"lot of information in this. written by a small animal ecologist. read it. read it carefully. think about it. read it again, and think some more. got that?"

i said, "sure. i'll read it." i had the notion he was trying to get something over without actually coming out with it flat, so i listened carefully.

he paused for a while, wiping his glasses and pursing his lips.

"that island's not right for fulmars and gannets. wrong environment. never have multiplied as they should. whole thing should be concentrated north. plenty of cliff sites north. none here. won't do. terns, yes. fulmars and gannets, no. trouble is, wfi is tenacious. stupidly so. it works, they say. i tell them it works badly. it's going to take a lot to move them: total failure of a colony or two.

"you're intelligent, george. put two and two together. wish you luck."

he shook my hand quickly and jumped into the helicopter. bill and joy had to call me twice before i could come out of a trance of bewildered speculation. in a daze i helped the boys load our last piece of equipment: a huge barrel of salt they had pilfered from the local food plant.

the island is big, about five by fifteen miles, and it must have been a fine piece of land. it still was, even though mucked everywhere with white-to-greenish bird dung. there were steep hills on the mainland side, marshes to seaward, and in the middle natural meadowland broken by woods containing pine, and some beech and maple. we moored in a small but fairly deep harbor at a wharf for loading foods. our barracks stood just off the wharf. in addition to all the necessities, there was a two-way radio, marked "use in emergency only", and a handbook with information on approximate numbers of birds to be taken, locations of nesting sites, and so on. equipment, including snares and nets, was stored in an equipment room. and there was a storeroom containing packaged foods, no freezing or cooling necessary for preservation.

behind the barracks stood a warehouse for storing processed birds, and a shop with the processors themselves. everything looked orderly and efficient. a small plant supplied us with light and heat and power for the machines.

we arrived in november. by december, the first sea birds began to return to their nesting sites, a few at a time. soon we were so busy snagging them as they came to land that we had little time for anything but work and sleep. even so, bill took the time to salt several dozens of gannets and fulmars for future eating, and he was looking forward to the eggs.

spring and early summer soon rolled around, and we were collecting young birds, the nestlings. so it went.

i can't say any of us liked the work. for one thing we all sickened of the endless slaughter. for another, the stench and dirt were overwhelming. the island should have been a fine place for living. there were sheltered spots for houses, a small harbor, woodlots, meadows for cattle and pigs, some bottom land for food crops, the sea for fish—a fine location; but it was ruined by birds. it was a slimy, stinking hell.

the birds flew everywhere in huge flocks, especially in the morning when the gannets and fulmars came back from fishing at sea. excrement fell from the sky like a stinking sleet. we couldn't get away from the smell or the smell away from us. it was in our clothing, hair, under our fingernails. no watermen ever washed so often or so thoroughly as we did, but the stink remained. we lost weight and appetite steadily, for the packaged food tasted of excrement soon after it was opened, or seemed to, which is just as bad.

however, by the end of june most of the birds had left, and we had our helicopter inspection. the same man who was fascinated by the cold remains of a couple of eggs in my kitchen was on this route, and we cooked three or four of our chickens. his enormous appetite sharpened ours, and we had a feast. he was almost tearfully grateful. by july, the freighter had put in, loaded, and left. for the first time in many months, we were unoccupied.

bill and joy immediately set about knitting a large drift net. they were happily excited at the prospect of gilling large numbers of government fish. as for me, i sat down to read a book on small animal ecology.

i read that book through three times. i kept at it night and day, and it was the hardest work i've ever done, because i wasn't reading just to pass the time. there was a message in that book, i was sure of it, a message from carter, a man i liked and trusted.

by the time i began to get a glimmering of an idea as to what carter's message was, the boys had their net knitted and hung. i went back to the book to find out what to do about this idea, and the boys sailed out to drift the net. i waited for them in a sweat of impatience. they came back at dawn the next day with a boat load of food fish. i met them at the wharf.

