User:DoctorWho42/Like Young

"Like Young" is a short story by American author Theodore Sturgeon. It was first published in the March 1960 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Publication history
"Like Young" was first published in the the March 1960 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It reappeared in the books Best SF: 1968 or The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 2 (1969) edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, Beyond (1960), and The Year's Best Science Fiction (1977).

Plot
He writes about what happened instead of an ode. He is among those who have encephalitis but didn't die from it. 604 humans are left. They were strong and healthy but cannot reproduce. They will pass humanity onto the otters by distilling knowledge into milestones. A new alloy "bicrovalloy" could not change its form. Bicrovalloy plates were placed in pottery-clay pits which were in metal lodes. They hid Einstein's and Heisenberg's theories in a bore under the ocean. De Wald made the last equation who worked tirelessly before the first case of encephalitis. His goal was a single expression covering Einstein's and Heisenberg's equations. It would've been Bad Art if Humanity ended with a whimper. Hence, De Wald's discovery was Art at its peak. They went about recovering the last bicrovalloy plates and prepared a revision. They planned a beautiful ceremony. The narrator was assigned to write an ode. He had requested leave the night before the ceremony. He was left alone in the late afternoon. The view included the sea, sky, and beach. The sun began to set while the moon rose. He hears a splash in the surf. The moon showed it was a large male sea otter headed for the dais. The sea-otter scuttles toward the dais. He follows the otter. The otter creeps around the dais. It crouches between the new and old bicrovalloy plates. The otter touches the reclaimed plate. The narrator hides behind the curtain. He sits there until he sees the otter scamper away into the sea. He picks up a bit of trash, washes it in the water, then finds two clams. The otter is gone. The narrator gets up. He sees the otter floating on its back with a clam on its chest. The otter proceeds to eat it. The otter disappears. The narrator returns to his writing spot. Instead he goes to the dais. He looks at the bicrovalloy plate for an hour and finds a commentto Einstein's quote on mass-energy "WELL, SOMETIMES." There were two corrections to the Heisenberg addenda. There was another comment next to the De Wald synthesis: "NONSENSE!" The narrator decides against writing an ode. There will be much discussion on this moment. It won't change what happened. The tool the otter used to open the clam was part of the De Wald plate. The narrator decides to go hunting.