Manifold: Origin

by Stephen Baxter

  "You should not be so harsh on yourselves," Nemoto said.

  Even now Manekato felt a frisson of annoyance that this small-brained hominid was trying to comfort her.

  But Babo said, "She's right. Isn't it possible to celebrate what we have achieved, despite our limitations? Can we not see how we have risen above our biological constraints?"

  Manekato said, "That is true of your kind, Nemoto. You spoke of the contagions of madness that sweep your people. And yet those grand obsessions have driven your kind to a certain greatness: a deep scientific description of the universe, an exploration of your world and others, even a type of art... Achievements that press against the boundaries of your capabilities. We, by comparison, have done little to transcend our biology – have done little for the past two million years, in fact, but squat on our Farms. Two million years of complacency."

  "Again that is harsh," Nemoto said. "Two million years of peace, given the savagery in your breast, is not a small achievement. We must all strive to embrace the context provided by this place – perhaps that is one of its purposes."

  "Yes," said Babo. "There are many ways to be a hominid. The Red Moon is teaching us that."

  "And," said Nemoto, "we must anticipate meeting the Old Ones, who may be superior to us all. Then we will see how long a shadow we cast in their mighty light."

  Babo said, "But are you content with such abstractions, Nemoto? Don't you long for home too?"

  Nemoto shrugged. "My home is gone. One day there were eight billion people in the sky; the next they had all vanished. The shock continues to work through my psychology. I don't welcome exploring the scar."

  The three of them sat in their small ring, soberly eating the sweet young bananas, while Workers politely scuttled to and fro, removing the discarded skins.

  Reid Malenfant

  Much of the time he slept, drifting through uneasy, green-tinged dreams of the kind that had plagued him since the day he had come to this unnatural Moon. And then the dreams would merge into a fragmented wakefulness, fringed by blood and pain, with such soft transitions he couldn't have said where dream finished and reality began.

  He was lying on his side – he could tell that much – with his arms and legs splayed out in front of him, like a GI Joe fallen off the shelf. He didn't even know where he was. He was surrounded by wood and earth. Some shelter, he supposed, something constructed by hands and eyes and brains, human or otherwise.

  It was all very remote, as if he were looking down a long tunnel lined with brown and green and blood-red.

  He supposed he was dying. Well, there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, and he had no desire to fight it.

  But if he could feel little with his busted-up body – taste nothing of the glop that was ladled into his mouth, barely sense the warm palm oil that was rubbed into his limbs – there was one thing he could still feel, one anguished pinpoint that pushed into him whenever he made out Emma's face.

  Regret.

  "Regret what, Malenfant?"

  "Regret I'm going to die not knowing why."

  "You're dying because some psychopathic religious nut had you beaten to death. That's why."

  "But why the Red Moon? Why the Fermi Paradox – "

  "Malenfant, for Christ's sake, is this the time or the place for – "

  "Emma, give me a break. This is my death-bed. What other time and place is there? That damn Paradox baffled me my whole life. I thought the showing-up of this Red Moon, for sure the strangest event in human history since Joshua made the sun stand still in the sky, had to have something to do with that flaw in the universe. I guess I hoped it did. But..."

  "But what?"

  "It didn't work out that way. Emma, it just got more mysterious. Nemoto saw that immediately. Not only did we suddenly find that we inhabit just one of a whole bunch of universes, there are no signs of extraterrestrial intelligence in the other universes either. Not a trace. It's Fermi writ large – as if there is something wrong not just with this universe, but all our cosmic neighbors..."

  "Malenfant, none of this matters. Not any more."

  "But it does. Emma, find the advanced guys. The ones with the light shows in the sky. That's what you've got to do. Ask them what the hell is going on here. Maybe they caused it. All this, the multiple realities, the wandering Moon. Maybe they even caused Fermi, in some way. That's what you must do, after..."