"bill," i said, "what are you going to do with that load of fish?"

bill looked at the fish. he said with slow and tremendous satisfaction, "i aim to eat them fish, george henry."

"bill," i said, "not even you can eat all those fish. i've got a scheme. save back some of the fish, sure. let joy smoke a few even. but take the rest into murdock tonight and sell them to hornsby. he used to buy my oysters. he'll buy your fish."

"what for?" bill asked.

"get some bootleg gin," i said.

"that makes sense. what else?"

"rats," i said. "i want rats. buy some traps or get pete younger to make some. not muskrats. barn rats. as many as you can catch."

"fish," bill said. "fish for rats. boy, the birds has got you."

he gave in after a while, more to keep me good natured than for any other reason, that and the gin. he came back with two dozen live, healthy specimens, and watched with an open mouth as i let them loose.

the months passed, and i was worried. to drive the problem from my head, i took the boat out and surveyed the shallow waters off the island. i found something. i found a bed of oysters in broken rock, a bed not marked on wfi charts, because you could see it hadn't been worked for a long time. later, i located clam beds on the marshy side of the island. the damn place was a paradise, or might be, once those birds were cut down, but i couldn't eliminate them by sheer slaughter because of the wfi.

there didn't seem to be many rats around. december came and all the filthy, stinking work with it, and still no rats. once in a while, eggs would be missing from occupied nests, and that was all. gulls could have gotten those. we toiled through stinking february, foul march, odiferous april, and evil-smelling may. still no rats.

i sent bill back to the mainland for more; and by september, rats were everywhere. bill looked at me from his bunk one night and said, "i hope you're satisfied."

i was more than that. i was terrified. they absolutely swarmed. it was impossible to walk from the barracks to the boat at mid-day without having to kick rats off the path. they consumed most of the non-metallic gear in the boat, including the sail. so far, they hadn't gnawed a way into our barracks store room, or we'd have literally starved to death.

"boys," i said, "just sit tight. wait till december. these rats are the best friends you ever had. they're going to make this island livable. no more stink and stench."

"what," said bill, "are you going to do with the rats when the birds are gone?"

joy merely moaned.

"we'll kill them."

"if they don't get us first," bill said.

it was an awesome and bloody slaughter. the fulmars and gannets, most of the gulls, some of the terns, were either wiped out or harried off the island in a single season. and the island became a heaving, moving, revolting mass of rats, and nothing but rats. they attacked us on sight, from sheer hunger. not a blade of grass grew anywhere on the island, and rats are not grass eaters as an ordinary thing. there was one hopeful sign. they were beginning to eat each other.

day after day we were caged in our barracks. the constant squealing and scratching under the barracks was bad enough. what made us desperate was the fact that they had gnawed a way into the store room and most of the packaged food was gone. we still had some smoked fish hung on the rafters, and a few salted fulmars in the barrel, but that was all. it was then that we remembered the two-way radio, marked "use in emergency only". bill said, after weighing all the evidence coolly and carefully, that this here, in his opinion, was an emergency.

i got wfi mainland and finally persuaded them to put me in touch with carter, bird stations ecologist. i told him we were having a little trouble with the genus rattus, and would he, for god's sake, do something about it, quick. i can still near him laughing. it was a while before he could speak at all.

"keep them at bay, general. i'll be over early tomorrow morning."

i don't believe any men have ever been so happy to see carter as we were.

