Origin m-3

by Stephen Baxter

  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 centre 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 dishonour 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 flavour 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 unravelled 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 honoured, 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 followers 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, i
s 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.”

  “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 neighbours…”

  “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 centre 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.