, anew kind of experience. He loved every moment of it.
They found another cave, three day's journey from the first. They livedthere for some weeks. The pain came more frequently, but Jason Wallwithstood it.
* * * * *
The weeks became months. His days were numbered now, he knew that. Itseemed just, somehow. After taking all that the first woman had tooffer, he would kill her--and destroy all humankind.
She never had understood his affliction, his great pain. Pain from awound she could understand. Once he had scraped his knee on a rock, andshe had been extremely sympathetic. But pain from disease seemed unknownto her. Of course, Jason Wall knew, any disease was compounded of twothings: a disease agent, bacteria or virus, and a susceptibility.Apparently First Man and First Woman had utterly no susceptibility. Theywere disease-free.
Some time later in the course of human development--how much later hedid not yet know--susceptibility to disease had evolved.
The woman's belly grew round and Jason Wall knew she was going to have ababy. His baby.
He sighed. His time was short. The baby would never be born, because hewould kill its mother first.
Then it struck him like a blow. A baby. His baby. And First Man andFirst Woman--free of disease. He had introduced disease into the humanmakeup, by planting his seed in this woman!
_Including his own...._
He could break the pattern by killing her. Then, as he had plannedoriginally, there would be no childbirth, and no mankind.
He lifted the pistol. The look on his face must have given him away.Probably, she thought it was a club. He was pain-wracked and very muchweakened by his disease now. She took the pistol away from him easily,and shrugged, and cried a little, and went away.
He ran after her.
"Wait!" he screamed. "Wait, you don't understand! You've got to die.You've got to--"
He fell. His legs drummed feebly. She was gone. The pistol was gone.Humanity would live--the life of torment and pain and disease that ithad always known.
And he would die, alone, wracked by the ailment he had introduced intothe human line.
He lay there.
It took him a long time to die.
Disaster Revisited Page 3
