“It hurts, you say?”
“Yes, Kromno! Once or twice I have tried to watch that strange fire, but I cannot. The pain is very great!”
“Humph!” thought Allan. “This may be a more serious factor than I've reckoned on. These people are albinos. White hair and pink eyes--not a particle of protecting pigmentation. For thirty or so generations they've been subjected to nothing but torchlight. The actinic rays of the sun are infinitely more penetrating than anything they've ever known. It may take months, years even, to accustom them to sunlight!”
And disquieting situations presented themselves to his mind. True, if it were necessary, the Folk could work and take the air only at night.
They could fish, hunt and till the soil by star and moonlight, and sleep by day; but this was by no means the veritable reestablishment of a real, human civilization.
Then an idea struck him.
“The very thing!” cried he. “Once I can put it into effect, it will solve the question. And the second generation, at the outside, will be normal. They'll ‘throw back’ to remote ancestry under changed conditions. In time, even if only a long time, all will yet be well!”
But now immediate labors and difficult problems were pressing. The future would have to look out for itself.
Stern felt positive that to let the Merucaans out of the cave would not only blind them, but might also kill them outright as well.
Their unprotected skins would inevitably burn to a blister under the rays of the sun, and they would in all probability die. So said he: