Manifold: Origin

by Stephen Baxter

  She looked over her shoulder. She saw that wall of wind, streaked with dirt and ripped-up vegetation. But now she could see how it curved inwards, around her confining her here, not excluding her. And when she looked up it stretched into the sky, making a twisting, slowly writhing tunnel.

  She was inside the twister.

  "Ha!" she said, and she punched the air. "Fooled 'em, by God."

  Nemoto was frowning. There was an edge about her, a tension that seemed wound tight. "It was not like that. You did not 'fool' anybody. The Daemons watched your approach. They watched as you plastered clay on your face and butchered your meat – "

  "How did they watch me?"

  Nemoto waved at the air. "They can see what they like, go wherever they want to, at a gesture. They call it Mapping."

  "I don't understand."

  Nemoto leaned down, thrusting her face at Emma, anger sparking. "Your efforts to deceive them were comical. Embarrassing. They could not have succeeded. It was me, Emma Stoney. I was the one who practiced deceit in the end; I convinced them to admit you. I tried to spin your absurd stunt into an act of true cognition. I told them that deceit is a sign of a certain level of intelligence. But I said you were aware of the shallowness of your deceit. You intended to demonstrate an ability to bluff and counter-bluff, thus showing multiple levels of cognition which – "

  Emma raised a hand. "I think I get it." Holding Nemoto's hand, she pulled herself to her feet. "I wish I could say I was so smart. Intentionally, anyhow. Umm, I guess it's appropriate to thank you."

  She heard heavy footsteps. She turned.

  One of the gorilla-things was coming towards her. It – no, she, she had breasts – she walked using her knuckles. But she moved fast, more than a walk: it was a knuckle-sprint, a knuckle-gallop, startlingly fast for such a huge animal.

  The creature must have been eight feet tall. The ground seemed to shake.

  Emma felt Nemoto's hand slide into hers. "Show no fear. Her name is Manekato, or Mane. She will not harm you."

  The Daemon stood before Emma. She straightened up, her massive black-haired bulk towering, and her hands descended on Emma's shoulders, powerful, heavy, human like. Emma felt overwhelmed by weight, solidity, the powerful rank stench of chest-hair. She raised her hands and pressed against that black chest, pushing with all her strength against the surging muscle. Effortlessly, it seemed, the Daemon pressed closer, bringing her shining black face close to Emma's. The mouth opened, and Emma glimpsed a pink cavern and tongue, two huge spike-like upper canines, and smelled a breath sweet as milk.

  Two ears swiveled towards Emma, like little radar dishes.

  Then the Daemon backed off, dropping to rest her weight on her knuckles once more. She growled and hooted.

  Nemoto was smiling thinly. "That was English. You will get used to her pronunciation. Mane asks, What is it you want?"

  "Tell her I want – "

  "Tell her yourself, Emma Stoney."

  Emma faced Manekato, gazed into deep brown gorilla eyes. "I've come here looking for answers." She waved a hand. "Don't you see the damage you cause?"

  Mane frowned, a distinctly puzzled expression, and she peered at Nemoto, as if seeking clarification there. Just as with the Hams, Emma had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that she wasn't even asking the right questions.

  Again Nemoto had to translate for Emma. "You think we made this. The engine that moved the world. Child, the Old Ones are far above us – so far they are as distant from me as from you. Do you not understand that?"

  Emma shuddered. But she said belligerently, "I just want to know what is going on."

  This time, Emma made out Mane's guttural words for herself. "We hoped you could tell us."

  That first night, Emma stayed in the shelter the Daemons had given Nemoto despite Nemoto's obvious reluctance to share. A second bed was "grown" inside the little shelter's main room for Emma, fully equipped with mattress, pillow and sheets; the gorilla-thing called Mane apologized to Emma for the crowding, but promised a place of her own by the next night.

