<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

"Evolution’s End" is a 5000-word short story by Robert Arthur, about a future Earth where the mass of humanity are slaves to a few thousand super-intelligent mutants. The story was first published in the April, 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

Ten thousand years into the future, mankind is dominated by about a thousand Masters—supersmart, unemotional humans, all descended from a man named John Master, a mutant who took over the world. The Masters have heavy, oversized heads, no necks, and live in underground tunnels. Everyone else is a slave, bred to be docile and dumb, and to serve the Masters. Aydem is a slave who tends the halls of a vast repository of human knowledge. A woman slave, Ayveh, comes to visit him, even though women are not allowed in this room. They are upset because they know that the mating assignments that will come shortly will require them to mate with others, even though they are in love with each other. Their Master, Dmu Dran comes and takes them on a tour of the evolution exhibit. Dmu Dran says that the Saber Tooth Tiger went extinct because its teeth became so big that it could not close its mouth, and the dinosaur went extinct because it grew so big that it could not feed itself. Dmu Dran reveals that he has invented a machine which will accelerate evolution, allowing an individual to become what his distant descendants would become.

Aydem is angry with the Masters for not allowing him to mate with Ayveh, and he fears punishment for speaking out against them; so when Dmu Dran later summons him, he fears for his life, and he plans to kill Dmu Dran with a stolen knife, and then escape from the underground tunnels with Ayveh. But Dmu Dran suprises him. Dmu Dran reveals that all of the subjects (Masters) who used his evolution-acceleration machine went mad; he explains that this is because in the future, the Masters' brains will become so heavy that they will begin to damage their own brain cells, leading to madness. Dmu Dran believes, therefore, that the Masters are an evolutionary dead end. But the slaves have been bred to be docile and stupid, so they offer no better hope. But Dmu Dran reveals that he has secretly bred two slaves, Aydem and Ayveh, who are smarter and more aggressive than the others. Dmu Dran sends the two of them out of the tunnels and onto the surface of the Earth (what they call “Aiden”). Dmu Dran then detonates a bomb, destroying the underground tunnels, and all of the masters along with them.

Additional Notes

This story has been reprinted in Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 3 (1941).

The names of the two slaves are, obviously, variations on the names Adam and Eve.

To see specific information, such as anthologies including Evolution's End, please click the Evolution's End category link at the bottom of this article. To see other articles that reference Evolution's End, please click the What Links Here tool in the toolbox at the bottom of this page.