"they'll balance," he said. "starvation will do its work. i've brought along a couple of pairs of barn owls. they'll help a lot. i see you read that ecology book. good job. station virtually wiped out. i'm sending supplies over in a week's time. anybody wants to know, you're supposed to be helping extend and restore the tern and gull colonies. wouldn't be a bad idea to try a few other animal experiments. milder, though. smaller scale. send canvas for a sail too."

he was gone before we could answer. the small freighter put in july fifteenth. she had no cargo of processed birds to take back, of course. the captain detailed a few men to unload our supplies, and we helped them eagerly. there were six calves and heifers, two cows and a bull, five pigs, one boar and two sows, several dozen hens and a rooster. best of all, there was a big case containing seeds: corn, barley, oats, seed potatoes, melons, beets, kale, dozens of others. a plow and two draught horses, mare and stallion. several pounds of rat poison. a hand forge and several tons of coke. iron. a hundred pounds of linen twine for nets, as well as ropes of all sizes. canvas. tools of all kinds. a big medical kit.

in a year's time, we had prospered. no richer land, due to the bird droppings, was ever farmed. and the sandier areas could be depended upon for melons and other crops demanding a lighter, drier, and not so rich soil. not only that, but we were five, now, instead of three. the jackson boys had lured a couple of husky girls to the island in the boat. the boys claimed the women fell in love with them. i think they fell in love with the island.

this fast work on the part of the jacksons seemed a little rash to me. i was still not at all sure we'd be allowed to remain and enjoy the work we had done. several times, i was tempted to use the radio again, but decided to wait. i'm glad now i did.

in august, a little more than a year after his last visit, carter set his helicopter down at the wharf again.

after lunch in the barracks of baked fish, fresh milk, potatoes, salad, and melons, he pushed back his chair and said, "i suppose you've been wondering."

"we'd like to know," i said.

he nodded. "the mainland's going to pieces. so is the whole world. it isn't just food. we can still produce that. remember what you said about the bad roads, bad telephones? you put your finger on it. so much manpower, machinery, energy, material is used up in getting food and processing it and distributing it, there isn't enough for other things. a tenth of the world's population and a quarter of its total power resources go into processing plankton alone. we are literally eating ourselves to death. utilities and services are breaking down rapidly. no new dwellings of any kind have been built for ten years or more. oil is short, cement, iron, steel, coal, plastics, wiring, radios, telephones, everything is in short supply and getting shorter. transport is staggering to a halt."

he paused, took off his glasses, and twirled them by one side piece.

"many of us saw it coming. a few decided to do something. we thought there should be undisturbed nuclei, a few able people with ample food supplies. you are one such center. there are others at various bird stations along the coast. you'll be joined shortly by a few more people, young men and women, among them a trained nurse, a doctor, a skilled carpenter, so on."

bill cleared his throat.

"what you said, i guess it was all around me, only i never seen it, not to put together. just one thing. the manager at the food plant, he used to stop and kid me about all the fish i'd stole from the government in my time. he was abraggin' about how wfi had newer and better ways of gettin' things done, always newer and better every year. how come they couldn't keep caught up?"

"bill, those new techniques that manager talked about were old stuff a hundred, two hundred years ago. the applications are new, some of them, but the basic ideas are old.

"the world food institute drew off all the scientific, inventive brains of the world, and put them to chasing food. no time for basic research, basic development; just time for tinkering and retinkering old ideas. been no new basic idea for a couple of centuries. too much need for immediate, practical results. the well is dry, and it won't be filled again with a reservoir of new, big ideas, not in our time. been living off the past; and the present has caught up with us."

before carter left the island to visit the other stations, i had a chance to have a talk with him.

"was that sociologist, ranson, in on this?"

"no. we had to be careful. still have to be. just a few of us. that's why the loss of the bird colonies here had to seem natural, or at least a natural accident. and i had to keep clear of it. you can see that."

"carter, what happens on the mainland when things break up?"

"won't be pretty. bad. very bad."

"for example?"

"you read the ecology book. what happens when a species multiplies beyond its ability to feed itself?"

a dozen new rollins islanders showed up a few at a time in carter's helicopter. we've been working and waiting a long time now, waiting for carter to come back. for over a year now, our boat has made no crossing to the mainland. last night, over twenty-five miles of sea in clear weather, we saw the sky lit by a great fire.

i haven't forgotten those rats. i dream about them, tearing one another with bloody fangs.