  Unlike the rounded, quasi-organic feel of the other structures on the disc floor, Nemoto's residence was a boxy design with rectangular doors and windows, giving it a very human feel. But, like the other structures, it seemed to have grown from the smooth, oddly warm, bright yellow substrate. It was as if the whole place was a seamless chunk of pepper-yellow plastic that had popped out of some vast mold.

  But the Daemons had provided for Nemoto well. She had a bed with a soft mattress and sheets of some smooth fabric. She was given fruit and meat to eat; she even had a box the size of a microwave oven, with pretty much the same function. There were spigots for hot and cold water, a bathroom with a toilet that flushed.

  Holiday Inn it wasn't, but it was close enough, Emma thought, in the circumstances. Nemoto said the flush toilet, for instance, had taken a couple of prototypes to get right.

  None of this had anything to do with the way the Daemons lived their lives. They seemed to have no desire for privacy when defecating or urinating, for instance; they just let go wherever they happened to be, making sure they didn't splash the food. The magic floor absorbed the waste, no doubt recycling it for some useful purpose, and would even dispel odors. The Daemons, though, were understanding, or at least tolerant, of Nemoto's biological and cultural hang ups.

  Anyhow it suited Emma fine.

  There were sanitary towels. Emma fell on these and stole as many as she could carry away.

  There was coffee (or a facsimile).

  There was a shower.

  She luxuriated in her first hot wash for months, using soap and shampoo that didn't smell as if it had come oozing straight out of the bark of a tree. At first the water just ran black-red at her feet, as if every pore on her body was laden with crimson dirt. By the time she had washed out her hair two, three times, it began to feel like her hair again. She cleaned out the black grime from beneath her fingernails. She looked around for a razor, but could find none; so she used one of her stone blades, purloined from a Neandertal community many miles away, to work at her armpits.

  Toweling herself dry, Emma stood by the window of Nemoto's little chalet, peering out at the Daemons' encampment.

  Feeling oddly like a primatologist in a hide, she watched little knots of the huge gorilla-like creatures knuckle-walking to and fro. H. superior or not, they all looked alike, for God's sake. And little cartoon robots buzzed everywhere, rolling, hopping and flying. She had to remind herself that these really were creatures capable of flying between worlds, of putting on a light show in the sky to shame the aurora borealis, of growing a city in the jungle.

  But as she watched, one of the "gorillas" flickered out of existence, reappearing a few minutes later on the other side of the compound.

  At that moment Emma knew, deep in her gut, that there was indeed nothing primitive about these shambling, knuckle-walking, hairy slabs of muscle, despite her Homo sap prejudices.

  And it made it still more terrifying that it was not the Daemons who were responsible for moving the Moon, but another order of creatures beyond even them. She felt that she was at the bottom of a hierarchy of power and knowledge, unimaginably tall.

  She hit her first soft pillow in months. Emma spent twelve hours in deep, dreamless sleep.

  When she hauled herself out of bed the next day, Nemoto made her brunch (French toast, by God). But Nemoto was largely silent, volunteering little of her experiences here.

  Emma, in turn, resented this silence. After all Nemoto had spent a good deal of time with Malenfant – most of his last few months alive, in fact, when Emma had been about as far from him as she could be. But Emma wasn't about to beg for scraps of information about her own damn husband.

  I am not, Emma thought, going to get along easily with this woman.

  Manekato came visiting. She crouched to get her eight-feet-tall bulk inside Nemoto's shelter, then sat squat on the floor, a gorilla in a too-small cage. Her accent was thick
, her voice a Barry White growl. But when she spoke slowly, Emma found she understood her.

  Manekato said, "You have talked. Nemoto has shared with you what she has learned."

  Nemoto and Emma shared a glance.

  Emma said, "Actually, no."

  Mane slapped her huge thigh, apparently in frustration. "You are the same species! You are alone here, far from home! Why can you not cooperate?"

  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 swiveling. "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 center."

  "The center?"

  "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 traveled 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 neighbors 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."

  Candyland, 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 behavior."

  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 traveling 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 center 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.