Origin m-3

by Stephen Baxter

  Praisegod’s hunting party formed up rapidly. There were to be five humans (or near-humans) — Praisegod, his man Sprigge and one Other Zealot, and Malenfant and McCann — along with four Hams, and ten Runner bearers.

  One of the Hams was just a child, about the size of a human ten-year-old. This boy seemed dressed in clothing of a somewhat finer cut than most of the Zealots. Praisegod kept him close by, sometimes resting his hand on the boy’s flattened skull, or cupping him under his chinless jaw. The boy submitted to this, and ran small errands for Praisegod.

  Five of the Runners were to carry equipment — home-made spears and crossbows. The rest were there to carry the humans.

  Malenfant’s mount was to be one of the older, more broken-down specimens he had observed that morning. The hominid stood before him, as tall as Malenfant despite his stoop, his very human eyes empty of expression.

  Malenfant flatly refused to climb aboard his shoulders.

  McCann leaned towards him. “For God’s sake, Malenfant,” he hissed.

  Praisegod Michael watched this with a thin amusement. “Do you imagine you spare this stooped one discomfort or indignity? There is no soul behind those deceptive eyes, sir, to experience such complicated passions. I trust your compassion will not pour away when your bare feet are bleeding and sore… But perhaps you are right; he is rather worn down.” He nodded to Sprigge.

  Sprigge tapped the old Runner’s elbow, and he obediently knelt on the ground. Sprigge stepped behind him and drew a knife from his belt — metal, very old, sharpened and polished until the blade was a thin, fragile remnant.

  “Shit.” Malenfant lunged forward, but McCann grabbed his arm.

  Distracted by the commotion, the Runner saw the knife. His battered face twisted in animal rage. He started to rise, perhaps for the first time in his life defying those who used him.

  But Sprigge wrestled him to the ground and knelt on his back. He sliced the knife through the old Runner’s throat. Blood spurted, a brighter red shining in the crimson dirt. Still the Runner fought; he didn’t stop struggling until his head had been all but sawn off his body.

  McCann released Malenfant. “The rogue elephant and the mahout, Malenfant,” he whispered grimly. “And if you defy, you will only make matters worse for the creatures here.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Praisegod said to Malenfant, his look calculating, mocking. “You perceived a lack which I have been remiss in correcting. Well, it is done, and the sun is already high. Come now.” And he slapped the face of his own mount, who trotted away to the west, away from the rising sun.

  The others hastily mounted, and the hunting party proceeded at a steady jog after Praisegod, the Runners” bare feet thumping into the earth, the Hams following the graceful Runners as best they could with their awkward, bow-legged style.

  They reached the fringe of the forest, and moved out onto the plain.

  The forest floor hadn’t been so bad for Malenfant’s bare feet, save for bites, for which he’d no doubt suffer later. But after a half-mile of desert his feet were aching and bloody. And as the miles wore away he began to dig deep into his already shallow reserves of energy. Malenfant knew they had had no choice but to go along with Praisegod Michael’s invitation to join his hunt, which was obviously some kind of bullshit character test. He tried to see it as an opportunity. But there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  He found his thoughts dissolving, his purpose reducing merely to a determination to keep one foot moving in front of the others, to show no weakness.

  The weather fell apart. A lid of boiling cloud settled over the sky, making the small world seem flat and enclosed, washing the colours out of everything. And then the rain came, a ferocious storm that stippled the crimson sand with miniature craters. Much of the water drained quickly into the dry soil, but soon rivulets were running over the ground, and the sand turned into clinging mud.

  Praisegod called a halt. The humans dismounted. Malenfant rested, hands on his knees, breathing deep of the thin air.

  Under the brisk supervision of the Hams, the Runners unloaded sheets of sewn together leather. They quickly put together a kind of tepee.

  The Zealots, with McCann and Malenfant, huddled in the tepee. Inside there was a stink of old leather and damp bodies and clothing. The other hominids were excluded — all save Praisegod’s Ham boy, who snuggled close to the Zealot; Praisegod stroked his cheek with in-turned fingers. The other Hams had a few sections of skin that they held up over themselves, to keep the rain off their heads.

