There was a trail, of sorts, that led from the beach to the top of the cliff. At least Joshua showed her the way; she couldn’t have managed at all otherwise. But it was a trail for Hams — or maybe goats — certainly not for humans. The scrambling and climbing was a major challenge for Emma, never super-fit, never any kind of climber. Nevertheless, by sheer force of will, she kept up.
At the top of the cliff she fell back, exhausted, her heart pumping and her lungs scratching for air. It was like her first few days after the portal, when she had struggled to acclimatize to this strange mountain-top world.
Joshua immediately plunged into the cliff-top forest. Emma forced herself to her feet and followed.
Joshua crashed through the dense forest by main force, pushing aside branches, saplings and even some mature trees. He seemed careless of the noise he made and the trail he left behind — again unlike most Hams, who took care to pass silently through the dangerous twilight of the forest.
At last they pushed into a clearing. Here the trees had been battered flat, she saw, and bits of blue cloth clung to scattered branches. Her heart thumped harder. Joshua ran across the clearing to the far side, where a last line of trees had been broken down, exposing blue-grey sky. She followed him.
She found herself at the lip of the cliff, looking down on a trail of scraped rock and bits of cloth and “chute cord. And there, really not so far beneath the lip of the cliff, like a fat bug trapped in some huge spider-web, lay the lander.
Joshua squatted on his haunches and pointed down at the lander. “Sky seed,” he said excitedly. “Sky seed!”
She gazed hungrily down at the lander: crumpled, battered, stained and weathered, but intact. She saw no sign that anybody had climbed out of it since its plummet down the cliff.
From here the lander looked very small. Specifically, she couldn’t see any sign of an engine pack, no way the thing could get itself off the ground and back to Earth.
She sat back, forcing herself to think. Sitting here with a Neandertal the internal politics of America seemed a remote abstraction — but still she couldn’t believe that the US government would sanction any kind of one-way mission, even for someone as persuasive as Reid Malenfant. But that meant — she thought, her brain working feverishly — that the engine had to be somewhere else.
She grabbed Joshua’s arms, and immediately regretted it; his skin was covered in filth and scabs. He flinched back from her touch, as if she intended to hurt him. She let go, and held her empty hands up before him. “I’m sorry… Listen to me. There must be another lander. I mean, another sky seed. A second one.” But Hams did not count. She held her hands up to mime two landers coming down from the west, one after the other. But Hams did not use symbols.
She pointed, bluntly. “Sky seed. Down there. Sky seed.” She pointed into the forest, at random. “Over there.”
He frowned. He pointed west, deeper into the forest. “Ov” there.”
She took a deep breath. I knew it.
But now Joshua was jabbering, pointing at the lander and the sky. “Sky seed. Praisegod. There “fore me was door standin” open Heav’n. Sky seed in Heav’n. People of th” Grey Earth. People of Heav’n.” And on and on, a long, complex, baffling diatribe.
She peered into his ridged eye sockets, struggling to understand what was going through that mind — so alien from hers, and damaged too.
Bit by bit she got it.
Joshua had seen the lander come down from the sky. He had seen the second lander too. She knew that Hams believed their people came from a place in the sky, which they called the Grey Earth. Joshua, alternately, called it Heaven. As best she could make out he wanted to use the lander to take his people home, to Grey Earth, to Heaven.
“Was it the Zealots who taught you about Heaven? Did the Zealots hurt you? Did this Praisegod hurt you?”
“Prai’go” Michael,” he mumbled. “Mal’fan’.”
Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She grabbed his shoulders, mindless of the filth, resisting his flinching. “What did you say?”
“Mal’fan’. Zealots. Mal’fan’.”
The Zealots had Malenfant. Malenfant was here.
She sat back on her haunches, breathing in gasps. “Do you know where Malenfant is being held? — no, you can’t tell me that. But you could show me.” She studied Joshua, who gazed back at her. “Listen to me. There is something you want. There is something I want. This is what we will do. You take me to Malenfant… If you do this, I will give you the lander. It will take you home, to Heaven, to the Grey Earth.”
It took a long time to make him understand all of this. It might have been the first time in the history of these Hams, she thought, that anybody had tried to strike a bargain.
And, as she had absolutely no intention of using the lander for anything else but getting herself and Malenfant out of here, it might have been the first time anybody had told a Ham a lie.
Reid Malenfant:
Uncounted days after his whipping, Malenfant was again dragged before Praisegod Michael.
Malenfant stood as straight as he could, his arms tied behind his back, a new skin jacket over his upper body. He seethed with resentment at his own pain and humiliation, anger at what he suspected had become of McCann, and a kind of self-righteous disgust at Praisegod.
Get a hold of yourself, Malenfant. Do business, remember.
“What now, Praisegod? Another beating?”
Praisegod walked around Malenfant. Malenfant saw how his right leg spasmed, as if he wished to flee; he seemed unusually agitated. Praisegod Michael was a man of depths, all of them murky.
Praisegod’s Ham boy sat on the edge of the desk, staring at Malenfant.
“I do not wish to punish you, Sir Malenfant. I can tell you have twice the mentation of Sprigge, here. I would rather obtain your support.”
“You know nothing about me.”
Praisegod said, “Where we came from does not matter, Malenfant. For we cannot escape this place; men have spent their lives to prove that. And as your friend McCann understood, what unites men, in this world of animals, is greater than that which separates us. All that matters is that we are here, now, and we must make the best of it. Though it has the face of a work of Satan, this island is a world made by God — of course it is; to argue otherwise would be to support the heresy of Manichaeus. Therefore it is perfectible, and therefore there is good work to be done here by righteous men… There is much to be done here.”
Malenfant eyed him. Praisegod was a shithead, yes. He wasn’t about to conquer the Red Moon. But a shithead like this could cause a lot of suffering to a lot of people, and near-people. “Perfectible? Right. I know your kind. You intend to build an empire, Praisegod. A perfect empire, soaked in blood.”
“What is blood?” Praisegod said easily. “If men stand against us, they will be as stubble before our swords. And as for the rest, to spill the blood of an animal is not a sin, Malenfant. Indeed, given that these soulless apes show a mockery of man’s features, I am convinced that to cleanse the worlds of their obscene forms is a duty.”
“So you will use the Hams and the Runners as a resource to build your empire on this Moon. And when the hominids” usefulness has passed, you will exterminate them.”
Praisegod’s predator’s eyes gleamed. “It is time for your answer, Malenfant.”
Malenfant closed his eyes.
Stay alive, Malenfant. That’s all that matters. The creatures on this Red Moon mean nothing to you. A little while ago you didn’t even know they existed. (But some of them have helped me, even saved my life…) And they are not even human. (But they are differently human…) This Praisegod may be difficult, but he is powerful. If you can work with him he may even help you achieve your goal which is, was and always will be to find Emma. (But he’s a psychopathic monster…)