Manifold: Origin

by Stephen Baxter

  Gently Emma pulled his arm away from his face. His cheeks were smeared with tears. "No time," she said. "Mary. Skinnies hurt Mary. Joshua help."

  It took an agonizing minute of repetition, with the hammering on the door turning into a splintering, before he responded.

  He got to his feet with a roar. He ran to the door, dragged it open, and with a sweep of his massive arm he knocked aside the scrambling crowd of Zealot men. He forced his way outside, calling for Mary.

  Julia followed, carrying Malenfant. Emma stayed close by her side, cradling Malenfant's lolling head.

  PART IV

  WORLD ENGINE

  Reid Malenfant

  "You always were a heathen bastard, Malenfant. No wonder Praisegod had it in for you. I remember the trouble we had when we chose a church. Even though it was a time when overt religiosity was a career asset if you wanted to be part of the public face of NASA."

  "I did like that chapel at Ellington. Kind of austere, for a Catholic chapel. Not too many bleeding guys on the wall. And I liked the priest. Monica Chaum, you could go bowling with."

  "Well, I liked the chapel too, Malenfant. I found it comforting. A place to get away from the squawk boxes and the rest, when you were in orbit."

  "On orbit. You never told me that."

  "There are lots of things you don't know about me, Malenfant. I remember one Christmas Eve when you were up there, doing whatever you did. Christmas Eve, and I was alone. I was sick of it all, Malenfant. I wanted to go to church, but I didn't want people gawping. So I asked Monica if she would open up the church for me. Well, she dug out the organist, and she went through the church lighting all the candles, just as they would be lit for the Midnight Mass that night, and the organist played the program planned for the service. When I walked in and saw it was all there just for me – well, it was one of the most beautiful sights I ever saw."

  "I remember that Christmas. I asked Monica to get you a gift. It was a dress. I picked it out."

  "Oh, Malenfant. It was at least five sizes too big. Monica had to apologize; she knew. No wonder you can't figure out the Fermi Paradox, Malenfant, if you don't know your own wife's dress size... I never liked being alone, you know."

  "Nobody does. I guess that's why we're here, why we swung down from the damn trees. Every one of us is looking for somebody..."

  "Stop it. Even now, you'd rather talk about issues, about human destiny and the rest of the garbage, anything but us. Anything but me. When you're gone I'll be alone here, Malenfant – truly alone, more alone than any person I can think of – to all intents and purposes the only one of my kind, on the whole Moon, in this whole universe... It's unimaginable. I'm an accountant, Malenfant. It's not supposed to be like this. Not for me. And it's all your fault. Do you want to know what I'm afraid of – really afraid of?"

  "Tell me."

  "Chronic reactive depression. You ever heard of that? I looked it up once. You can die of loneliness, Malenfant. Four months, that's all it takes. You don't have to be a failure. Just – outcast."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Bullshit."

  Shadow

  There was little food to be had on the plain. The Elf-folk had carried some food from their crater-wall forest, figs and bananas and apples. But now the sun was setting, the footsteps made by the people in the bare patches of dust were little pools of shadow, and most of the food was gone. Plaintively, as they trooped after Shadow across the dusty grass, many of them looked back to the forest they had left.

  They came to the site of an old kill. The bones were so scattered and worn by the teeth of successive predators and scavengers that it was impossible to tell what animal it might once have been.

  Nevertheless Shadow stopped here. She sat amid the bones and, with a grunt, passed water into the dirt. The fungal growth on her face was a thick mask over her brow and cheeks and nose, making her look alien, ferocious, and some of the more livid scars on her body seemed to glow as bright red as the dust at her feet.

  The others followed her lead: first Stripe, the strongest of the men, then Silverneck and the women who followed her. Infants clambered down to the dusty ground and plucked yellow grass blades, stuffing them into their mouths with rust-red fingers.

  The adults huddled together uneasily. On this vast table-top of a landscape the Elf-folk were a dark knot, easily visible, horribly vulnerable. Nevertheless Shadow seemed content to stay here, and so stay they must.

  None of the people sat close to Shadow.

