“Coker thinks they might have made out all right once the children had grown old enough to work, but it would have been tough going all the time. When I did find them, they hadn’t much hesitation about coming along. They set about loading up their fishing boats right away, and they were all on the island in a couple of weeks. When Coker found you weren’t with us, he suggested you might still be somewhere in these parts.”
“You can tell him that wipes out any hard feelings about him,” said Josella.
“He’s going to be a very useful man,” Ivan said. “And from what he tells us, you could be too,” he added, looking at me. “You’re a biochemist, aren’t you?”
“A biologist,” I said.
“Well, you can hold on to your fine distinctions. The point is, Michael has tried to get some research going into a method of knocking off triffids scientifically. That has to be found if we are going to get anywhere at all. But the trouble so far is that the only people we have to work on it are a few who have forgotten most of the biology they learned at school. What do you think—like to turn professor? It’d be a worth-while job.”
“I can’t think of one that would be more worth while,” I told him.
“Does this mean you’re inviting us all to your island haven?” Dennis asked.
“Well, to come on mutual approval, at least,” Ivan replied. “Bill and Josella will probably remember the broad principles laid down that night at the university. They still stand. We aren’t out to reconstruct—we want to build something new and better. Some people don’t take to that. If they don’t, they’re no use to us. We just aren’t interested in having an opposition party that’s trying to perpetuate a lot of the old bad features. We’d rather people who want that went elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere sounds a pretty poor offer, in the circumstances,” remarked Dennis.
“Oh, I don’t mean we throw them back to the triffids. But there were a number of them, and there had to be some place for them to go, so a party went across to the Channel Isles and started cleaning up there on the same lines as we’d cleaned up the Isle of Wight. About a hundred of them moved over. They’re doing all right there.
“So now we have this mutual-approval system. Newcomers spend six months with us, then there’s a Council hearing. If they don’t like our ways, they say so; and if we don’t think they’ll fit, we say so. If they fit, they stay; if not, we see that they get to the Channel Isles—or back to the mainland, if they’re odd enough to prefer that.”
“Sounds to have a touch of the dictatorial. How’s this Council of yours formed?” Dennis wanted to know.
Ivan shook his head.
“It’d take too long to go into constitutional questions now. The best way to learn about us is to come and find out. If you like us, you’ll stay—but even if you don’t, I think you’ll find the Channel Isles a better spot than this is likely to be a few years from now.”
In the evening, after Ivan had taken off and vanished away to the southwest, I went and sat on my favorite bench in a corner of the garden.
I looked across the valley, remembering the well-drained and tended meadows that had been there. Now it was far on its way back to the wild. The neglected fields were dotted with thickets, beds of reeds, and stagnant pools. The bigger trees were slowly drowning in the sodden soil.
I thought of Coker and his talk of the leader, the teacher, and the doctor—and of all the work that would be needed to support us on our few acres. Of how it would affect each of us if we had been imprisoned here. Of the three blind ones, still feeling useless and frustrated as they grew older. Of Susan, who should have the chance of a husband and babies. Of David, and Mary’s little girl, and any other children there might be who would have to become laborers as soon as they were strong enough. Of Josella and myself having to work still harder as we became older, because there would be more to feed and more work that must be done by hand…