  As for the Runners, they had no shelter at all. They huddled together under a rain so thick it turned the air grey, their knees tucked into their chests, naked, visibly shivering.

  McCann saw Malenfant watching the Runners. “You should not concern yourself,” he said. “In the wild they have no conception of shelter. If it rains they get wet; if they catch a chill they die. Nothing in their present circumstances changes that.”

  Praisegod had been reading passages in a book, a clumsy thing of scraped-leather pages, presumably a Bible or a prayer book. He leaned forward, as if trying to find a more comfortable position for the comical, stubby tail he must have curled up under his robe. “I suspect you fear the rain, Malenfant.”

  Malenfant frowned. “Ah, bullshit. All this turbulent weather has got to be a result of that new Earth in the sky. It’s a bigger world: you’re going to get tides, “quakes, atmospheric disruptions—”

  “Your language is a jabber. Perhaps you believe the rain will wash away this puny world, and you along with it. Well, it will not; for if this island resisted the very Flood itself, a little local rain will not harm it now.”

  “Ah.” McCann was smiling. Malenfant could tell what he was thinking. This is what this guy believes. Don’t say anything to contradict him. McCann said, “We are on an island, an island that survived the Flood. Yes, of course.” He glanced out at the huddled Runners. “And that explains them.”

  Praisegod said, “They are less than men yet more than the animals. What can they be but Homo diluvii testi — witnesses of the Flood? This island was spared the rising waters; and so were its inhabitants, who must have crowded here with the ignorant instincts of any animal.”

  “Then,” said McCann carefully, “we are privileged to glimpse the antediluvian order of things.”

  “Privileged or damned,” Sprigge muttered, staring at the Neandertal boy on Praisegod’s lap. “This place is an abomination.”

  “Not an abomination,” snapped Praisegod. “It is like a strange reflected Creation. Man was born to look up at the orders of beings above him, the angels, prophets, saints and apostles, who serve the Holy Trinity. Here, we look down, down on these creatures with men’s hands and faces and even tongues, but creatures without mind or soul, who sprawl in the mud.”

  They talked further, an incoherent conversation of disconnected fragments, peppered by misunderstanding, suffused by mistrust. But Malenfant slowly learned something of Praisegod Michael.

  The Zealot township had been a godless place when Praisegod was a child, given to anarchy and lawlessness, weakened by the endless green lure of the forest. But — so Michael was told by his parents — God was involved in every detail of life. God watched the daily deeds of men and punished their sins, and the Elect — those who obeyed God’s law — would be saved. Praisegod learned this in prayer and torment, in misery and distrust, at the hands of what sounded to Malenfant like abusive parents.

  And then they abandoned him, just melted away into the bush, leaving the child to the tender mercies of the townspeople.

  Life had been very hard for the young Praisegod, it seemed. But eventually he had rediscovered the religion inside himself. He drew strength from this inner core. And when the growing, toughening Praisegod had come to see that he himself was one of the Elect, his duty had become clear: to devote himself to God’s fight and the establishment of His kingdom on this fragmentary world.

  He had pursued that goal from then on
with an ever-burning zeal and an unswerving fixity of purpose that had turned this gaunt, lisping, wart-ridden preacher into something like a man of true destiny.

  But there was a cost, of course.

  To the Zealots, it seemed to Malenfant, the other hominids, the pre-sapients, barely even existed. They had no language, no clothing, no religion, and therefore they had absolutely no rights under God or man. They were animals, no more than that, regardless of the curiosity of their gaze, the pain in their cries, their misery in enslavement: simply a resource for exploitation.

  Malenfant leaned forward. “I’m curious. What do you want, Praisegod Michael? What do you want to achieve among all these animals?”

  Michael’s eyes were bright. “I seek only to emulate Ramose, who led his nation out of Egypt to the land of Canaan…” Malenfant soon realized that this “Ramose” was a kind of analogue of Moses from his own timeline, like the John who had replaced Christ in McCann’s history. “I believe I have seen the providence of God, for surely it is by His dispensation I have been given my place here. And I have no choice but to follow that providence.”

  McCann seemed to be growing agitated. “But one must search for the truth of providences, Praisegod Michael. One must be wary of the exaltation of the self.”

