Stephen Baxter: Origin

Nemoto said now, “That was the purpose, the design of the Red Moon. But now the machinery is failing.”

“It is?”

“The sudden, frequent and irregular jumps. The instabilities, the tides, the volcanism. It shouldn’t be happening that way.”

Emma turned back to Manekato. “Let me get this straight. The Red Moon has been the driver of human evolution. But now it is breaking down. So what happens next?”

“We will be on our own,” said Nemoto. She raised her thin hands, turned them over, spread the fingers. “Our evolutionary destiny, in hominid hands. Does that frighten you?”

“It frightens me,” Manekato said softly.

For a moment they sat silently. Emma was aware of the dampness of the breeze, the harsh breathing of the big Daemon. On impulse she put her hand on Manekato’s arm. Her fur was thick and dense, and her skin hot — hotter than a human’s, perhaps a result of her faster metabolism.

“…Wait,” Manekato said softly, peering into the trees.

Shadows moved there: shadows of bulky, powerful forms. They paused, listening. There were at least three adults, possibly more. Emma could make out the characteristic prow-shaped silhouettes of their skulls.

The Nutcracker infant roused from her sleep. Bleary-eyed, she peered into the trees and yowled softly.

The shadows moved closer, sliding past the trees, at last resolving into recognizable fragments: curling fingers, watchful eyes, the unmistakable morphology of hominids. One of them, perhaps a woman, extended a hand.

The infant clambered off Manekato’s lap and stood facing the Nutcracker-woman, nervous, uncertain.

The Nutcracker-woman took a single step into the clearing, her eyes fixed on the infant. The child whimpered, and took a hesitant step forward.

Nemoto hissed to Emma, “Listen to me. I have a further theory. The Old Ones did not disappear into some theoretical universe-spanning abstraction. They are still here. Wouldn’t they want to be immersed in the world they made, to eat its fruit, to drink its water? Maybe they have become these Nutcrackers, the most content, pacific, unthreatened, mindless of all the hominid species. They shed everything they knew to live the way hominids are supposed to, the way we never learned, or forgot. What do you think?…”

The infant glanced back at Emma, knowing. Then, with a liquid motion, the Nutcracker-woman scooped up the child and melted into green shadows.

Back in the Daemons” yellow-plastic compound, Emma luxuriated in a hot shower, a towelling robe, and a breakfast of citrus fruit.

Luxuriate, yes. Because you know you aren’t going to enjoy this much longer, are you, Emma? And maybe you’ll never live like this again, not ever, not for the rest of your life.

You will miss the coffee, though.

She dressed and emerged from her little chalet. The sky was littered with cloud, the breeze capricious and laden with moisture. Storm coming.

She saw Nemoto arguing with Manekato. Nemoto looked, in fact, as if she still wasn’t getting a great deal of sleep; black smudges made neat hyperbolae around her eyes. By contrast, Manekato was leaning easily on her knuckles, her swivelling ears facing Nemoto, her great black-haired body a calming slab of stillness. And Julia, the Ham girl, was standing close by, listening gravely.

When Emma approached, Mane turned to her, smooth and massive as a swivelling gun-turret. “Good morning, Em-ma.”

“And to you. Nemoto, you look like shit.”

Nemoto glowered at her.

“What’s the hot topic?”

“Future plans.” Nemoto’s foot was characteristically tapping the plastic-feel floor like a trapped animal, about the nearest she got to expressing a true emotion.

“Grey Earth,” Julia said.

“…Oh. The deal we made.”

“The deal you made,” Nemoto said. “Over and over again. You said you would take the Hams back to their home world, if they helped you.”

“I know what I said.”

“Well, now it is payback time.”

Emma sighed. She stepped forward and took Julia’s great hands; her own fingers, even hardened by weeks of rough living, were pale white streaks compared to Julia’s muscular digits. “Julia, I meant what I said. If I could find a way I would get you people home.” She waved towards the latest Earth in the sky, a peculiarly shrunken world with a second Moon orbiting close to it. “But you can see the situation for yourself. Your world is gone. It’s lost. You see—”

Nemoto said, “Emma, you have made enough mistakes already. It would pay you, pay us both, not to patronize this woman.”

Emma said, “I’m sorry.” So I am, she thought. But I made a promise I couldn’t keep, and I knew it when I made it, and now I just have to get out of this situation as gracefully as I can. That’s life. “The point is the Grey Earth isn’t coming back. Not in any predictable way.” She looked up at Mane. “Is it?”

The great Daemon rubbed her face. “We are studying the world engine. It is ancient and faulty.” She grunted. “Like a bad-tempered old hominid, it needs love and attention.”

Emma frowned. “But you think you might get it to work again?”

Mane patted Emma’s head. “Nemoto frequently accuses me of underestimating you. I am guilty. But you are symmetrically guilty of overestimating me. We cannot repair the world engine. We cannot understand its workings. Perhaps in a thousand years of study… For now we can barely see it.”

Nemoto shuddered. “We are all on very low rungs of a very tall ladder.”

But Mane said, “There is no ladder. We are all different. Difference is to be cherished.”

“And that’s what we humans must learn,” Emma said.

“You will not learn it,” Manekato said cheerfully, “for you will not survive long enough.” She sighed, a noise like a steam train in a tunnel. “However, to return to the point, we believe we may be able to direct the wandering of the Red Moon, to a limited extent. Prior to shutting down the world engine altogether.”

“Grey Earth come,” Julia said again, and her face relaxed from its mock-human smile into the gentle, beatific expression Emma had come to associate with happiness.

Emma held her breath. “And Earth,” she said. “My Earth; our Earth. Can you reach that too?…”

“The Daemons can make one directed transition,” said Nemoto gravely. “And they are going to use it to take us to the universe of the Grey Earth.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of you.”

Emma studied Nemoto. “I sense you’re pissed at me,” she said dryly.

Nemoto glowered. “Emma, these are not humans. They don’t lie, the Hams and the Daemons. It’s all part of the rule-set with which they have managed to achieve such longevity as species. A bargain, once struck, is absolutely rigid.”

“But what’s the big deal? Even if the Daemons manage to bring us back to the Grey Earth universe, they can just send the Hams home. As many as want to go. They can just Map them there.”

Nemoto shook her head. “You aren’t thinking right. The deal was with us, not the Daemons. We have to get them home. Whichever way we can.”

“The lander?”

Nemoto just glared. Then she walked away, muttering, scheming, her whole body tense, her gait rigid, like a machine.

Emma Stoney:

Hello, Malenfant. I want to tell you I’m all right.

I know that’s not what you’d want to hear. The notion that I’m alive, I’m prospering without you, is anathema. Right?

But then you probably aren’t listening at all.

You never did listen to me. If you had you wouldn’t have screwed up our entire relationship, from beginning to end. You really are an asshole, Malenfant. You were so busy saving the world, saving me, you never thought about yourself. Or me.