the tutelage of these peaceable races, without the stress of division
into nations, we will flower as a race. No children of mine to the
furthest descendant will ever make war again. This much of a lesson we
have learned.

These timid beings do not realize how much humanity has wanted peace.
They do not know how reluctantly we were forced and trapped by old
institutions and warped tangles of politics to which we could see no
answer. We are not naturally savage. We are not savage when approached
as individuals. Perhaps they know this, but are afraid anyhow,
instinctive fear rising up from the blood of their hunted, frightened
forebears.

* * * * *

The human race will be a good partner to these races. Even recovering
from starvation as I am, I can feel in myself an energy they do not
have. The savage in me and my race is a creative thing, for in those who
have been educated as I was it is a controlled savagery which attacks
and destroys only problems and obstacles, never people. Any human raised
outside of the political traditions that the race inherited from its
bloodstained childhood would be as friendly and ready for friendship as
I am toward these beings. I could never hurt these pleasant, overgrown
bunnies and squirrels.

"We will do everything we can to make up for ... we will try to help,"
says the bunny, stumbling over the English, but civilized and cordial
and kind.

I sit up suddenly, reaching out impulsively to shake his hand. Suddenly
frightened he leaps back. All of them step back, glancing behind them as
though making sure of the avenue of escape. Their big luminous eyes
widen and glance rapidly from me to the doors, frightened.

They must think I am about to leap out of bed and pounce on them and eat
them. I am about to laugh and reassure them, about to say that all I
want from them is friendship, when I feel a twinge in my abdomen from
the sudden motion. I touch it with one hand under the bedclothes.

There is the scar of an incision there, almost healed. An operation. The
weakness I am recovering from is more than the weakness of starvation.

For only half a second I do not understand; then I see why they looked
ashamed.

They voted the murder of a race.

All the human survivors found have been made sterile. There will be no
more humans after we die.

I am frozen, one hand still extended to grasp the hand of the rabbity
one, my eyes still searching his express