Manifold: Origin

by Stephen Baxter

  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 tidbits 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 marvelous 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 dispatched 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.
r />   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 studied 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 / Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Sky / With hideous ruin and combustion down / 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 feces. 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.

  The child clapped his little hands together, looked at them as if he had never seen them before, and gazed up at his mother with wide eyes.

  Shadow embraced him, suddenly overwhelmed by her feelings, warm and deep red and powerful.

  And a great mass caromed into her back, knocking her flat.

  Her child was screaming. She forced herself to her knees and turned her head.

  One-eye had the infant. He was sitting on the ground, holding the baby by his waist. The child's heavy head lolled to and fro. One-eye was flanked by two younger men, who watched him intently. One-eye flicked the side of the child's skull with a bloody finger, making the head roll further.

  Shadow got to her feet. Her back was a mass of bruises. She walked forward unsteadily, and with every step pain lanced. She stood before One-eye and held her hands out for her child.

  One-eye clutched the child closer to his chest, not roughly, and the child scrabbled at his fur, seeking to cling on. The other men watched Shadow with a cold calculation.

  Shadow stood there, bewildered, hot, exhausted, aching. She didn't know what One-eye wanted. She sat on the ground and lay back, opening her legs for him.

  One-eye grinned. He held the child before him. And he bit into the front of its head. The child shuddered once, then was limp.

  Shadow's world dissolved into crimson rage. She was aware of the child's body being hurled into the air, blood still streaming from the wound in his head, as limp as a chewed leaf. She lunged at One-eye, screaming in his face, clawing and biting. One-eye was knocked flat on the ground, and he raised his hands before his bloody face to ward off her blows.

  Then the other men got hold of her shoulders and dragged her away. She kicked and fought, but she was weakened by her long deprivation, her beatings and her illness; she was no match for two burly men. At last they took her by an arm and a leg. They swung her in the air and hurled her against a broad tree trunk.

  The men were still there, One-eye and the others, sitting in a tight circle on the ground. They were working at something. She heard the rip of flesh, smelled the stink of blood. She tried to rise, but could not, and she fell back into darkness.

  The next time she woke she was alone. The light was gone, and only pale yellow Earthlight, filtered through the forest canopy, littered the ground.

  She crawled to where the men had been sitting.

  She picked up one small arm. A strip of gristle at the shoulder showed where it had been twisted from the torso. The hand was still in place, perfectly formed, clenched into a tiny fist.

  She was high in a tree, in a roughly prepared nest. She didn't remember getting there. It was day, the sun high and hot.

  She remembered her baby. She remembered the tiny hand.

  By the time she clambered down from the tree, her determination was as pure as fast-running water.

  Emma Stoney

  Emma trudged wearily over the soft sand of the ocean shore. The ocean itself was a sheet of steel, visibly curving at the horizon, and big low-gravity waves washed across it languidly.

  This strip of yellow-white beach lay between the ocean and a stretch of low dunes. Further inland she saw a grassy plain, a blanket of green that rippled as the wind touched it, studded here and there by knots of trees. A herd of grazing animals moved slowly across the plain, their collective motion flowing, almost liquid; they looked like huge wild horses. The stretch of savannah ended in a cliff of some dark volcanic rock, and a dense forest spilled over the lip of the cliff, a thick green-black. It was a scene of life, of geological and biological harmony, characterized by the scale and slow pace of this world. In any other context it might have been beautiful.

  But Emma walked warily, the rags of her flight suit flapping around her, her loose pack strapped to her back with bits of vegetable rope, a wooden spear in one hand and a basalt axe in the other. Beautiful or not, this was a world full of dangerous predators – not least, the humans.

  And then she saw a flash of blue fabric, high on the cliff.

  She walked up the beach towards the cliff, trying to ignore the hammering of her heart.

  Every day her mood swung between elation and feverish hope, to bitterness that bordered on despair. One day at a time, Emma. Think like a Ham. Take it one day at a time.

  But now she could see the lander itself. She broke into a run, staring, wishing her eyes had a zoom feature.

  It was unmistakably NASA technology, like a stubby scale-model Space Shuttle, with black and white protective tiles. It was surrounded by shreds of its blue parafoil. But it was stuck in a clump of trees, halfway down the cliff; it looked like some fat moth clinging to the rock.

  "Nice landing, Malenfant," she murmured.

  Disturbingly, she saw no sign that anybody had done anything constructive up there. There were no ropes leading up or down the cliff, no stars and stripes waving, no SOS sign carved into the foliage.

  Maybe the crew hadn't survived the crash.

  She put that thought aside. They could have gotten out before the lander had plummeted over the cliff, even ejected on the way down. There were many possibilities. At the very least, there should be stuff she could use – tools, a first aid kit, maybe even a radio.

  Messages from home.

  What was for sure was that she was going to have to get up that cliff to find out. And she wasn't going to mak
e it up there alone.

  There was an encampment of Hams, a squat hut of skin weighted down with stone, almost directly under the blue flash. She could see them moving around before the hut, slabs of muscle wrapped in crudely cut skins.

  That was how she was going to get up that damn cliff.

  She forced herself to slow. One step at a time, Emma; you know the protocol. It was going to be hard to be patient, to engage a new group of Hams once again. But that was what she was going to have to do.

  She dropped her pack at the edge of the sea, and splashed her face with salt water. Then she walked up and down the beach, picking out bits of scattered driftwood. She found a long, straight branch, and selected a handful of thorny sticks. She took her favored hand-axe and, with a skill born of long hours of practice and many cut fingers, she made notches in one end of the stick, wide enough to fit the thorny twigs. Then she took a bit of rawhide string from her pack, and wrapped it around the stick, lashing the barbs in place.

  Thus, one harpoon.

  She slipped off her boots and socks and coverall and waded into the shallows, harpoon raised.

  Fishing had become her specialty. It didn't seem to have occurred to any of the Ham communities here to figure out how to catch fish, either in the ocean or in freshwater streams. Fish meat, exotic but appealing, made a good bribe.

  There was a ripple at her feet, a roughly diamond shape that emerged briefly from the sand. She stabbed down hard, feeling the crunch of breaking wood.

  She found she had speared a skate, a big brown fleshy square of a fish, maybe two feet across. Skate buried themselves in the mud, coming up at night to hunt shellfish. Her catch was wriggling violently, and it was all she could do to hold on to the harpoon. With a grunting effort she heaved the skate over her head and out onto the sand, where it flopped, slowly dying. One bit of lingering squeamishness was a reluctance to kill anything; acknowledging the hypocrisy, she let her victims die instead.