Landfall: Tales From the Flood/Ark Universe by Stephen Baxter Page B
Authors: Stephen Baxter
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be. We think the fact that we have to mine for a living has made us deeper natural philosophers than you farmers. We’re favoured for astronomy, too; from here you rarely even see the lesser stars beyond the Star. We like to believe we rediscovered science.’
‘Yet you accept the authority of a long-dead and semi-mythical figure like Helen Gray!’
Tripp pushed away the pages crossly. ‘Not just that, woman! Anybody who looks around at this world we live in – really looks – will see that humans don’t belong here. There are whole layers of life here, Maryam, one laid atop another, as immiscible as oil and water! We humans and our trees and grass and cows and sheep are latecomers. Before we came you had the tractors and the tunnel-moles and the mirror-birds, animals which seem to have been engineered to do specific jobs, engineered and then abandoned. The Slime seems to be a bacterial life form which may be a true native of this planet. And under all that you have the Substrate, as it’s called, relics that may be older than life itself, or anyhow the kinds of life we see now. The tractors and even the Slime are like our kind of life, relying on carbon and water and nitrogen – if we hadn’t forgotten everything Helen knew, we could probably say how alike. But we can’t eat the tractors, and the tractors can’t eat the Slime – that fact alone proves we’re different! – even if we’re from the same wider family, and we have some interesting ideas about that.’
Maryam tried to provoke her. ‘The Speakers say the Substrate buildings are elements of the vast Sim chamber that generates the world.’
‘Phooey. They are clearly relics of some culture that was here long before we humans arrived. And yet they were drawn to the same pivotal locations we were, for surely the geometry of the planet hasn’t changed. This, in fact, is what I came to talk to you about. We’ve another proposal for you to consider.’
Maryam felt faintly uneasy, wondering what was coming.
Tripp picked an apple out of the bowl on the table. ‘Earth III orbits close to its Star, which is small and cool – according to Helen – compared to other stars in the sky.’ She made the apple orbit her fist, turning it steadily. ‘The world is locked, and turns so that a single hemisphere always faces the Star.’
‘That’s elementary -’
‘Yes. But because of that elementary fact, our world is blessed with a certain number of unique locations. The Substellar point – right here. The Poles, for our world does have an axis about which it turns, even if the rotation is locked – or at least our north Pole, for there is only ocean at the south Pole. The Equator – especially those points on the Terminator, east and west, standing between dark and light. All these places the builders of the Substrate visited, for surely they were as attracted by their geometric significance as we are. There are hints in Helen’s document that the ship’s crew found structures at geometric points off the planet as well as on it – places of orbital stability … All this was built a long, long time ago. You can tell that by the rock layers that have formed over some of the structures. As much as a billion Great Years ago, perhaps.’
In an effort to regain control of the conversation, Maryam took the apple off her and bit into it. ‘Fascinating. So what is your proposal?’
Tripp smiled. ‘from my list of significant points, here in this static little system of ours, I omitted one.’
‘Where?’
‘ The Antistellar. The point which is precisely opposite the Navel, the Substellar, on the other side of the world – the point at the heart of Darkside.’
‘There’s nothing there but ice.’
‘Maybe. We know nothing about it save mentions in Helen’s record – a record many dispute as authentic.’ She leaned forward. ‘But what is surely true is that the Substrate builders must have gone there. And surely they built something
‘Yet you accept the authority of a long-dead and semi-mythical figure like Helen Gray!’
Tripp pushed away the pages crossly. ‘Not just that, woman! Anybody who looks around at this world we live in – really looks – will see that humans don’t belong here. There are whole layers of life here, Maryam, one laid atop another, as immiscible as oil and water! We humans and our trees and grass and cows and sheep are latecomers. Before we came you had the tractors and the tunnel-moles and the mirror-birds, animals which seem to have been engineered to do specific jobs, engineered and then abandoned. The Slime seems to be a bacterial life form which may be a true native of this planet. And under all that you have the Substrate, as it’s called, relics that may be older than life itself, or anyhow the kinds of life we see now. The tractors and even the Slime are like our kind of life, relying on carbon and water and nitrogen – if we hadn’t forgotten everything Helen knew, we could probably say how alike. But we can’t eat the tractors, and the tractors can’t eat the Slime – that fact alone proves we’re different! – even if we’re from the same wider family, and we have some interesting ideas about that.’
Maryam tried to provoke her. ‘The Speakers say the Substrate buildings are elements of the vast Sim chamber that generates the world.’
‘Phooey. They are clearly relics of some culture that was here long before we humans arrived. And yet they were drawn to the same pivotal locations we were, for surely the geometry of the planet hasn’t changed. This, in fact, is what I came to talk to you about. We’ve another proposal for you to consider.’
Maryam felt faintly uneasy, wondering what was coming.
Tripp picked an apple out of the bowl on the table. ‘Earth III orbits close to its Star, which is small and cool – according to Helen – compared to other stars in the sky.’ She made the apple orbit her fist, turning it steadily. ‘The world is locked, and turns so that a single hemisphere always faces the Star.’
‘That’s elementary -’
‘Yes. But because of that elementary fact, our world is blessed with a certain number of unique locations. The Substellar point – right here. The Poles, for our world does have an axis about which it turns, even if the rotation is locked – or at least our north Pole, for there is only ocean at the south Pole. The Equator – especially those points on the Terminator, east and west, standing between dark and light. All these places the builders of the Substrate visited, for surely they were as attracted by their geometric significance as we are. There are hints in Helen’s document that the ship’s crew found structures at geometric points off the planet as well as on it – places of orbital stability … All this was built a long, long time ago. You can tell that by the rock layers that have formed over some of the structures. As much as a billion Great Years ago, perhaps.’
In an effort to regain control of the conversation, Maryam took the apple off her and bit into it. ‘Fascinating. So what is your proposal?’
Tripp smiled. ‘from my list of significant points, here in this static little system of ours, I omitted one.’
‘Where?’
‘ The Antistellar. The point which is precisely opposite the Navel, the Substellar, on the other side of the world – the point at the heart of Darkside.’
‘There’s nothing there but ice.’
‘Maybe. We know nothing about it save mentions in Helen’s record – a record many dispute as authentic.’ She leaned forward. ‘But what is surely true is that the Substrate builders must have gone there. And surely they built something
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