  Some of them made small offerings to her: a fig, an apple they had carried in their hands. Soon a small pile of food built up. Without acknowledging the people, Shadow reached down and took pieces of the food.

  The sun sank further, its edge dipping below rounded hills. A nervy young man, Shiver, emitted a hesitant, hooting roosting call. But there were no trees here to make nests, and the gentle, eerie sound only made the people huddle still closer.

  Silverneck sat on the fringe of the group. She picked up a bone from the litter around her. It was a section of a skull. The face was almost intact: she pushed her fingers into eye sockets, nostrils. This might have been a person, an Elf, a Ham, a Nutcracker, a Runner. She ran her finger along it, picking out scrapes and notches, made by teeth or, perhaps, tools. She was almost naked of fur now, so frantically had she been groomed by the other women in these days of turmoil and doubt. Her remaining hairs clung in patches to her blue-black skin and stuck out from her body; the low reddening sunlight made her hair glow, as if she was surrounded by a soft cloud.

  Shiver was sitting close to a woman. Palm, barely out of her adolescence. She in turn was resting against her mother's stolid back. Shiver was eating an apple, slowly, his eyes fixed on Palm. His erection was obvious. Shiver started flicking bits of the apple at Palm; the half-chewed fragments landed at her feet, or on her lap.

  Without looking at Shiver, Palm picked up the morsels and popped them in her mouth. Gradually, in silence, all but imperceptibly, Shiver moved closer to the girl, his erection dangling before him.

  With a sigh, Palm folded back from her mother and lay on the ground, legs separated, her arms stretched above her head. Shiver slid over her and entered her, all in one liquid, silent movement. With a few thrusts he reached orgasm, and withdrew smoothly. Seconds later he and Palm were sitting side by side as if nothing had happened.

  Stripe, the boss man, absently grooming Silverneck, had noticed none of this challenge to his status.

  Shadow had watched it all. But she cared nothing for such reproductive play. Shadow's dominance had nothing to do with the community's traditional bonds, sex and children.

  After the death of One-eye she had soon become the strongest of the women. And the men – even mighty Stripe – had learned to submit to her power. Though many of them outsized her, her naked, unbridled aggression gave her an edge in most contests. Many of the men and boys cradled hands and feet missing fingers or toes, nipped away by Shadow as an indelible mark of their defeat.

  And now she had led them all far from home, far from the trees and shrubs and streams and clearings they knew, across this crimson plain – for a purpose only Shadow, in the deepest recesses of her mind, understood.

  A small boy approached Shadow. He had his eyes fixed on the pile of fruit before her. His mother, Hairless, growled warningly, but he feigned not to hear. The boy grabbed his infant sister, and, pulling a twisted, funny face, began to wrestle with her. She joined in, chortling. Soon he was on top of her, making playful pelvic thrusts, and then she rolled on top of him. But every roll took them closer to Shadow's food pile.

  As soon as the boy was close enough, his hand whipped out to grab a fig. He tucked it in his mouth, immediately abandoning his play, and walked back towards his mother.

  One of the women laughed at his clever deceit.

  A sharpened cobble hissed through the air. It caught the boy at the top of his spine, laying open the flesh. He howled and went down. Hairless hurried forward and grabbed him.
He curled up in her lap, screaming with pain, as she tended the wound.

  Stripe picked up the bloody cobble, wiped it on the grass, and passed it back to Shadow.

  The group sat in silence, save for the screams of the boy, which took a long time to subside.

  The sun slid beneath the horizon. Light bled from the sky.

  The people huddled in a close circle. The adults had their backs to the dark, with the children and infants at the center of the circle. Without fire, without weapons that could strike at a distance save a handful of stones, these hominids were defenseless against the creatures that prowled the savannah night.

  Nobody but the infants would sleep tonight. But they feared Shadow more than they feared the dark.

  When the dawn came, they found that the boy who had stolen Shadow's fig had gone. As the group moved on, Hairless, his mother, was inconsolable. She had to be half-carried by her sisters and mother, until the memory had started to fade.

