rest of the species were as comfortable with looking and waiting as this man, we might yet be saved. “I want to start a seed bank. There are half as many trees in the world as there were before we came down out of them.”
“Because of us?”
“One percent of the world forest, every decade. An area larger than Connecticut, every year.”
He nods, as if no one paying attention would be surprised.
“A third to a half of existing species may go extinct by the time I’m gone.”
Her words puzzle him. She’s going somewhere?
“Tens of thousands of trees we know nothing about. Species we’ve barely classified. Like burning down the library, art museum, pharmacy, and hall of records, all at once.”
“You want to start an ark.”
She smiles at the word, but shrugs. It’s as good as any. “I want to start an ark.”
“Where you can keep . . .” The strangeness of the idea gets him. A vault to store a few hundred million years of tinkering. Hand on the car door, he fixes on something high up in a cedar. “What . . . would you do with them? When would they ever . . . ?”
“Den, I don’t know. But a seed can lie dormant for thousands of years.”
THEY MEET on a hillside at evening, overlooking the sea. Father and son. It has been some time. After this hour together in a brand-new place, it will be so much longer.
Neelay-ji. Is that you?
Pita. Here we are. It works!
The old beggar walks up to the blue-skinned god and waves. The god stands still. Sound is very bad, Neelay.
I can hear you, Dad. Not to worry. It’s just you and me.
I can’t believe it. So amazing!
This is nothing. Just wait.
The blue god stumbles as he tries to walk. Look at your costume! Look at me!
Hoping to make you laugh, Pita.
Side by side, with shaky steps, they make their way along the ocean-battered cliffs. Since long before the father left for that clinic in distant Minnesota, such a walk together has been impossible. Not since the boy’s early childhood have they gone out like this, chattering side by side, their words rushing to keep up with their steps.
It’s so big, Neelay.
There’s more. Lots more.
And the details! How did you do it?
Pita, this is just the beginning, trust me.
The blue god staggers up to the cliff’s edge. My goodness. Look down there. Waves!
They stand at the top of a waterfall that plunges down onto the coast below. Surf-carved rocks dot the sand like fairy castles. Tidal pools shimmer beneath.
Neelay. So beautiful. I want to see it all! They follow the coast awhile before turning inland. Where are we now? What is this place?
It’s all imaginary, Pita.
Yes, but familiar.
That’s good!
The father will tell the boy’s mother afterward. How he was plucked up and dropped back down in the infant world, before the rise of people. The misty air and slant, tropical light confuse him. The tan of the sand and azure sea, the dry mountains ringing them in. He squints at the vegetation, so lavish. He has never paid much attention to plants. He never had time, in his life, to learn them. And now he never will.
They walk down a path alongside trunks that open into giant gnarled parasols against the sun. What on Earth, Neelay? Your sci-fi? As if his son’s pulp magazines still gather dust balls in stacks under the boyhood bed.
No, Pita. Earth. Dragon blood trees.
They’re real? Trees like that, in our world?
The beggar smiles and points. Everything based on a true story!
It dawns on the blue god: the fish in these seas, the birds in the air, and all that creeps on this made Earth is just a crude start for some future refuge, saved from the vanishing original. He walks up close to one of the monster toadstools. What can the players do with this place?
The words spill out of the beggar unplanned. What do you want it to do, Dad?
Ach, Neelay. I remember. Good answer!
The beggar describes just how large the sandbox is. A person can gather herbs, hunt animals, plant crops, cut trees and fashion boards, dig deep mines for minerals and ore, trade and negotiate, build cabins and town halls and cathedrals and world wonders. . . .
They walk again. The climate changes to something lusher. Beasts prowl in the undergrowth. Above them, flocks wheel. When do people start to arrive?
End of next month.
I see. Soon!
You’ll still be here, Dad.
Yes, of course, Neelay. How do I