  Michael just laughed. “You have not lived in this land long. You will learn that it is only I who stand between these mindless apes and chaos itself.” His hands, apparently without conscious volition, stroked the Neandertal boy’s broad chest. He glanced out of the tepee’s flap door; the rain had slackened. “Come. Time enough for theology later. For now there is a hunt to be made, bellies to be filled.” And he led the way out of the tepee.

  “The man is too much,” McCann said, glowering at Praisegod’s back. “He takes divinity on himself. He is close to blasphemy. He likens himself to Bay — that is, his own twisted version of Bay.” Malenfant guessed that Bay was another of Moses” parallel-historical pseudonyms. “Malenfant, the man is a self aggrandizing monster. He must be stopped. Otherwise, what will come to pass, as Praisegod’s blasphemous hordes swarm like locusts over this wretched Moon?”

  Malenfant shrugged. For all McCann’s talk of Praisegod’s ambitions, he found it hard to take seriously anybody who lived in a mud hut. “He’s vicious. But he’s a shithead. Anyhow I thought you were going to do business with him.”

  McCann glared at him, angry, frustrated. And Malenfant saw that McCann’s mood had switched, just as he had feared. It was as if a veneer had been stripped away.

  Malenfant felt only dismay. He just wanted to get out of here; if McCann went off the rails, he had no idea how he was going to handle the situation.

  Now there was a commotion up ahead. Sprigge had reached the huddle of Hams. Two of them were standing unsteadily, while the third sprawled in the mud. Sprigge began to beat the Hams vigorously.

  “It is the wine,” Praisegod remarked. “They steal it from us and hide it in their clothing. Though their bellies are large, their brains are small, and they cannot take it as men can.”

  The Runners watched apathetically as the Hams were chastised.

  The sky cleared rapidly. Through high thin clouds the sunlight returned. The red dust began to steam under their feet, making the air humid.

  A little after noon, they reached the fringe of a belt of dense forest. They made a rough camp in the shade of the wood, spreading out their clothes and goods to dry. The Runners were tied up by their necks or ankles to tree trunks, but were able to forage for food among the roots of the trees.

  McCann nodded. “Efficient. It saves their carrying their own provision. And while their fingers are nimble with food, their minds are too empty to puzzle out knots.”

  Sprigge was to lead a hunting party into the forest. He would take four Runners, and — as a punishment — all three Hams, who seemed to have crashed into catastrophic hangovers. Both McCann and Malenfant were invited to join them; McCann agreed to go, but Malenfant refused.

  Praisegod settled down on a sheet of leather. The other Zealot, a squat, silent man, dug foodstuffs from out of the Runners” packs and laid them out. Praisegod nibbled on nuts, fruit and dried meat; he pressed titbits into the mouth of his Ham boy, fingering the child’s lips each time.

  Malenfant sat in the dirt, waiting for a turn at the food. The silent Zealot sat alone some distance away, chewing on something that looked like beef jerky; he watched Malenfant warily.

  Praisegod said, “So you declined to join the hunt, Sir Malenfant.” He smiled coldly. “You are not a hunter, then — not a woodsman or a man of the heath either, I would say. What, then? A scholar?”

  “A sailor, I guess.”

  “A sailor.” Praisegod chewed thoughtfully. “In my father’s day some effort was made to escape this antediluvian island. Men took to the desert, which stretches west of this place. And they built boats and took to the sea, which stretches away to the east. Most did not come back, from either longitude. Those who did reported only emptiness — deserts of sand or water, the land populated by lowly forms. Of course you and your friend have yet to confess what marvellous ship, or providential accident, brought you here.”

  “So that you can use it to get out of here,” Malenfant said cautiously. “Is that what you want?”

  Praisegod said, “I do not long for escape. I know what you want, Reid Malenfant, for I have discussed your state of mind with your wiser companion. You seek your wife. You have wagered your life, in fact, on finding her. It is a goal with some nobility, but a goal of the body, not the soul.”

  Malenfant smiled coldly. “It’s all I have.”

  The hunting party returned.

