pattern of evolution on Earth. Now we see where it came from: It
appeared as a mutation among the evolving primates that were
isolated on Minerva. It was transmitted through the population
there until it became a racial characteristic. It proved to be such
a devastating weapon in the survival struggle there that effective
opposition ceased to exist. The inner driving force that it pro
duced was such that the Lunarians were flying spaceships while
their contemporaries on Earth were still playing with pieces of
stone.
"That same driving force we see in man today. Man has proved
invincible in every challenge that the Universe has thrown at him.
Perhaps this force has been diluted somewhat in the time that has
elapsed since it first appeared on Minerva; we reached the brink of
that same precipice of self-destruction but stepped back. The
Lunarians hurled themselves in regardless. It could be that this
was why they did not seek a solution by cooperation-their in-built
tendency to violence made them simply incapable of conceiving such
a formula.
"But this is typical of the way in which evolution works. The
forces of natural selection will always operate in such a way as to
bend and shape a new mutation, and to preserve a variation of it
that offers the best prospects of survival for the species as a
whole. The raw mutation that made the Lunarians what they were was
too extreme and resulted in their downfall. Improvement has taken
the form of a dilution, which results in a greater psychological
stability of the race. Thus, we survive where they perished."
Danchekker paused to finish his drink. The statues remained
statues.
"What an incredible race they must have been," he said. "Consider
in particular the handful who were destined to become the
forefathers of mankind. They had endured a holocaust unlike
anything we can even begin to imagine. They had watched their world
and everything that was familiar explode in the skies above their
heads. After this, abandoned in an airless, waterless, lifeless,
radioactive desert, they were slaughtered beneath the billions of
tons of Minervan debris that crashed down from the skies to
complete the ruin of all their hopes and the total destruction of
all they had achieved.
"A few survived to emerge onto the surface after the bombardment.
They knew that they could live only for as long as their supplies
and their machines lasted. There was nowhere they could go, nothing
they could plan for. They did not give in. They did not know how to
give in. They must have existed for months before they realized
that, by a quirk of fate, a slim chance of survival existed.
"Can you imagine the feelings of that last tiny band of Lunarians
as they stood amid the Lunar desolation, gazing up at the new world
that shone in the sky above their heads, with nothing else alive
around them and, for all they knew, nothing else alive in the
Universe? What did it take to attempt that one-way journey into the
unknown? We can try to imagine, but we will never know. Whatever it
took, they grasped at the straw that was offered and set off on
that journey.
"Even this was only the beginning. When they stepped out of their
ships onto the alien world, they found themselves in the midst of
one of the most ruthless periods of competition and extinction in
the history of the Earth. Nature ruled with an uncompromising hand.
Savage beasts roamed the planet; the climate was in turmoil
following the gravitational upheavals caused by the arrival of the
Moon; possibly they were decimated by unknown diseases. It was an
environment that none of their experience had prepared them for.
Still they refused to yield. They learned the ways of the new
world: They learned to feed by hunting and trapping, to fight with
spear and club; they learned how to shelter from the elements, to
read and interpret the language of the wild. And as they became
proficient in these new arts they grew stronger and ventured
farther afield. The spark that they had brought with them and which
had carried them through on the very edge of extinction began to
glow bright once again. Finally that glow erupted into the flame
that had swept all before it on Minerva; they emerged as an
adversary more fearsome and more formidable than anything the Earth
had ever known. The Neanderthals never stood a chance-they were
doomed the moment the first Lunarian foot made contact with the
soil of Earth.
"The outcome you see all around you today. We stand undisputed
masters of the Solar System and poised on the edge of interstellar
space itself, just as they did fifty thousand years ago."
Danchekker placed his glass carefully on the table and moved slowly
toward the center of the room. His sober gaze shifted from eye to
eye. He concluded: "And so, gentlemen, we inherit the stars.
"Let us go out, then, and claim our inheritance. We belong to a
tradition in which the concept of defeat has no meaning. Today the
stars and tomorrow the galaxies. No force exists in the Universe
that can stop us."
epilogue
Professor Hans Jacob Zeiblemann, of the Department of Paleontology
of the University of Geneva, finished his entry for the day in his
diary, closed the book with a grunt, and returned it to its place
in the tin box underneath his bed. He hoisted his twohundred-pound
bulk to its feet and, drawing his pipe from the breast pocket of
his bush shirt, moved a pace across the tent to knock out the ash
on the metal pole by the~ door. As he stood packing a new fill of
tobacco into the bowl, he gazed out over the arid landscape of
northern Sudan.
The Sun had turned into a deep gash just above the horizon, oozing
blood-red liquid rays that drenched the naked rock for miles
around. The tent was one of three that stood crowded together on a
narrow sandy shelf. The shelf was formed near the bottom of a
steep-sided rocky valley, dotted with clumps of coarse bush and
desert scrub that clustered together along the valley floor and
petered out rapidly, without gaining the slopes on either side. On
a wider shelf beneath stood the more numerous tents of the native
laborers. Obscure odors wafting upward from this direction signaled
that preparation of the evening meals had begun. From farther below
came the perpetual sound of the stream, rushing and clattering and
jostling on its way to join the waters of the distant Nile.
The crunch of boots on gravel sounded nearby. A few seconds later
Zeiblemann's assistant, Jorg Hutfauer, appeared, his shirt dark and
streaked with perspiration and grime.
"Phew!" The newcomer halted to mop his brow with something that had
once been a handkerchief. "I'm whacked. A beer, a bath, dinner,
then bed-that's my program for tonight."
Zeiblemann grinned. "Busy day?"
"Haven't stopped. We've extended sector five to the lower terrace.
The subsoil isn't too bad there at
all. We've made quite a bit of
progress."
