She was swinging freely along beside him. Berti said, “Civilization subjected the human body to a vast and critical experiment. But the exaggeration of a part, like the fossil nautili, intended the experiment to fail.”
“But man isn’t licked yet!” said Roland vehemently. “He’s got his highly specialized brain, and complexity and specialization aren’t necessarily fatal—simply dangerous.”
“You’re proud of him,” said Berti, cutting off the tops of weeds with quick slicing motions of a green branch. “Even with his brain, he was never much better than the beast. A living anachronism, an unbalanced grotesque, an ape top-heavy with grey matter.”
“Quiet!” hissed Frances. Then to Roland. “He isn’t that way, really.”
The sophistry lapsed. Roland was grateful because it allowed him to concentrate on watching the smooth, graceful movement of Frances’ lithe body. There was an almost terrible casualness for people going to save the World.
“Aren’t you afraid of the Martians—out here in the open?” he asked.
Berti’s green switch sang. A four-legged quail fluttered up and hedge-hopped across a wild, brush-choked hollow, piping excitedly. “We know them. They’re—ah” he hesitated “—a kind of instinctual intelligence, somewhere above the survival value of the human intelligence. We’ve learned to cope with them on their own ground.”
“But how?” Roland was curious about how Frances had “gotten rid” of the Martian back in the cubicle. He was swinging his hand close to hers in the fond hope of grasping it sooner or later.
Frances kicked at a small piece of dislodged concrete. “Rolly, you’re so inquisitive. That would be awfully hard to explain in the short time we have. They’ve advanced far above human’s mere intelligence. And you learn to deal with that height. Or they get you. They’ve always had superiority of numbers, so they’ve been winning. That’s why we’ve got to destroy World Brain quickly before they finish us.”
“But, if World Brain is destroyed, and variable unpredictable government returns with human control, atomic energy returns with it, and humanity will try again. And probably destroy itself this time.” Roland hit his forehead with his flat hand. “It seems very involved.”