Origin m-3

by Stephen Baxter

  Nemoto said easily, “You are showing your prejudice, Manekato. You must see us as individuals. We are the same species, but that does not determine our goals any more than you and Renemenagota had identical motivations.”

  The name meant nothing to Emma.

  Mane turned to Emma, her huge head swivelling. “Very well. Em-ma? Why have you come here?”

  Emma thought about that. “I want to go home.”

  Manekato said, “I regret that is not within my gift. I cannot go home.”

  Emma closed her eyes for a moment, letting her last sliver of hope disappear. She should have expected this, of course. If it were possible to reach Earth, Nemoto would surely have been sent there by now.

  She opened her eyes and met Mane’s gaze. “Then I want to go to the centre.”

  “The centre?”

  “The place where everything happens.”

  Nemoto grinned. “She wants to see the world engine.”

  Mane asked, “Why?”

  Emma felt angry. Who are you to ask? It isn’t yours, any more than it is human… “Because I’ve come this far. Because I’ve kept myself alive on this damn Moon that took my husband’s life, and I want to know what the hell it is all for.”

  “What difference would knowing make?”

  “It just would,” Emma snapped. “And I resent your cross-questioning.”

  Mane paused. Then she said gently, “Em-ma, how did you come here?”

  “It was an accident. I, umm, fell through a portal. A Wheel, a blue circle.”

  “Yes. We know of such devices. But your mate, Mal-en-fant, came here purposefully, with Nemoto.”

  “He came to rescue me.”

  “How is it Mal-en-fant had the technology to travel to the Red Moon? Did he invent it from scratch?”

  Emma glanced at Nemoto, who showed no reaction. Mane was asking her questions to which Nemoto must already have given answers; perhaps this was some obscure test.

  “No,” Emma said. “We had travelled to our own Moon — umm, a lifeless world long before the Red Moon showed up. The technical base was there.”

  “Why did you go to this Moon? For science, for learning?”

  “For politics,” Nemoto said sourly. “For irrational purposes. For typical Homo sapiens reasons.”

  “It wasn’t just that,” Emma said, frowning. “You don’t live with an astronaut your whole life without figuring out some of the bigger picture. Manekato, we went to the Moon because we are a species that explores. We go places even when there is no immediate purpose. Why choose this as our goal? Why climb the highest mountain? Why… fly the Atlantic? We choose to go to the Moon… because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills…”

  Nemoto laughed. “President Kennedy’s 1961 speech. It is a long time since I heard those words.”

  “Malenfant was fond of quoting it.”

  “So,” Mane said, “you intended to live on your Moon, to colonize it.”

  “Ultimately, I guess, yeah.”

  “And then?”

  “And then the other planets,” Emma said vaguely. “Mars, the asteroids, the moons of Jupiter.”

  “And then?”

  “And then the stars, I guess. Alpha Centauri… You’d have been better asking Malenfant.” She studied Manekato, trying to read the expressions that passed over that broad, blue-black face. “Every intelligent species must have the same kind of goals. Expansion, colonization. Mustn’t they? Especially every intelligent variety of hominid.”

  Nemoto was shaking her head. “Not so, it seems.”

  Emma was growing irritated again; she wasn’t enjoying being treated as the dope of the class. “Why are you here, Manekato?”

  “Like you,” Mane said evenly, “when this Red Moon appeared in our skies — and it disrupted our world as much as it did yours — we asked the question why.”

  Emma leaned forward. “But why you. Mane, rather than somebody else?”

  Mane frowned. “I came because I had no home.”

  It turned out that Mane’s home, which she referred to as a Farm, had been wiped off the face of her Earth by Red Moon tides.

  “She came here because she was forced,” Nemoto said.

  “You could have rebuilt someplace else.”

  “There is nowhere else,” Mane said. She pulled at an ear that was all but buried in thick black fur. “It was the end of my Lineage. A Lineage that stretched back through a hundred thousand generations.” She sighed, and began to scratch at the other ear.

  Emma sat, stunned. A hundred thousand generations? If each generation was, say, twenty years at minimum — why, that added up to two million years.

