Time of the Great Freeze
Page 16
"You weren't much help three hundred years ago!"
The doctor looked pained. "For this, we feel great guilt. We turned our back on our responsibilities. But things are different now. The nations near the equator are making plans for aiding you of the north and south. We have much to atone for, and we have already begun. The ice is rolling back. Five, ten miles a year, now, but soon much more rapidly. The world will be reborn. And we must make it possible for your people to reclaim their heritage."
Jim shook his head. "It won't work. They don't want to come out of the ground. They like it down there."
Smiling, the Brazilian said, "They will change their minds. Only let someone go among them to tell them how sweet the air smells in spring, and they will come forth."
"They won't listen!" Jim insisted.
"We shall see," Carvalho let one hand rest on Jim's shoulder, the other on Colin's. "We will go to see them. You and Ted and Colin, and a boy from Brazil. Ambassadors from the world of warmth. There must be contact. Your party was the first to emerge. We have waited for someone to come from the underground cities, and now someone has. There is a stirring. Together, we will bring your people forth. The time is drawing near for the melting of the ice, and there is a great deal to be done. Will you help?"
Jim was silent a moment. Carvalho seemed to mean it, he thought. The old isolation of the warm-climate people was dead, then. There would no longer be guards along the borders. Thousands would pour forth from the underground cities-and the people of the warmer lands would stand ready to help the less fortunate ones rebuild their glacier-crushed nations.
Things were changing. With his father and Carl and Dave safe in London, as Carvalho had said, there would be the beginning of a new day of understanding in that city, at least. London had taken three strangers in. That meant London was loosening up, shedding its fear of change, of rebirth. The presence of three New Yorkers there would hurry that process along. Awakening New York might be a more difficult task, but it could be done.
They would do it.
He and Ted and Colin would go winging northward again in a gleaming ship of the air. First to London, to be reunited with the others, and that would be a day of jubilation! And then on-to New York and all the other cities-ambassadors heralding the new day of warmth.
He walked to the window and looked out in wonder and awe at Rio's splendor-at the sun, the blue sky, the busy, healthy people, the stunning towers. Then he turned, and glanced at Ted and Colin, and at the Brazilian.
"Yes," Jim said. "There'll be a lot to do, won't there?"
It was like a dream. To awaken in this land of warmth after that nightmare of snow and ice…
But it was no dream. Rio was real, the warm sun overhead was real, Carvalho was real.
Soon the rays of that sun would lick at the ice that gripped half the world. Soon the grim glacier would fall back in defeat. A thaw was beginning-not only in the weather, but in the minds of men as well. Jim knew a great responsibility lay upon him now.
Carvalho said, "There are many who want to meet you three. We are full of questions about your cities. But not now. You will rest now, and rebuild your strength. Then there will be time for questions."
"I want to see the city," Jim said. "I want to walk in the street, with the sky over my head." He felt gay, giddy, unfettered at last All somberness lay behind him.
And a mighty task lay ahead. It did not frighten him, though, the thought of rebuilding a world. What he had been through was discipline enough for any kind of job.
"There'll be so much to do," Ted said.
"Yes," Jim said. "Plenty to do. But it'll all be worth doing. I can't wait to begin."
He looked toward the window-toward the golden light of the sun, the warming sun, the sun whose gentle rays would soon be driving back the ice, the sun that would give the world back to mankind.
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