"Darling," he began wearily.
"Don't throw your life away! Give us time--there must be another way."
"There's no other way," Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as if
he could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers.
"Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground,
but that's only delaying the end. _They_ still come down here, only not
as many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birth
rate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures:
we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now.
"They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're a
million years too far back even to understand what they are or where
they came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer."
She was crying now, silently, with great racking sobs that shook her
slender body. But he went remorselessly on.
"Out there, in space, the cosmics change unshielded life. They
make tentacles out of arms; or scales out of hair; or twelve toes,
or a dozen ears--or a better brain. Out of those millions of
possible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. We
can't fight _them_, but a superman could. That's our only chance.
Lorelei--darling--don't you see that?"