The Harvest
by Robert Charles Wilson
Do you want to live forever? the Travellers asked humanity, and only one in ten thousand said no. Their ship had been in orbit around the earth for a year, but their only communication came one night via an enigmatic dream of immortality. And the next day everything was changed. Most of the world prepared to put away their earthly lives as children put away their toys. And the few who remained fully human began to know fear.
In coastal Buchanan, Oregon, physician Matt Wheeler is one of only ten who said no to eternity. As he watches his friends, his colleagues, even his beloved daughter transform into something more—or less—than human, he finds that his concepts of life and death, good and evil, god and mortal must undergo a similar change if he is to retain his bittersweet hold on life.
Others, however, find such introspection to be self-defeating—perhaps even treasonous. If we’ve been invaded by aliens, reasons Col. John Tyler, we’ve got to fight back. Even if they are in human form. And sifting through the remnants of the United States, he finds those who agree with him.
And so, at the end of the world, it is like it was at the beginning. There are those who choose heaven, those who choose earth, and those who choose hell. And as these three groups move toward their fates, humanity finds itself on the bring of a destiny that may forever change the face of the universe itself.
In coastal Buchanan, Oregon, physician Matt Wheeler is one of only ten who said no to eternity. As he watches his friends, his colleagues, even his beloved daughter transform into something more—or less—than human, he finds that his concepts of life and death, good and evil, god and mortal must undergo a similar change if he is to retain his bittersweet hold on life.
Others, however, find such introspection to be self-defeating—perhaps even treasonous. If we’ve been invaded by aliens, reasons Col. John Tyler, we’ve got to fight back. Even if they are in human form. And sifting through the remnants of the United States, he finds those who agree with him.
And so, at the end of the world, it is like it was at the beginning. There are those who choose heaven, those who choose earth, and those who choose hell. And as these three groups move toward their fates, humanity finds itself on the bring of a destiny that may forever change the face of the universe itself.