  Two of the Runners carried limp, hairy bodies, slung over their shoulders. They looked to Malenfant like the chimp-like Elf-folk. One was an adult, but the other was an infant, just a scrap of brown-black fur. The other two Runners bore a net slung on a horizontal pole. A third Elf squirmed within the net, frightened, angry, jabbering, a bundle of muscle and fur and long, human-like limbs. Malenfant could see heavy, milk-laden breasts.

  Praisegod got up to greet the party, an expression of anticipation on his cadaverous face. His Ham boy clung to Praisegod’s robe and stayed behind him, evidently frightened of the Elf’s jabber. Under Sprigge’s sharp commands, two of the Runners and the Hams set to constructing a large fire, with a spit set over it.

  McCann approached Malenfant, his hands scratched by branches and brambles, his face red with exertion. His mood seemed to have swung again. “Quite an adventure, Malenfant! — you should have seen it. The Runners are remarkable. They crept like shadows through that forest, closing on those helpless pongids like Death himself. They caught these three, and though the Elves fought, our fellows would have despatched them all in seconds if not for Sprigge’s command…”

  The Hams had wrestled the live Elf to the ground, and were cautiously lifting away the net. The Elf squirmed and spat — and Malenfant thought she looked longingly at the corpse of the infant, piled carelessly on top of the adult’s body. Perhaps she was the child’s mother.

  Praisegod walked around the little campsite until he had found a fist-sized rock. He turned to Malenfant, holding out the rock. “Sir, you omitted the hunt. Will you share in the kill?”

  Malenfant folded his arms.

  “No?” Praisegod motioned to Sprigge.

  Now, at a sharp command from Sprigge, a Runner approached, bearing a fire hardened spear. With a single powerful gesture he skewered the Elf, ramming the pole into her body through her anus, pushing until its tip emerged bloody from her mouth.

  This time it was Malenfant who had to restrain McCann.

  The Elf was still alive when the Hams lifted the pole onto the spit frames Malenfant heard her body rip as it slumped around its impaling pole — and, he thought, she was still alive, if barely, when a burly Runner went to work on her skull, curling back the flesh and cracking the skull as if it was the shell of a boiled egg.

  Praisegod studie
d Malenfant. “Perhaps it would have been merciful to kill it first. Or perhaps not; this creature cannot comprehend its fate in any case. It is the brains, you see; freshness is all for that particular delicacy.”

  McCann broke away from Malenfant. He strode towards Praisegod Michael, his fists bunched, his face purple. “Now I know what you are, Praisegod. No Bay, no Ramose! Him the Almighty Power I Huri’d headlong flaming from th” Ethereal Sky I With hideous ruin and combustion down I To bottomless perdition. You are no man of God. This is Hell, and you are its Satan!”

  Sprigge slammed his fist into the back of McCann’s head, and the Englishman went sprawling.

  Praisegod Michael seemed unperturbed. “Blasphemy and anarchy, sir. Flogging, branding and tongue-boring will be your fate. That is God’s law, as I have interpreted it.”

  McCann tried to rise. But Sprigge kicked his backside, knocking him flat again. Two of the Runners ripped McCann’s jacket from his back, exposing an expanse of pasty skin, and Sprigge loosened his whip.

  Malenfant watched this, his own fists bunched.

  Don’t do it, Malenfant. This isn’t your argument; it’s not even your damn world. Think of Emma. She is all that matters.

  But as Sprigge raised his arm for the first lash, Malenfant hit him in the mouth, hard enough to knock him flat.

  He didn’t remember much after that.

  Shadow:

  For days after her latest beating at One-eye’s hands. Shadow had stayed in her nest. There was a little fruit here, and dew to be sucked from the leaves. She found something like contentment, simply to be left in peace.

  But the child developed rashes on his belly and inner thighs, and Shadow herself lost a lot of hair around her groin. Her hair, and the child’s, were matted with urine and faeces. In her illness she had failed to clean the child, or herself when the child fouled her.

  She clambered down from the tree and set the child on the ground. When Shadow propped him up the child was actually able to sit up by himself — wobbling, his legs tangled, that great strange head bobbing like a heavy fruit, but sitting up nevertheless. She bathed him gently, with cool clean water from a stream. The coolness made the rash subside. The child’s infection was subsiding too, and his nose was almost free of snot.