Moon’s OSM circled the globe several times before settling down in a green mountain glade. Goats nibbled and stood unafraid as Moon and Dan stepped out. An alien hawk with bright plumage circled inquisitively at a very high altitude—then swooped down, passing overhead with a snap.
“By Olga, a Garden of Eden!” exclaimed old Moon with one of his infrequent smiles. Eyeing a heavy udder, he took Little Moon’s pap sac and approached the nanny. He filled it easily—with surplus for Little Dan.
Scratching his head, he mumbled: “Now how can you explain that?”
Goats approached him as he talked.
Another human voice called to him from a stand of Earth willows. Moon snarled and picked up a cudgel from the brush. He and Dan approached the sound of the voice. They stepped through a stream of cold melt-water and slippery stones.
“I thought this was to be a one-man outpost—”
He saw a familiar object—a cybernetic javelin—space-probe—embedded in the soft humus and draped with vines.
“I am a companion robot, designed to be carried. Pick me up,” said the cyber.
Moon smiled and dropped his gnarled branch.
“I know,” he said, pulling it free. “What have you been doing here all these years?”
“Watching over the implant, and making new friends for you. These goats are imprinted on the human voice. Welcome to the planet Tiercel—land of the hawks.”
“Thank you for the welcome,” said Moon. He watched Dan and the pup gamboling with frisky goats.
Later he sat in the grass, leaned against the OSM and propped his feet on Dan’s scarred and muscular back. A goat nibbled from his hand. He turned to the cyberspear and added: “And thanks for the friends you’ve been making. Man should have lots of friends—as long as they are different species.”
Back on planet Earth, Gitar continued his TAR sorties into the hive—piping heterozygotes buckeye with a song. Walter’s last days in the Temple were idyllic—in the service of Olga. When his life-span came to an end, Gitar was careful to store his DNA-gene-soul in one of the Huntercraft’s trophy cubes. Walter knew it only awaited Olga’s next return to be awakened. A genetic copy of himself would go with his deity, someday.
Outriggers plied the oceans—seeding buckeyes on island and continent alike.
A Gollancz eBook
Text copyright © Thomas J Bassler 1971
Introduction copyright © Ken MacLeod 2013
All rights reserved.
The right of T.J. Bass to be identified as the author of this work, and the right of Ken MacLeod to be identified as the author of the introduction, has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Short extracts from this novel first appeared in Galaxy magazine (December 1969) titled “Half Past Human’ copyright © Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation 1969, and in If magazine (November/December issue 1970) titled GITAR copyright © Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation 1970
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2014 by Gollancz
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ISBN 978 0 575 12976 4
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