"I didn't know," the girl said. "The big one?"
"Yes."
A flicker of pain crossed her face and she shook her head. "I always wondered what it would be like to live on a mud flat. I wonder if we will be oysters, or eels. Or maybe crabs."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Zen demanded.
"After the bomb goes off," the girl said.
"What then?"
"The race mind will have to start over again," she explained. Her manner indicated that she was explaining something that she clearly understood. She seemed to wonder why he did not understand it. "Maybe we will be turtles? That will be funny! A turtle that can remember when it was a man! That's the way it will be. Except—"
"I know all about that."
"Except that the turtle won't be able to do anything about its memories," the girl continued as if she had not heard him. "It will have flippers and a beak but what it will need will be hands. It won't have them until it grows them itself. A turtle with the memories that it was once a man, knowing that if it had hands, it could rebuild human culture!" A bemused expression appeared on her face. "I wonder how the race mind will solve that problem." Again she seemed to muse. "It would be worse to be crabs. Or would it?"
"Shut up!" Zen snarled. "We're not turtles yet. Or crabs. And we're not back on the mud flats."