The Last Supper - T.D. Hamm 2

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The last supper by t d ham Hampered as she
was by the child in her arms, the woman was
running less fleetly. Now a wave of exaltation swept over Galdron,
drowning on the uneasy feeling of guilt at disobeying orders.
The instructions were mandatory and conceiase. No capture must be

(00:22):
attempted individually. In the event of sighting any form of
human life, the ship must be notified immediately. All small
craft must be back at the landing space not later
than one hour before takeoff. Anyone not so reporting will
be presumed lost. Guldran thought uneasily of the great seas

(00:44):
of snow and ice, weeping and inexorably toward each other,
since the Earth had reversed on its axis in the
great catastrophe of millennium ago. Now summer and winter alike
brought paralyzing gales and blizzards by the sleety snow in
which the woman's skin clad feet had left the tracks

(01:05):
which led to discovery. His trained anthropologist's mind speculated avidly
over the little they had gotten from the younger of
the two men, found nearly a week before, nearly frozen
and half starved, the older man had succumbed almost at once.
The other, in the most primitive sign language, had indicated

(01:29):
that of several humans living in caves to the west,
only he and the other had survived to fleece some
mysterious terror. Goldran felt a throb of pity for the
woman and her child left behind by the men, no
doubt as a hindrance. But what a stroke of fortune
that there should be left a male and female of
the race to carry the seed of Terra to another planet.

(01:52):
And what a triumph if he Goldren should be the
one to return at the eleventh hour with the prize,
no need of calling for help. This was no armed
war party, but the most defenseless being in the universe,
a mother burned with a child. Goldran put on another
burst of speed. His previous shouts had served only to

(02:13):
the spur of the woman to greater efforts. Surely there
was some magic word that had survived even the centuries
of illiteracy, something equivalent to the bread and salt of
all illiterate peoples. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he
shouted food, food. Ahead of him. The woman turned her head,
leaped lightly in mid stride, and went on, slowing a little,

(02:36):
but still running. Dodgedly. Goldran's pulse leaped. He yelled again Food.
The instant that his foot touched the yielding surface of
the trap, he knew that he had met defeat. At
his body crashed down on the fire sharpened stakes. He
knew too the terror from which the last men of
the human race had fled. Above him, the woman looked down,

(02:58):
her teeth gleaming wolfishly. She pointed down into the pit,
spoke exultantly to the child. Food, said, the last woman
on Earth. The End End of the Last Supper by T. D.
Ham