"Anything new?"
"I brought these up-thought you might be interested. There's more
below, but it'll keep till you come down tomorrow." Hutfauer passed
across the objects he had been carrying and continued on into the
tent to retrieve a can of beer from the pile of boxes and cartons
under the table.
"Mmm . . ." Zeiblemann turned the bone over in his hand. "Human
femur . . . heavy." He studied the unusual curve and measured the
proportions with his eye. "Neanderthal, I'd say.
or very near related."
"That's what I thought."
The professor placed the fossil carefully in a tray, covered it
with a cloth, and laid the tray on the chest standing just inside
the tent doorway. He picked up a hand-sized blade of ifint, simply
but effectively worked by the removal of long, thin flakes.
"What did you make of this?" he asked.
Hutfauer moved forward out of the shadow and paused to take a
prolonged and grateful drink from the can.
"Well, the bed seems to be late Pleistocene, so I'd expect upper
Paleolithic indications-which fits in with the way it's been
worked. Probably a scraper for skinning. There are areas of
microliths on the handle and also around the end of the blade.
Bearing in mind the location, I'd put it at something related
fairly closely to the Capsian culture." He lowered the can and
cocked an inquiring eye at Zeiblemann.
"Not bad," said the professor, nodding. He laid the flint in a tray
beside the first and added the identification sheet that Hutfauer
had written out. "We'll have a closer look tomorrow when the
light's a little better."
Hutfauer joined him at the door. The sound of jabbering and
shouting from the level below told them that another of the
natives' endless minor domestic disputes had broken out over
something.
"Tea's up if anyone's interested," a voice called out from behind
the next tent.
Zeiblemann raised his eyebrows and licked his lips. "What a
splendid idea," he said. "Come on, Jorg."
They walked around to the makeshift kitchen, where Ruddi Magendorf
was sitting on a rock, shoveling spoonfuls of tea leaves out of a
tin by his side and into a large bubbling pot of water.
"Hi, Prof-hi, Jorg," he greeted as the two joined him. "It'll be
brewed in a minute or two."
Zeiblemann wiped his palms on the front of his shirt. "Good. Just
what I could do with." He cast his eye about automatically and
noted the trays, covered by cloths, laid out on the trestle table
by the side of Magendorf's tent.
"Ah, I see you've been busy as well," he observed. "What do we have
there?"
Magendorf followed his gaze.
"Jomatto brought them up about half an hour ago. They're from the
upper terrace of sector two-east end. Take a look."
Zeiblemann walked over to the table and uncovered one of the trays
to inspect the neatly arrayed collection, at the same time mumbling
absently to himself.
"More ifint scrapers, I see . . . Mmmm . . . That could be a hand
ax. Yes, I believe it is . . . Bits of jawbone, human .
looks as if they might well match up. Skull cap. . . Bone spearhead
. . . Mmm . . ." He lifted the cloth from the second tray and began
running his eye casually over the contents. Suddenly the movement
of his head stopped abruptly as he stared hard at something at one
end. His face contorted into a scowl of disbelief.
"What the hell is this supposed to be?" he bellowed. He
straightened up and walked back toward the stove, holding the
offending object out in front of him.
Magendorf shrugged and pulled a face.
"I thought you'd better see it," he offered, then added: "Jomatto
says it was with the rest of that set."
"Jomatto says what?" Zeiblemann's voice rose in pitch as he
glowered first at Magendorf and then back at the object in his
hand. "Oh, for God's sake! The man's supposed to have a bit of
sense. This is a serious scientific expedition. . ." He regarded
the object again, his nostrils quivering with indignation.
"Obviously one of the boys has been playing a silly joke or
something."
It was about the size of a large cigarette pack, not including the
wrist bracelet, and carried on its upper face four windows that
could have been meant for miniature electronic displays. It
suggested a chronometer or calculating aid, or maybe it was both
and other things besides. The back and contents were missing, and
all that was left was the metal casing, somewhat battered and
dented, but still surprisingly unaffected very much by corrosion.
"There's a funny inscription on the bracelet," Magenclorf said,
rubbing his nose dubiously. "I've never seen characters like it
before."
Zeiblemann sniffed and peered briefly at the lettering.
"Pah! Russian or something." His face had taken on a pinker shade
than even that imparted by the Sudan sun. "Wasting valuable time
with-with dime-store trinkets!" He drew back his arm and hurled the
wrist set high out over the stream. It flashed momentarily in the
sunlight before plummeting down into the mud by the water's edge.
The professor stared after it for a few seconds and then turned
back to Magendorf, his breathing once again normal. Magendorf
extended a mug full of steaming brown liquid.
"Ah, splendid," Zeiblemann said in a suddenly agreeable voice.
"Just the thing." He settled himself into a folding canvas chair
and accepted the proffered mug eagerly. "I'll tell you one thing
that does look interesting, Ruddi," he went on, nodding toward the
table. "That piece of skull in the first tray-number nineteen. Have
you noticed the formation of the brow ridges? Now, it could well be
an example of. .
In the mud by the side of the stream below, the wrist unit rocked
back and forth to the pulsing ripples that every few seconds rose
to disturb the delicate equilibrium of the position into which it
had fallen. After a while, a rib of sand beneath it was washed away
and it tumbled over into a hollow, where it lodged among the
swirling, muddy water. By nightfall, the lower half of the casing
was already embedded in silt. By the following morning, the hollow
had disappeared. Just one arm of the bracelet remained, standing up
out of the sand below the rippling surface. The arm bore an
inscription, which, if translated, would have read: KORIEL.
-------------------------------
Qvadis
Express Reader Edition
www.qvadis.com
-------------------------------
filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Giant Series 01 - Inherit the Stars Page 26
