"It is only for a short time, Jarry, as the sense will reckon it."
"But it is really three thousand years! An ice age will come to pass aswe doze. Our former worlds will change so that we would not know them werewe to go back for a visit--and none will remember us."
"Visit what? Our former cells? Let the rest of the worlds go by! Let usbe forgotten in the lands of our birth! We are a people apart and we havefound our home. What else matters?"
"True...It will be but a few years, and we shall stand our tours ofwakefulness and watching together."
"When is the first?"
"Two and a half centuries from now--three months of wakefulness."
"What will it be like then?"
"I don't know. Less warm..."
"Then let us return and sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day."
"Yes."
"Oh! See the green bird! It drifts like a dream..."
When they awakened that first time, they stayed within the Worldchangeinstallation at the place called Deadland. The world was alreadycolder and the edges of the sky were tinted with pink. The metalwalls of the great installation were black and rimed with frost. Theatmosphere was still lethal and the temperature far too high. Theyremained within their special chambers for most of the time, venturingoutside mainly to make necessary tests and to inspect the structure oftheir home.
Deadland...Rocks and sand. No trees, no marks of life at all.
The time of terrible winds was still upon the land, as the world foughtback against the fields of the machines. At night, great clouds of realestate smoothed and sculpted the stands of stone, and when the windsdeparted the desert would shimmer as if fresh-painted and the stones wouldstand like flames within the morning and its singing. After the sun came upinto the sky and hung there for a time, the winds would begin again and a