  At last they reached the cover of trees. This was a forest that lapped at the foot of a tall mountain range; bare rock shone high above. With relief, they slipped into the trees' shadows. Some submitted to ancient green impulses and clambered high into the trees to make nests, even though the day was not yet half over.

  But Shiver, clambering high, found a nest already made. He broke it apart, hooting loudly, his fur standing on end.

  Then others joined in the noise, for they began to find discarded fruit peel, and even an abandoned termite-fishing stick. They sniffed and licked these remnants; they were fresh. Others had been here, and recently.

  And then, as they spread deeper through the new forest, seeking shoots and fruit-bearing shrubs and trees, a child yelled. The adults came crashing through the undergrowth to see, their hair bristling.

  A small girl was standing at the edge of a clearing where a great tree had fallen; its carcass lay on the ground, surrounded by crushed bushes. The girl was facing a child a little older than she was. It was another girl, standing unsteadily, gazing back nervously.

  It was in fact Tumble, Shadow's small sister. But Shadow did not recognize her. And Tumble, even if she had remembered Shadow, would not have known this scarred creature with her grotesque fungal mask.

  Shadow had come home: transformed, unrecognizable, infused with a new and deadly purpose.

  It was no coincidence that the encounter had taken place so quickly. As the forest remnants had continued to shrink back, the Nutcracker-men, living in the green heart of the forest, had managed to hold their territory against the incursions of hungry Elf-folk. So the Elves had been restricted to the shrinking forest fringe, patrolling ever closer to its border with the mountains or the plain.

  The little girl stepped forward, and tentatively touched Tumble's face. Tumble nipped her finger playfully. In a moment they were rolling in the dry leaves, wrestling. When the little girl reached for Tumble's genitals, Tumble shrank back, but then she submitted, curiously, to the gentle touch. Then they chased each other over the fallen tree trunk, and started to play together with the fallen leaves. They pushed them into great piles, and rolled in the leaves, throwing handfuls over their heads and rubbing them against their faces.

  Now, on the far side of the little clearing, silent shadows flitted through the trees. They were adults, some carrying infants. Led by Stripe and Silverneck, the people stepped forward into the clearing. A loose circle of watchful adults surrounded the playing children.

  Only Shadow stayed in the dark green shade.

  Silverneck walked forward. She was met by a large, calm woman. She was Termite, Shadow's mother. Cautiously, eyes locked, the women began to groom, plucking at each other's hair. More children joined in the play on the forest floor.

  The men were more tentative. They eyed each other warily and made subdued displays, showing bristling hair and waving erections.

  Suddenly Shiver ran forward towards the other men. He yelled, stamped and slapped at the ground and drummed with his flat hands on a tree trunk, uttering loud, fierce calls. Then he retreated quickly to the safety of his own group.

  He was imitated by a burly man from the other group. This was Little Boss. His display of strength was vivid. He hurled rocks on the ground, making them shatter, and pulled branches this way and that. Never as dominant since the death of his mentor, Big Boss, he was still a massive, powerful presence. The invading men retreated subtly, raising their fists and hooting. But Little Boss too drew back to his friends.

  So it went on, with the children playing, the women grooming or making tentative sexual contact, and a display of noisy aggression by the men. But not a single punch or kick was landed, or stone thrown in earnest.

  Now one small, muscular man broke out of the group and approached the woman Hairless. He was Squat, another of Shadow's original group. He seemed fascinated by Hairless's baldness, and he stroked her bare blue-black skin. She responded, cupping his scrotum in her hand.

  Within a few minutes they had coupled, belly to belly.

  After that the groups separated, the men issuing a few last threats to each other, the women apologetically abandoning their grooming. Mothers had to pry their children away from their fascinating new playmates.

  Shadow watched all this. And when her old family group dispersed into the trees, she followed.

  Manekatopokanemahedo

  The delegation of angry and fearful citizens was led by a stocky, sullen woman called Hahatomane, of the Nema Lineage.

