Page 20 - Fables volume 2

Global Worming

In a hollow beneath a living tree root the worm king addressed his
subjects.
“Stop squirming! The royal seismologist and the royal
dermatologist have delivered their learned opinions to me in
chambers. One conclusion alone is inferable from the physical data:
the Crushers are rapidly attaining a rate of topsoil destruction we
cannot overcome. Further, they have found a way to crush the sky as
well as the ground. As thin and frail as is our crustal zone of
habitation, so too is the atmospheric shell moderating the sun’s rays.
To the crushing and erosion and poisoning of our medium they have
added tearing the veil protecting us from the harshest solar
emanations. Topside organisms already are dying in large numbers.”
The king sensed continued writhing among his listeners.
“Wait! I command you to listen! This may indeed appear to
presage a bleak and black prognosis. We live too close to the surface
to escape the doom awaiting all terrestrial beings. None of us can dig
deep enough to escape the fate the Crushers have brought upon the
world: that is inescapable. Nor is nourishment available to us beyond
the depth of our inherent ability to excavate; we have arrived at an
equilibrium after eons of evolution. But that same process of
adaptation via mutation and selection does not have to be our
undoing.”
Again disquiet, dangerously close to panic, gripped the crowd.
“I, your king, will save the worms from extinction! The royal
geneticist has reviewed his findings with my scientific council. I called
this extraordinary audience in order to bring you good news as well
as bad. The Crushers themselves have pointed the way, although they
will not be able to follow it for their own salvation; that is an irony of
history, poetic justice impartially administered by nature. Since their
earliest days—when we, the worms, were already ancient in our
wisdom—they have been meddling with the reproduction of many
species, both flora and fauna, to produce a plant or animal serving
their own ends. They call it ‘domestication’ or ‘breeding’—
intervention in the choice of mates to force evolution of traits

19