  Nemoto said, “Emma, these people are not like us. They are much more like the Hams. They sit on those Farms of theirs, for ever and a day. They do not covet what their neighbours possess. There is no robbery, no territorial or economic expansion, no nation, no war.”

  “And if you lose your Farm—”

  “If you lose your Farm, you die. Or anyhow your Lineage does.”

  “That’s terrible,” Emma said to Mane. “What do they do? Sterilize you? Take your children?”

  But it seemed that once again she had asked the wrong question. Mane asked blankly, “They?”

  “Nobody has to enforce it,” Nemoto said. “It just happens. The families let themselves die out. It is seen as a price worth paying for ecological stability. Emma, the Daemons have evolved this way, shaped by their cultural imperatives. Two million years, remember.”

  Emma shook her head, uncomfortable under Mane’s steady gaze. She felt defiant. “Humans wouldn’t live like that. We wouldn’t accept it.”

  Mane kept pulling her ear. “What would you do?”

  Emma shrugged. “The family would go on. The Mayflower syndrome. We’d carve a place out of the wilderness—”

  “But there is no wilderness,” Mane said. “Even without war, even if you found a space not already cultivated, you would be forced to occupy a region, delineated in space, time, and energy flow, already exploited by another portion of the ecology.”

  It took some time for Emma to figure that out. “Yes,” she said. “There is bound to be some environmental impact. But—”

  “Other species would find reduced living space. Diversity would fall. And so it would go on. Soon the world would be covered from pole to pole by humans, fighting over the diminishing resources.” Mane nodded. “Such was the ambition of Praisegod Michael. At least you are consistent.”

  “The Daemons limit their numbers,” said Nemoto. “They don’t overrun their Earth. By respecting the stability of the ecosystem that provides for them they have survived for millions of years. They even accept their short lifespans, though it would be trivial for them to do something about that.”

  “A brief life burns brightly,” said Manekato.

  Emma shook her head. “I still say humans couldn’t live like that.”

  Nemoto said slyly, “The Hams do. And they are almost human.”

  “Are you saying we should live like Neandertals, in caves, wearing skins, wrestling buffalo, watching our children die young?”

  Mane said, “Are the Hams suffering?”

  No, Emma thought. Actually they are happy. But her pride was hurt; she stayed silent.

  Mane leaned forward, and Emma could smell her milk-sweet breath. “The lion takes only the last deer in the herd. She does not dream of having so many cubs that the plains would be full of nothing but lions. There are simple laws. Most species figure them out; you are the exception. An ecology of a single species is not viable. A diverse, stable world would provide for you.”

  Candy-land, Emma thought.

  “We have a story,” Mane said. “A mother was dying. She called her daughter. She said, ‘This is the most beautiful Farm in the world.’ And so it was. The mother said, ‘When I die, you will be free to act. Do with it what you will.’ The daughter pondered these words.

  “And
when the mother died, the daughter took a torch and set fire to her Farm every bit of it, the buildings and crops and creatures.

  “When asked why she had done this — for of course, without a Farm, her Lineage would be extinguished — the daughter said, “One night of glory is better than a thousand years of toil.’” The big Daemon actually shuddered as she finished her tale.

  “We have a similar legend,” Emma said. “There was a warrior, called Achilles. The gods gave him a choice: a brief life of glory, or a long, uneventful life in obscurity. Achilles chose the glory.” She looked up at Mane. “In my culture, that story is regarded as uplifting.”

  Mane turned her tremendous head. “The tale I told you is, umm, a scary story. Intended to frighten the children into proper behaviour.”

  Nemoto said grimly, “But we will go on anyhow. To the planets, the stars. If we get the chance; if we survive the human-induced extinction event that is unfolding on our Earth. Because we don’t have a choice.” She eyed Manekato bleakly. “Sure our strategy is flawed. But it has a deadly internal logic. We’re stuck on this road we have chosen. We have to keep expanding, or we’ll die anyhow.”

  “There is that,” Mane said gently. She stood, and with startling clumsiness rammed her head against the low roof of the chalet. “You wish to see the engine of the world. So do I, Em-ma. We will go together.”