  They met at the center of the platform of Adjusted Space. Manekato waited patiently, resting easily on her knuckles, with Babo and Nemoto to either side of her. Hahatomane stood facing her, with her followers in a rough triangle behind her, and attended by Workers that crawled or hovered.

  "What is it you want to talk about, Hahatomane of Nema?"

  "That should be obvious," Hahatomane said. She glanced into the sky, where the rising Earth was a fat banded ball, almost full. "Renemenagota of Rano is already dead. Many others of us have suffered unspeakable deprivations. This is a foolish quest, devised by foolish Astrologers, which will not help germinate a single seed. We have done what we can. We should leave Workers here to complete the rest, and return to Earth before more of us lose our lives or our sanity."

  Babo stepped forward. Though the medical Workers had striven to heal his injuries, the Zealots' crossbow bolts had been laced with an exotic poison of vegetable oils and fish extracts, and he suffered internal agonies that caused a heavy limp. "But you have no place on Earth, Hahatomane. Your Farm is destroyed by the tides and quakes, and the Nema Lineage is extinguished."

  Hahatomane kept her gaze locked on his sister. "You do us a dishonor by keeping a man and your ugly hominid by your side, Manekato of Poka," she said. "I do not hear the words of this one."

  "Then you should," Manekato said quietly. "For we are all hominids. We are all people, in fact, of one flavor or another."

  Hahatomane bared her teeth, an unconscious but primal gesture. "We do not recognize you as any form of leader, Manekato."

  "Fine. If you wish to leave, do so."

  "And you – "

  "I intend to stay on this Moon until I have unraveled the mystery of its design."

  Hahatomane growled. "Then none of us can leave."

  Everybody understood that this was true. If this expedition were a success its members would be honored, even allowed to carve out new Farms. But if Hahatomane were to split the group, those who abandoned the project could expect nothing but contempt. This was the true source of Manekato's power, and Hahatomane knew it.

  Hahatomane's shoulders hunched, as if she longed to launch herself at Manekato's throat – and perhaps it would be healthier if she did. Mane thought. Hahatomane said, "You drag us all into your folly, Manekato of Poka. I for one will be happy to witness your inevitable disillusion."

  "No doubt on that day you will remind me of this conversation," Manekato said.

  Hahatomane snorted her frustration and turned away. Her foll
owers scattered, bemused and disappointed, and Workers scuttled after them, bleating plaintively.

  Manekato sat on the yellow floor. Now that the confrontation was over she felt the strength drain out of her. Babo absently groomed her, picking non-existent insects from the heavy fur on her back. Nemoto sat cross-legged. She had a large bunch of young, bright yellow bananas, and she passed the fruit to Manekato and Babo.

  "You did well," Babo said; then, glancing at Nemoto, he repeated the remark in her tongue, slowing his speech to suit her sluggish oxygen-starved pace of thinking.

  Manekato grunted, and spoke in Nemoto's language. "But I would rather not endure such encounters. We faced off like two groups of Elf-creatures, in their matches of shouting and wrestling. Hahatomane's group even surrounded themselves with Workers to make themselves look larger and stronger, just as male Elves will make their hair bristle in their aggressive displays."

  Nemoto laughed softly. "We are all hominids here, all primates."

  Babo said, "But it is cruel to be reminded of it so bluntly. Perhaps there is something in the bloody air of this place which has infected us."

  "That is foolish and unscientific," Manekato said. "Even Earth is no paradise of disembodied intelligence and pure reason." She glanced at the banded planet that shone brightly in the sky. "Think about it. Why have we clung to our scraps of land for so many thousands of generations?"

  Babo looked offended. "To cultivate every atom, the final goal of farming, is to pay the deepest homage to the world which bore us – "

  "That's just rationalization, brother. We cling to our land because it is an imperative that comes to us from the deepest past, from the time before we had minds. We cling to our land for the same reasons that Nutcrackers cling to their tree nests – because that is what we do; it is in our genes, our blood. And what of the exclusion we suffered when we lost our Farms? Why must it be so? What is that but savage cruelty – what is that but sublimated aggression, even murder? No, brother. This Moon has not polluted our souls; we brought the blood and the lust with us."