  "After you're gone? Poor Malenfant. I know what's really bothering you. It's not that the question is unanswered. It's the idea that you won't be around when the answer comes. You always did think you were the center of everything, Malenfant. You can't stand to think that the universe will go on without you."

  "Doesn't everybody feel that way?"

  "Actually, no, not everybody, Malenfant. And you know what? The universe will go on. You don't have to save it. It doesn't need you to keep space expanding or the stars shining. We'll keep on finding out new stuff, visiting new places, finding new answers, even when you aren't around to make it happen."

  "Some bedside manner, babe."

  "Come on, Malenfant. We are what we are, you and I. I can't imagine us changing now."

  "I guess."

  Shadow

  She slid through the forest, stepping on roots and rocks to avoid dead leaves and undergrowth, silent save for the brush of her fur on the leaves. Her hair was fully erect, and her fungal mask seemed to glow with purpose and power.

  There were three men with her. They were tense, fearful. Shadow turned back to the men and grinned fiercely, knowing how her teeth shone white under the hairless protuberance over her brow and cheeks. They grinned back, and they punched and slapped each other, seeking courage. The smallest and youngest, Shiver, absently sucked the forefinger of his right hand; it was a stump, the first two joints nipped off by Shadow.

  Shadow moved forward once more, and the men followed.

  She froze. She had heard the soft whimper of an infant – and there, again.

  She roared and charged forward, crushing through low shrubbery.

  A woman and child were in the low branches of a tree. They had been eating fruit; the forest floor beneath the tree was littered with bits of yellow skin. The woman was called Smile. She was in fact a sister of Termite's, an aunt of Shadow. Shadow did not know this – nor would it have made any difference if she had known.

  Smile tumbled out of her tree. She landed with a roll on the forest floor, got to her feet and turned to flee. But her child, less than three years old, was still in the tree. He clung to a branch, screaming. So Smile ran back, scrambled up the tree, collected the child, and dropped back to the ground. But she had lost her advantage; now the attackers were on her.

  Shadow grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to the ground. Shiver joined in, kicking and stamping. Stripe grabbed the infant from his mother's arms. He held the child by his feet and flailed him this way and that, slamming him against a tree trunk. The child was soon limp, and Stripe hurled him away, sending the little body spinning into a clump of undergrowth.

  With grim determination. Smile fought against the odds. She twisted and bit Shiver hard on the shoulder. He howled. She managed to ram his body into Shadow and the others, momentarily reducing them to a tangle of flailing limbs.

  That was enough of a break for Smile to get away. She scrambled into a fig tree. Stripe followed her. But Smile clambered around the branches, evading him, screaming. Now Shadow climbed up the tree, more stiffly than Stripe, for her lifetime of injuries and beatings had left their mark.

  But as she approached, Smile made an almighty leap. She crashed into the branches of another tree, and tumbled to the ground. In an instant she was on her feet. She ran to the foliage where her child had fallen, picked up the limp body, and ran into the deeper woods.

  Shiver pursued, but she was soon out of his reach. He ran back and forth across the bloodied forest floor, howling and throwing rocks and kicking at the trees, ridding himself of his desperate aggression.


  Shadow fell on Stripe. She jabbered at him, and hailed blows on his head and shoulders. He huddled over, long arms protecting his head and chest.

  For now Smile had been spared. But it was only the beginning.

  Shadow's next target was Little Boss. She took six men with her, armed with sticks and rocks, and patrolled the forest until she found him.

  Little Boss was alone, drinking from a small stream. Beside him was a pile of cobbles, suitable for making sharp new tools. When he heard Shadow's party approach, he stood straight, hair immediately erect, and snarled defiance. By this time, the newcomers' murderous aggression was well known among Little Boss's group. But when he saw how many men had come with Shadow, Little Boss turned to run.

  He was built for power, not speed.

  Shiver was the first to catch him, seizing his legs and throwing him to the ground. Shadow pinned him down, sitting on his head and holding his shoulders. The other men fell on Little Boss, attacking with a savagery only impeded by the fact that they got in each other's way.

