Alfred Bester - Adam and No Eve

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ADAM AND NO EVE Astounding Science Fiction September 1941 by Alfred Bester

(1913- ) Crane knew this must be the seacoast. Instinct told him; but

more than instinct. the few shreds of knowledge that clung to his torn,

feverish brain told him; the stars that had shown at night through the rare

breaks in the clouds, and his compass that still pointed a trembling finger

north. That was strangest of all, Crane thought. Though a welter of chaos, the

Earth still retained its polarity. It was no longer a coast; there was no

longer any sea. Only the faint line of what had been a cliff, stretching north

and south for endless miles. A line of gray ash. The same gray ash and cinders

that lay behind him; the same gray ash that stretched before him. Fine silt,

knee-deep, that swirled up at every motion and choked him. Cinders that

scudded in dense mighty clouds when the mad winds blew. Cinders that were

churned to viscous mud when the frequent rains fell. The sky was jet

overhead. The black clouds rode high and were pierced with shafts of sunlight

that marched swiftly over the Earth. Where the light struck a cinder storm, it

was filled with gusts of dancing, gleaming particles. Where it played through

rain it brought the arches of rainbows into being. Rain fell; cinder storms

blew; light thrust down—together, alternately and continually in a jigsaw of

black and white violence. So it had been for months. So it was over every mile

of the broad Earth. Crane passed the edge of the ashen cliffs and began

crawling down the even slope that had once been the ocean bed. He had been

traveling so long that all sense of pain had left him. He braced elbows and

dragged his body forward. Then he brought his right knee under him and reached

forward with elbows again. Elbows, knee, elbows, knee— He had forgotten what

it was to walk. Life, he thought dazedly, is wonderful. It adapts itself to

anything. If it must crawl, it crawls. Callus forms on the elbows and knees.

The neck and shoulders toughen. The nostrils learn to snort away the ashes

before they inhale. The bad leg swells and festers. It numbs, and presently it

will rot and fall off. "I beg pardon," Crane said, "I didn't quite get that—"

He peered up at the tall figure before him and tried to understand the words.

It was Hallmyer. He wore his stained lab jacket and his gray hair was awry.

Hallmyer stood delicately on top of the ashes and Crane wondered why he could

see the scudding cinder clouds through his body. "How do you like your world,

Stephen?" Hallmyer asked. Crane shook his head miserably. "Not very pretty,

eh?" said Hallmyer. "Look around you. Dust, that's all; dust and ashes. Crawl,

Stephen, crawl. You'll find nothing but dust and ashes—" Hallmyer produced a

goblet of water from nowhere. It was clear and cold. Crane could see the fine

mist of dew on its surface and his mouth was suddenly coated with dry grit.

"Hallmyer!" he cried. He tried to get to his feet and reach for the water, but

the jolt of pain in his right leg warned him. He crouched back. Hallmyer

sipped and then spat in his face. The water felt warm. "Keep crawling," said

Hallmyer bitterly. "Crawl round and round the face of the Earth. You'll find

nothing but dust and ashes—" He emptied the goblet on the ground before Crane.

"Keep crawling. How many miles? Figure it out for yourself. Pi-R-Square. The

radius is eight thousand or so—" He was gone, jacket and goblet. Crane

realized that rain was falling again. He pressed his face into the warm sodden

cinder mud, opened his mouth and tried to suck the moisture. He groaned and

presently began crawling. There was an instinct that drove him on. He had to

get somewhere. It was associated, he knew, with the sea—with the edge of the

sea. At the shore of the sea something waited for him. Something that would

help him understand all this. He had to get to the sea—that is, if there was a

sea any more. The thundering rain beat his back like heavy planks. Crane

paused and yanked the knapsack around to his side where he probed in it with

one hand. It contained exactly three things. A pistol, a bar of chocolate and

a can of peaches. All that was left of two months' supplies. The chocolate was

pulpy and spoiled. Crane knew he had best eat it before all value rotted away.

But in another day he would lack the strength to open the can. He pulled it

out and attacked it with the opener. By the time he had pierced and pried away

a flap of tin, the rain had passed. As he munched the fruit and sipped the

juice, he watched the wall of rain marching before him down the slope of the

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Alfred Bester - Adam and No Eve

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