  Nemoto nodded warily. “How? Will you Map us?”

  Manekato laid a hand on Emma’s scalp. It was heavy, gentle, the pads of flesh on the palm soft. “We have found we cannot Map there. But it would not be appropriate anyway. We are all hominids together, here on this Red Moon. Let us do what hominids do. We will walk, to our destiny.”

  Four of them would be travelling together: Emma, Nemoto, Manekato — and Julia, the Ham. As Emma was preparing to leave, Julia had walked out of nowhere, with every sign of staying at Emma’s side until they reached whatever there was to find, at the centre of this wind-wrapped crater.

  Manekato loomed over the three of them, the massive muscles of her shoulders as big as Emma’s skull. “Now we go, we four, to discover the secret of the universe.” She threw back her mighty head and laughed, a roar that rattled off the smooth-walled structures of the compound. And, without hesitation, she walked off the yellow platform floor, heading for the interior of the crater, and the forest that lay there.

  The little column turned single-file and spread out. The going was easy over the dust-strewn rock, and Emma, hardened by her weeks of living rough, found it easy to keep up with Manekato’s knuckle-gallop. But when she looked back she saw that Nemoto was labouring, lagging behind Emma by a hundred yards. Julia walked at her side, stolid, slow, patient, her own awkward gait endearingly clumsy.

  Emma waited until Nemoto caught up. Nemoto did not look her in the eye; she plodded on, her gait showing a trace of a limp. Emma clapped her on the shoulder. “I guess the human species isn’t going to conquer the stars if we can’t even walk a couple of miles, Nemoto.”

  “I am not as acclimatized as you,” Nemoto said.

  “Despite all that astronaut training you must have had. Whereas / was just thrown here on my ass from out of the blue sky—”

  “Punish me if you like. Your misfortunes are not my fault.”

  “Right. You came here to rescue me. Or was it just to give me somebody even worse off than I am?”

  Julia moved between them. “No” worry, Emma. I help.”

  Emma grinned. “Just throw her over your shoulder if she gives any trouble. Nemoto — even if they can’t Map there, I don’t understand why the Daemons haven’t been to this centre before.”

  “They have been studying it. They can be remarkably patient. And—”

  “Yes?”

  “I think they have been waiting for us.”

  Emma observed, “Nobody’s carrying anything.”

  Julia shrugged. “Fores” has food. Fores” has water.”

  “You see?” Nemoto glared. “These others do not think as we do. Julia knows that the land will provide everything she needs: food, water, even raw materials for tools. It is a different set of assumptions, Emma Stoney. Just as Manekato said. They see the universe as essentially bountiful, a generous mother land. We see the universe as an enemy nation, to be occupied and mastered.”

  “So we’re inferior in every way,” Emma grumbled, resentful.

  “Not that,” Nemoto said. “But we are different. The Daemons” intellectual capacity is obvious — the rapidity of their comprehension, the richness and precision of their thinking. But they come from a world where hunters, indeed predators of any kind, cannot prosper. Even their games are cooperative, all concerned with building things.”

  “What about religion? What do they believe?”

  Nemoto shrugged. “If they have a religion it is buried well, in their minds and their culture. They need not worship sublimated mothers or seeds as we do, because they control nature — at least, below the Red Moon. And without the metaphor of the seed, of renewal, they have no urge to believe in a life beyond the grave.”

  “Like the Hams.”

  “Yes. The Hams, Neandertals, have much more in common with the Daemons than we do. And remember this, Emma Stoney. Mane’s people regard us as less intelligent than them. Save for academic interest or sentimentality, they have no more interest in talking to us than you would have in chatting to a Colobus monkey. This is the framework within which we must operate, no matter how hurtful to your Homo sapiens ego.”

  They reached a patch of forest. Manekato plunged into it, seeking fruit. The others followed more slowly.

  Keeping Manekato’s broad back in sight, Emma stepped cautiously over a muddy, leaf-strewn ground. Roots snaked everywhere, as if put there to trip her. In some places the trees towered high. She could see the canopy, where the thick branches of each tree spread out, making an almost horizontal roof of greenery. The trunks themselves were dense with life, with lianas that looped and sagged, and ferns and orchids sprouting like underarm hair from every crevice and fork. Though it was humid and still, the moist air felt almost cool on her cheeks, as if this was fall. There was a mild, pervading stench of decaying vegetation.

