Walter Tevis

“Do you realize that you will not only wreck your civilization, such as it is, and kill most of your people; but that you will also poison the fish in your rivers, the squirrels in your trees, the flocks of birds, the soil, the water? There are times when you seem, to us, like apes loose in a museum, carrying knives, slashing the canvases, breaking the statuary with hammers.”

For a moment Bryce did not speak. Then he said, “But it was human beings who painted the pictures, made the statues.”

“Only a few human beings,” Newton said. “Only a few.”

“We must remember that the United States, regardless of what the uninformed may say, is not a second-rate power. We must remember that freedom will conquer, we must…”

Suddenly Newton realized that the man speaking was the President of the United States, and he was speaking the bombast of the hopeless.

Are you from Venus? Jupiter? Philadelphia?

The large picture of the heron on the far wall began to fade. When it was gone it was replaced by the head of a handsome man with the falsely serious stare in his eyes that is cultivated by politicians, faith healers, and evangelists.