The Mapping had taken account of the different physical conditions. Thus Manekato felt no discomfort as her lungs drank in the thin, oxygen-depleted air of this small world, and her new body would suffer no ill-effects from the relative lack of carbon dioxide. But she had taken care not to engineer out all of the Red Moon’s experiential differences; for if she had there would scarcely be a purpose in coming here at all. Thus the air was cold and damp and laden with a thousand powerful, unfamiliar scents — and thus the lower gravity, just two-thirds of Earth’s, tugged only feebly at her limbs.
Manekato loped through the crowd of gazing people and scuttling Workers. Her gait felt oddly clumsy in the low gravity, as if her muscles were suddenly over powered. The yellow floor was perhaps a hundred paces across. It was a neatly circular disc of Adjusted Space, its smoothness comforting. She reached the rim of the disc. Tiny Workers streamed past her into the green world beyond, recording, interpreting, transmitting.
Beyond the platform was a wall of forest, concealing a dense green gloom. The trees were tall here: great spindly structures of wood, very different from the ground-hugging species of Wind-blasted Earth. Shadows flitted through that green dark. She thought she saw eyes peering out at her, eyes like a mirror of her own.
Babo ran past her with a gurgled cry. He ran straight into the forest and clambered into the lowest branches of a tree, clumsily, but with enthusiasm and strength.
Manekato peered down. In the Moon’s red dust grass grew, sprinkled with small flowers, white and yellow. She leaned forward, supporting her weight on one fist, and touched the grass. The blades were coarse, and other plants and moss crowded around, fighting over each scrap of soil. She saw leaves protruding from beneath the disc, crushed, bent back; some of the living things of this world had already died because of her presence.
The land here had never been Farmed: not once, not in all the billions of years this world had existed. Even this patch of grass-covered land, where billions of living things fought for life in every scrap, was disturbing, enthralling proof of that.
In front of the forest fringe she made out a small, brown-furred Worker — no, not a Worker, an animal, its species probably unmodified by conscious design. It had a short, slim body, and four spindly legs; it bent a graceful neck, and a small mouth nibbled at the grass. It moved gracefully, but with a startling slowness, an unhurried languor that contrasted with the frantic scuttling of the people and the Workers. By the look of the genitalia between its back legs its kind must reproduce in a mammalian fashion, rather than be nurtured directly from the ground…
Nobody had nurtured this creature, she reminded herself; there had been no conscious process. It had been born in blood and pain and mucus, without the supervision of any human, and it found food to sustain its growth in this wild, unmanaged, undisciplined place.
On her world, there had been no parks or zoos for nine hundred millennia. Though the richness of the ecology was well understood and managed minutely — including the place of people within that ecology — there were no creatures save those that served a conscious purpose, no aspect of nature that was not thought through and controlled. Not so much as a stomach bacterium.
Manekato had known that this new Moon would be wild, but that its ecology would function none the less. But it was one thing to have a theoretical anticipation and another to be confronted with the fact. She felt as if she had entered the workings of some vast intricate machine, all the more remarkable for lacking a conscious designer or a controlling intelligence.
Now Babo came hurrying back from the forest. He clutched something in his arms that wriggled sluggishly.
Babo’s legs were covered in scrapings of green moss, and his hair was dishevelled and dirty. But his eyes were bright, and he was breathing hard. “My arms are strong,” he told his sister. “I can climb. It is as if this body of mine remembers its deepest past, many millions of years lost, even though the trees on Earth are mere wind-blown stubs compared to these mighty pillars…”
Without-Name asked, “What is it you carry?”
He held it out carefully. It had a slim body and a small head. Its legs were short and somewhat bowed, but Manekato could see immediately that this creature was designed — no, had evolved — to walk bipedally. It was perhaps half of Babo’s height, and much slimmer.
“It is a hominid,” she said wonderingly.
“I found it in the tree,” Babo said. “It is quite strong, but moves slowly. It was easy to catch.”
Manekato reached to touch the creature’s face.
The hominid whipped its head sideways and sank its teeth into Manekato’s finger.
Manekato fell back with a small cry. Miniature Workers in her bloodstream caused the ripped flesh to close immediately.
“Ha!” the creature yelled. “Elf strong Elf good hurt stupid Ham hah!”
This jabber meant nothing to Manekato.
Without-Name took the creature from an unresisting Babo. She held it up by its head. Dangling, the hominid hooted and thrashed, scratching at Manekato’s arm with its legs and fists, but its motions; were slow and feeble.
With a single, harsh motion Without-Name crushed the hominid’s skull. The body shuddered once, and was limp. Without-Name let the body fall to the ground, its head a bloody pulp. A Worker scuttled close and swept up the tiny corpse.
Babo looked at Without-Name, his face empty of expression.
“Why did you do that?”
“There was no mind,” said Without-Name. “There was no utility. Therefore there was no right to life. I have been dispossessed by this Moon. I will not rest until I have made the Moon my possession in turn.”
Manekato suppressed her anger. “We did not come here to kill. We came to learn to learn and negotiate.”
Without-Name spat a gobbet of thick phlegm out onto the grass. “We all have our reasons to be here, Manekatopokanemahedo. You follow the foolish dreams of the Astrologers. I am a Farmer.”
“And,” Manekato said slowly, “is that your ambition here? To subdue a new world, to turn it all into your dominion?”
“What higher ambition could there be?”
“But we have yet to find those who moved this world. They were more powerful than these blades of grass, that wretched hominid. Remember that, Renemenagota, when you boast of what you will conquer.”
Now Manekato saw that two burly Workers had brought another hominid for their inspection. It was taller, heavier than the last, but it was scrawny, filthy, hollow-eyed.
Again Without-Name picked up the specimen by its skull and lifted it easily off the ground. The creature cried and struggled, clearly in distress, but its movements were still more sluggish than the first’s, and it made no attempt to injure Without-Name.
“Let it go,” Manekato said evenly.
Without-Name studied her. “You are not of my Lineage. You do not have authority over me.”
“Look at it, Renemenagota. It is wearing clothes.”
Babo breathed deeply. “Do it,” he said. “Or I will have the Workers stop you. I have the authority for that, nameless one, thanks to the Astrologers you despise.”
Without-Name growled her protest. But she released the hominid, which fell into a heap on the floor, and stalked away.
Manekato and Babo huddled over the hominid. It had curled into a foetal position; as gently as they could they turned it on its back and prised open its limbs.