  A shadow flitted between the tree trunks, a round, uncertain form dimly glimpsed among the shadowy verticals.

  Emma stopped dead, heart hammering.

  Manekato was a massive, reassuring form at her side. “It is a Nutcracker. A vegetarian hominid which—”

  “I know about Nutcrackers.”

  Manekato peered curiously into her face. “I sense fear.”

  Emma found her breath was shallow; she tried to control it. “Does that surprise you?”

  “You are already far from home. Without prior preparation, without aid, you have survived in this place for many weeks. What more is there for you to fear now?”

  “Humans aren’t creatures of the forest, like the Elves or the Nutcrackers. We are creatures of the open. Like the Runners.”

  “Ah.” Apologetically Manekato reached for her and, with thick, gentle, leather skinned fingers, she probed at Emma’s shoulders, elbows, hips. “It is true. You are designed for steady walking, for running, over long distances. You sweat unlike me — so that you can control your heat loss efficiently in the open sunlight. Yes, your link with the forest is lost deep in the past. And so you see it, not as a place of bounty and safety, but of threat.”

  “We have tales. Fictions. Many of them are scary. They involve dense forests, being lost in the woods.”

  Manekato showed ferocious teeth. “And if an Elf were able, it would frighten its companions with tales of being trapped in the open, with no forest cover in sight, at sunset, as the predators begin to feed… But that hominid appeared to be fleeing. Little threatens the Nutcrackers, here in their forest domain; they are strong and smart. Curious.” Mane loped forward, more slowly than before, her massive form moving with barely a rustle through the crowded foliage. Emma followed in her tracks.

  Then Mane
slowed, peering down at something on the ground.

  Emma heard the buzzing of flies. Then came the stench, the rotting-meat stench: sanitized out of the world she had come from, a smell she would not get used to no matter how long she lasted on this strange, mixed-up Moon.

  The smell of death.

  It looked like a chimp that had been hit by a truck. Its hairy skin was broken by wounds and lesions, and a watery fluid leaked from gaping mouth and empty eye sockets. Maggots squirmed in the lesions, giving the corpse a semblance of life. The body seemed to be deliquescing, in fact, its flesh and bones dissolving right out from within its skin and pouring into the ground.

  There was an infant sitting on the ground beside the adult, presumably its mother, a round bundle of misery.

  “Now we know why that Nutcracker was fleeing,” Emma said.

  Nemoto, panting hard, joined Emma. “I have seen this before. Do not touch anything.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something like the Ebola virus, I think. It starts with a headache, a fever. As your cells fill with the replicating virus your immune system collapses. Your skin turns to pulp; you haemorrhage; your gut fills with blood; blood leaks from your eyes, mouth, nose, ears, anus. When you die your body turns to slime. If somebody picks up the corpse, they contract it too, and die in turn. There is no vaccine or cure. I guess that is why the others of this one’s troupe have abandoned it, and its child.”

  “I have made this one safe,” Mane murmured. “There is no infection here.” Emma hadn’t seen her do anything.

  The baby raised its head and studied Emma. The little Nutcracker, surely no more than a year old, was surrounded by scrapings of thin white infant scut.

  Emma said to Mane, “It’s safe to pick it up?”

  “Yes.”

  Emma pulled a piece of cloth over her mouth and nose and stepped forward, towards the infant. The infant cowered back, but it was weak and hungry and scared, and let Emma tuck her hands under its armpits.

  She lifted it easily, though it was heavier than she had thought, a boulder of hair and bone. “Well, it’s a girl; I can tell that much.” The infant had brown black eyes, creamy white at the edges. Her skin beneath the hair was black, and wrinkles ran across her brow, between her eyes and over her stubby ape nose, giving her a troubled expression. Her mouth was open, and was a startlingly bright pink inside. The hair on her body was thick and coarse, but on her head, over that improbable crest of bone, the hair was sparser.