  At last Shadow and the men backed off. Charged with energy, fists clenched, mouths and stone tools stained by blood, the men ran to and fro, howling and pounding their weapons against tree trunks and rocks.

  Little Boss remained motionless for a time. Then, uttering faint screams, he sat up. He had great gashes on his face, legs and back. He could not move one leg. The ground where he had lain was stained by blood and panic shit. He looked back at his assailants, who were capering and howling their rage. He opened his mouth, as if to cry defiance. But a great bubble of bloody mucus formed there, and his voice was a strangle. When the bubble broke, Little Boss fell back, rigid as a falling tree.

  Shadow fell on the body immediately. She pulled it by its ankles out into the clearing, sat on its chest, and immediately began to slice away its flesh with a new stone cobble.

  With degrees of reluctance or enthusiasm, the others joined her. Soon they were all feeding.

  The miniature war was brief but savage.

  Shadow's only tactic was to isolate her targets and destroy them. But it was a tactic beyond the grasp of her opponents, and it worked over and over. The women, especially if burdened by infants, were easy prey. The men were picked off one by one, always by overwhelming force.

  And as Shadow's group fed day after day on fresh meat, they grew stronger, and hungrier.

  It finished as Shadow watched her acolytes fall on the body of her mother. In her last moments, before they opened her chest, Termite reached out a bloody hand to Shadow, who stayed unmoved.

  And then Shadow went alone into the forest to hunt down the last free man, her brother, Claw. When Shadow returned to her warmongering group, the object she clutched in her hand was his heart.

  But when the opponents were annihilated, the group, filled with a rage for blood and murder, anxious for more meat, began to fall on each other.

  Reid Malenfant

  He remembered how his father, on learning of his inoperable tumor, had suddenly rediscovered the Episcopalian faith of his youth. Somehow that had hurt Malenfant – as if his father, in these last months, had chosen to draw away from him. But he hadn't been about to deny his dad the comfort he sought.

  It had always seemed to him that religion was a kind of bargain. You gave over your whole life, a portion of your income and half your intellect, in return for a freedom from the fear of death. Maybe, it wasn't such a bad bargain at that.

  But look at the Hams: Julia and the rest, these Moon-bound Neandertals, as rational and smart as any human being, just as aware of the human tragedy of death and pain and loss – and yet, it seemed, quite without the consolation of religion. But they seemed able to cope with the dreadful truth of life without hiding from it.

  Well, maybe they were tougher than humans.

  And what about you, Malenfant, now the black meteor is approaching at last? Don't you need comfort – forgiveness – the prospect of continued existence beyond the grave of crimson dust that will soon welcome your bones?

  Too late for me now, he thought. But it doesn't seem to trouble me. Maybe I'm more like a damn Neandertal than a human.

  Or maybe Emma was right: that nothing mattered so much to him about where he was going, compared to what he was escaping from.

  Julia was here, her concerned, Moon-like face swimming in the gloom before his eyes. He wondered absently if it was night or day.

  After a time, Emma was here. She frowned, wiped at his mouth with a scrap of leaf, and tried to give him water.

  "Things to tell you."

  "You need to save your strength for drinking. Eating. All that good stuff."

  "No time."

  "If you're going to start lecturing me about Fermi again–"

  "I did my best, Emma."

  "I know you did."

  "I came all the way to this damn Moon to find you. I went to the White House. I built a rocket ship."

  "That always was the kind of stuff you were good at, Malenfant."

  "Looking out for you?"

  "No," she said sadly. "The grand gesture."

  "I found you. But I can't do anything for you."

  She looked at him, her eyes blank, oddly narrowed. "But was that ever the idea?"

  "What else?"

  "You're a complicated man, Reid Malenfant. Your motives aren't simple."

  "Your mother thinks I've been trying to kill you for years."

  "Oh, it's not that, Malenfant. It's not me you're trying to destroy. It's you. It's just that I'm sometimes in the way..."

