Origin. Stephen Baxter

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СКАЧАТЬ think this huge event is more than that – even more significant. Malenfant, people rained out of the sky. They may or may not belong to a species we recognize, but they were people. It is clear to me that the meaning of the Red Moon is intimately bound up with us: what it is to be human – and why we are alone in the cosmos.’

      ‘Or were.”

      ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And, consider this. This Red Moon simply appeared in our sky … It is not as if a fleet of huge starships towed it into position. We don’t know how it got there. And we don’t know how long it will stay, conveniently poised next to the Earth. The Wheel disappeared just hours after it arrived. If we don’t act now –’

      ‘Yes, you’re right. We must act urgently.’ The sun was a shimmering globe suspended on the edge of the ocean, and Malenfant began to feel its heat draw at the skin of his face. ‘We’ve a lot to talk about.’

      ‘Yes.’

      They walked up the path to their cars.

      Fire:

      The sun is above his head. The air is hot and still. The red ground shines brightly through brittle grass. People move to and fro on the red dust.

      Fire thinks of Dig. He thinks of himself touching Dig’s hair, her dugs, the small of her back. His member stiffens. His eyes and ears seek Dig. They don’t find her.

      He sees Sing.

      Sing is lying flat on her bower, in the sun. Her head does not rise. Her hand does not lift from where it is sprawled in the red dirt. Her legs are splayed. Flies nibble at her belly and eyes and mouth.

      Fire squats. His hands flap at the flies, chasing them away. He shakes Sing’s shoulder. ‘Sing Sing Fire Sing!’

      She does not move. He puts his finger in her mouth. It is dry.

      Fire picks up Sing’s hand. It is limp, but her arm is stiff. He drops the hand. The arm falls back with a soft thump. Dust rises, falls back.

      Emma is beside him.

       ‘Fire. Maxie is ill. Perhaps you can help. Umm, Maxie sore Maxie. Fire Maxie … Fire, is something wrong?’

      Her eyes look at Sing. Her hands press at Sing’s neck. Emma’s head drops over Sing’s mouth, and her ear listens.

      Fire thinks of Sing laughing. She is huge and looms over him. Her face blocks out the sun.

      He looks at the slack eyes, the open mouth, the dried drool. This is not Sing.

      His legs stand him up. He bends down and lifts the body over his shoulders. It is stiff. It is cold.

      Emma stands. ‘Fire? Are you all right?’

      Fire’s legs jog downwind. They jog until his eyes see the people are far away. Then his arms dump the body on the ground. It sprawls. He hears bones snap. Gas escapes from its backside.

      Bad meat.

      He jogs away, back to the people.

      He goes to Sing’s bower. But the bower is empty. People are here, and then they are gone, leaving no memorials, no trace but their children, as transient as lions or deer or worms or clouds. Sing is gone from the world, as if she never existed. Soon he will forget her.

      He scatters the branches with his foot.

      Emma is watching him.

      Sally is here, holding Maxie. Maxie is weeping. Emma says, ‘Fire, I’m sorry. Can you help us? I don’t know what to do …’

      Fire grins. He reaches for Maxie.

      Maxie cringes. Sally pulls him back.

      Emma says, ‘No, Fire. He doesn’t want to play. Fire Maxie ill sick sore.’

      Fire frowns. He touches Maxie’s forehead. It is hot and wet. He touches his belly. It is hard.

      He thinks of a shrub with broad, coarse-textured leaves. He does not know why he thinks of the shrub. He doesn’t even formulate the question. The knowledge is just there.

      He lopes to the forest. His ears listen and his eyes peer into the dark greenery. There are no Nutcracker-folk. There are no Elf-folk.

      He sees the shrub. He reaches out and plucks leaves.

      His legs take him out of the forest.

      Maxie stares at the leaves. Water runs down his face.

      Fire pokes a leaf into his small, hot mouth. Maxie’s mouth tries to spit it out. Fire pushes it back. Maxie’s mouth chews the leaf. Fire holds his jaw so the mouth can’t chew.

      Maxie swallows the leaf, and wails.

      Fire makes him swallow another. And another.

      Somebody is shouting. ‘Meat! Meat!’

      Fire’s head snaps around. The voice is coming from upwind. Now his nose can smell blood.

      Something big has died.

      His legs jog that way.

      He finds Stone and Blue and Dig and Grass and others. They are squatting in the dirt. They hold axes in their hands.

      The meat is an antelope. It is lying on the ground.

      Killing birds are tearing at the carcass.

      The killing birds tower over the people. They have long gnarled legs, and stubby useless wings, and heads the size of Fire’s thigh. The heads of the birds dig into the belly and joints of the antelope, pushing right inside the carcass.

      The people wait, watching the birds.

      A pack of hyenas circles, warily watching the birds and the people. And there are Elf-folk. They sit at the edge of the forest, picking at their black-brown hair. The bands of scavengers are set out in a broad circle around the carcass, well away from the birds, held in place by a geometry of hunger and wariness. The Running-folk are scavengers among the others – not the weakest, not the strongest, not especially feared. The people wait their turn with the others, waiting for the birds to finish, knowing their place.

      One by one the birds strut away. Their heads jerk this way and that, dipping. Their eyes are yellow. They are looking for more antelopes to kill.

      The hyenas are first to get to the corpse. Their faces lunge into its ripped-open rib cage. The hyenas start to fight with one another, forgetting the killing birds, forgetting the people.

      Blue and Stone and Fire hurl bits of rock.

      The dogs back away. Their muzzles are bloody red, their eyes glaring. Their mouths want the meat. But their bodies fear the stones and sticks of the people.

      The СКАЧАТЬ