Silent Running
Page 8
“Huey,” Lowell said softly, “when I was a kid, I once put a note with my name and address into a bottle and threw it into the ocean . . . I never did find out if anyone ever found it . . .
Suddenly, Lowell broke off, almost with a sigh.
Then it came, the thing he’d been expecting.
A blinding flash . . . ! A loud deafening boom . . . !
The ship Valley Forge exploded in a terrible light, bleaching out the sky, changing it to orange, to yellow, to a stark, unbearable white.
Way, way off, Dome One was a small, bright beacon.
Inside Dome One, Dewey moved about, watering a plant here, tending a fern there. Around him birds sang, frogs croaked.
All at once, almost ironically, from Berkshire came lovely music, a soft compelling song of children in the sun, on the earth:
“Fields of children running wild
In the sun.
Like a forest is your child growing
wild
In the sun.”
Dewey went on working. He suddenly paused, then leaned to examine a rose that had bloomed to full, brilliant, dazzling maturity. The song went on:
“Doomed in his innocence
In the sun.
Gather your children to your side
In the sun.
Tell them all they love will die
Tell them why
In the sun.
Tell them it’s not too late
Cultivate
One by one.”
Again came a silence as it had to Lowell in that other time when he had stood in his garden listening . . .
The song concluded:
“Tell them to harvest and rejoice
In the sun.”
Table of Contents
Back Cover
Preview
Titlepage
Copyright
Dedication
SILENT RUNNING
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN