The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) by Kevin Emerson Page A

could just act however we wanted and God would take care of us. And by the time people started waking up to the dangers, it was way too late. Nature had already made up its mind.”
    “Yeah, but that’s because we basically are nature,” said Leech.
    “What’s that mean?” said Lilly.
    “I mean we’re a part of nature,” said Leech. “We’re not separate from it. The Great Rise was going to happen, same as everything else. Us warming the planet is no different from an elephant knocking down all the trees and making a savanna. It’s just life doing its thing.”
    “We killed all the elephants,” said Lilly, “and practically every other animal.”
    “Yeah, but that’s still just nature, too. It’s not like we came here from outer space. Nature made us. It’s not wrong, it’s just success. Survival of the fittest. Human beats elephant, or whale or any other extinct creature.”
    “Except that success ended up killing off over half the human race,” I said. “We spoiled our own planet.”
    “Not spoiled, just changed. Same thing every other animal does,” said Leech. “Take a disease or termites or something. They eat and multiply until there’re no more victims and they’re drowning in their own feces, and then they die off, and the ones that are left evolve.”
    “And the cycle starts anew,” I said, remembering what the siren had said.
    “Huh?” said Leech.
    “Nothing.”
    “So it’s okay for humans to just die out,” Lilly continued.
    “ Okay isn’t part of it,” said Leech. “It just is. Dinosaurs rise and fall. Humans rise and fall. Maybe next it will be rats or roaches or some intelligent plant. Point is, it’s all nature.”
    I was surprised by this. Another thing I hadn’t expected from Leech was this kind of thinking about the world. And I also remembered where I’d heard it before. “Paul talked like that.”
    “Yeah,” said Leech. “He called it natureism. He may be a jerk, but the idea makes sense.”
    “And so do you agree that it should justify him doing whatever he wants?” asked Lilly.
    “I’m not sure what I believe,” said Leech quietly. “Not anymore.” He returned to his drawing.
    Lilly turned to me. “What do you think?”
    “Um.” I wasn’t sure. “I think the thing about nature has a point. I mean, our brains evolved out of the same muck as every other thing that’s ever lived.”
    “Great,” muttered Lilly, “you boys are useless. Maybe Paul’s right, then. Maybe this is all just ‘natural.’ So in that case, who cares about anything?”
    “Come on,” I said, “maybe there is a reason for, like, recycling and all that: but it’s not to stop the world from changing. It seems like the world is going to change no matter what, whether humans cause it or something else. But . . . I think just because you’re part of nature doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. It’s like, you might have your own bedroom, and you can do whatever you want in it, but if you trash it too much, you can’t live in it anymore. Or something.”
    “I like it, O,” said Lilly, and I finally thought I saw a spark in her eyes. “Do unto others as you would do to your bedroom. Bedroomism.”
    I smiled. It felt good to be talking, spinning ideas by blue light, free in the dark, like we had on the raft. It was also the first time in days that Lilly had used her old nickname for me. “Also,” I went on, “if you mess up the bedroom too fast, you end up breaking things, or in this case killing people. So sure, maybe on a million-year scale, the death of a few billion people doesn’t actually matter, but on a personal scale, part of being human is morality, and it’s wrong to kill another person. So maybe that’s where you draw the line.” I couldn’t help glancing at Leech as I said this, remembering the boccie balls, but he was drawing intently.
    “So our creed is Thou Shalt Not Kill nor Muss Thy Bedroom,” said Lilly. “And so it was.” She