Heaven's War by David S. Goyer, Michael Cassutt Page A

crowd. “She’s over there somewhere, in a crouch, almost catatonic. Can’t say I blame her. It’s tough enough when you’re facing this yourself…I can’t imagine what I’d do if I felt responsible for a baby.” She made a face and cooed at the child, who was blessedly subdued for the moment.
     
    Harley said, “Who is the mom? Bangalore or Houston?”
     
    “What difference does that make?” Sasha said.
     
    “I don’t know. Maybe it will make it easier to find out where her head is at if she speaks English.”
     
    “Got it, but right now the priority is to get this child some nourishment.”
     
    “Daddy, what about all these fruits and veggies you were talking about?” Rachel said, trying to be helpful.
     
    “People are out gathering right now,” Williams said, pointing back the way they had come, and forward, indicating the range of scouting parties. “It’s pretty funny when you think about all this.”
     
    “How so?” Zack said. Zack only knew the sci-fi writer Wade Williams from his books, and from infrequent appearances on television. He had long-ago outgrown his affection for the man’s work, and if his suggestion that Sasha Blaine should become a wet nurse was typical—
     
    “Here we are, transported from the Earth to a small moon by advanced alien technology, being sustained in some kind of habitat…yet we’re reduced to life as our ancestors lived it before the invention of cities or even language. We’re hunter-gatherers.”
     
    “I think we’re only gatherers, Wade,” said Harley Drake, who didn’t bother to conceal his scorn. “Unless you’ve spotted a Keanu wildebeest.”
     
    “Have not, and do not expect to,” the older man said. “I doubt we could do much in the way of hunting, in any case. I see nothing we could use for spears or flints, just to be nearly Paleolithic for a moment.”
     
    “There are tree branches,” Zack said. He had used one to spear the Sentry that killed Megan.
     
    “Fine. That’s half of what we need.”
     
    Harley looked at the Temple. “Maybe we can chip off bits of that thing and get useful flints.”
     
    “I love optimism,” Williams said. “I often sneer at it, but I do so love it.”
     
    “A far cry from the
Neolithic Trilogy
, aren’t we, Mr. Williams?”
     
    Williams blinked and looked every bit of what had to be seventy-five years of age. “I wrote that series a long time ago. I was younger then.”
     
    “So were your readers,” Zack said. At one time he had been a committed consumer of sci-fi and fantasy books and graphic novels, and he had read several of Williams’s books, which he’d found entertaining and provocative. Williams offered devastating critiques of modern technological society—heavy on the idea that children were being “softened” by a life of ease—in contrast to the benefits of pioneer life on habitable alien worlds or adventures in a different terrestrial past. “We must have some baby-friendly food around here.”
     
    “Power bars and Red Bull?” Sasha said. “I got hold of a packet of Pop Tarts. God knows how long they’ve been sitting, or where.”
     
    “Hell,” Williams said. “Those things contain enough preservative to make them edible for a century.”
     
    “Going into Wade Williams mode, Sasha, how about this,” Zack said. “Think like a mama bird.”
     
    Sasha stared. It took Rachel a moment to understand what Zack was suggesting. Rachel said, “Oh, Daddy, gross!”
     
    But Sasha nodded. “That might be the only option.” She smiled. “Feel free to do some prechewing, too. Given the circumstances, I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference to the baby.”
     
    She ripped open the Pop Tart and bit off a corner.
     
    Zack took one, too.
     
    The sad thing was that Zack hadn’t wanted to share the mulched-up plastic pastry with the baby…he had wanted to eat it all himself.
     
    As he forced himself to chew gently, and not swallow, he grinned at