  He frowned, deeply disturbed, remembering fragments of conversations with McCann, Nemoto. "What are you talking about?"

  "What about Praisegod Michael?"

  "He was a psychopath. I had to – "

  "You had to what? Malenfant, it wasn't your fight. What does Praisegod Michael matter to you, or me? If you really had been devoted to the cause of getting to me, you'd have said anything he wanted to hear, to keep your skin intact. But not you. You walked into his guns, Malenfant. Deliberately. And you must have known you couldn't win. On some level you wanted him to do this to you."

  "I was looking for you," he said stubbornly. "That's why I came to the Moon."

  "I'm sorry, Malenfant. I see what I see."

  He licked his lips with a tongue that felt like a piece of wood.

  "Tell me this," she said now. "When we were in that damn T-38 over Africa, when the Wheel appeared in the sky – "

  "Yeah."

  "You could have turned away."

  He closed his eyes. He thought back to those moments, the glittering sky-bright seconds of the crash, when he and Emma had been suspended in the deep African light, before the enigmatic alien artifact.

  ...Yes. He remembered how the aerosurfaces had bit, just for a second. He had felt the stick respond. He knew he could turn the nose of the plane away from the Wheel. It was a chance. He didn't take it.

  "Yes," he rasped. "And then–"

  And then there had been that instant of exuberance – the sense of relief, of freedom, as the T-38 hurtled at the Wheel, as he felt the little jet slide out of his control, as the great blue circle had rushed towards him, and he had reached the point where he could do no more.

  "How did you know? The slaved instruments–"

  "I didn't need to watch instruments, Malenfant. I know you. It's just – the way you are, the kind of person you are. You could no more help it than you could stop breathing, or keep from farting in your sleep."

  "I do that?"

  "I never knew when would be a good time to tell you."

  "You picked a doozy."

  "Poor Malenfant. The universe never has made much sense to you, has it? – not from the grandness of the Fermi Paradox, not yourself, on down to your relationship with your first grade teacher."

  "She really was an asshole."

  "I've always known all about you, what you are, what you could not help but become. Right from the beginning, I've known. And I went al
ong with you anyway. What does that say about me?... Maybe we're alike, you and I." She reached up and passed her hands over his eyes. "Sleep now."

  But sleep eluded him, though regret lingered.

  "Listen, Malenfant. I've decided. You're right. I'm going to go on, to track down the Daemons – Homo superior, whatever they are. Every time this damn Moon shifts, people suffer and die, right here on the Moon, and on all the Earths. What gives those guys the right to screw up so many lives – so many billions of lives?"

  "And you intend to stop them."

  "Malenfant, I don't know what I intend. I haven't had a plan since the day I fell through that blue Wheel and found myself here, covered in shit. I'll do what you always did. I'll improvise."

  "Take care."

  "Because you won't be around to look out for me? Malenfant, if it escaped your notice, I rescued you. All you did was lose your spacecraft, your sole companion and all your gear, and get yourself thrown in jail. Twice."

  "Anger can make you feel good."

  "...Yes. Maybe that's what I need. An enemy. Somebody to be mad at. Other than you, that is."

  "Why here?"

  "What?"

  "Why is it finishing like this, here, now, so far from home?"

  "You always did ask big questions, Malenfant. Big, unanswerable questions. Why are there no aliens? Why is there something, rather than nothing?..."

  "I mean it. Why did I have to run into a petty thug like Praisegod? Why couldn't it have been more – "

  "More meaningful? But it is meaningful, Malenfant. There's a logic. And it has nothing to do with the Red Moon or the Fermi Paradox, or any of that. It's you, Malenfant. It's us. Your whole life has a logic leading up to this place and time. It just had to be this way."

  "The universe is irrelevant. That's what you're saying."

  "I guess so... But there are other universes. We know that now. We've seen them. Are there other destinies for us, Malenfant?... Malenfant!"