He turned to look back at the camp. Another flare had been fired; a spark of orange light lifted high into the sky, over their conical house.

He climbed down off the bluff and ran back, as hard and fast as he could.

By the time Yuri arrived, the ColU was backing out of the house. It was holding a bundle of blankets. Yuri would never have imagined that a bunch of killer-robot manipulator arms could have expressed such tenderness.

Abruptly, the ColU began to speak, loudly. ‘What an ugly child! Practically a monstrosity. And it’s going to be badly behaved all its life, I can tell just by looking at it, and nothing but a burden to its wretched parents . . .’

‘ColU! What the hell are you doing?’

In a more normal tone it said, ‘Following the Lieutenant’s instructions, Yuri Eden. Scaring off the evil spirits that attend every birth, in malevolent hopefulness. And now . . .’ Carefully, slowly, like some heavy orbital spacecraft gingerly attempting a docking with a space station, the ColU handed the baby to Yuri.

Yuri had had some instruction in this, even practice with bundles of clothes and blankets overseen by a stern Mardina, and he knew how to support the child, how to cradle its head. Deep in the mass of blankets was a small, crumpled, pink, moist face with closed puffy eyes, and hair plastered down by fluid. The hair was black like its mother’s, but straight like its father’s. Looking down at the child, Yuri felt something shift and break inside him, like a collapsing dam of his own.

‘Beth,’ the ColU said. ‘Her name is Beth Eden Jones. The mother is fine. Mardina’s going to try to sleep, but she said she will see you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It was my function. But I appreciate your saying that, Yuri Eden.’

A memory floated to the surface of Yuri’s mind. It seemed distant, almost irrelevant. ‘You might want to take a look at the lake.’

‘The lake?’

‘While you were in there with Mardina – there have been developments.’

‘I will. Go and see the mother, Yuri Eden.’ It turned and rolled away, in the direction of the lake.

Yuri stepped into the house. The tarpaulin he’d hung to cover the ColU’s rump was still dangling from hooks, shutting out the day. Inside the house was a smell of blood and bodies, and antiseptic, and the scent of the still-burning fire – a stem scent that was suddenly, sharply, redolent of the builders, as if those gloomy, dogged creatures were in here singing a lullaby. Mardina lay flat on her bed, looking exhausted, but she was cleaned up, in a fresh nightgown, with her hair brushed back, her face washed. She smiled when Yuri stood over her with the baby. He saw that the cot that the ColU had fabricated, a structure of Arduan stems, stood ready beside her bed.

He asked, ‘Do you want anything?’

‘No. Well, to sleep in a minute. Just wanted to see you.’

‘Nicest thing you ever said to me, astronaut.’

‘Don’t push it, ice boy.’

‘So this is Beth.’

‘My mother’s name. You have any objections?’

‘Of course not. I think I expected your mother’s name to be—’

‘More exotic? “Elizabeth” is what they called her in the school she grew up in, after the Desiccation Resettlement. She was separated from her own mother. Never knew her birth name.’

‘Beth it is then.’

‘Sure . . . What are you feeling, Yuri?’

He tried to express it. ‘Like I stepped through another door.’

‘Your life has changed again, huh. So now here she is. Phase One of the grand plan, remember? Our retirement insurance, and the loins of the next generation.’

‘She’s none of those things. She’s Beth.’ He looked down at the baby, at this piece of himself. ‘None of that Adam and Eve crap. I, we, we’re going to protect her, and nurture her, and give her as full a life as she deserves.’

Mardina raised her head weakly. ‘That’s a big promise, ice boy. I mean, for instance, how can she ever fall in love? Nothing’s changed in the bigger picture, Yuri. We’re still stuck here, alone.’

‘Another door will open,’ Yuri said calmly. ‘Just like before. And I’ll step through it, and I’ll take Beth with me, and you.’

Mardina smiled. ‘You know, right now, I believe you. But that’s probably the drugs talking. Let me sleep and get back to normal, and I’ll kick your butt properly.’

‘I’ll put her in her crib . . .’

But Mardina, lying back, had already drifted away.

CHAPTER 35

Twelve hours later, with Mardina awake, and the baby’s first feeds negotiated successfully, the ColU drove up to the house. It waited outside until Yuri popped his head out of the door.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Yuri Eden.’

‘That’s OK, buddy.’

‘It’s the lake. You alerted me to developments during the confinement. There have been more. I thought perhaps you would both wish to see. Well, all three of you.’

‘I’m not sure if—’

‘Count me in, ColU.’ Mardina, swathed in a heavy ISF-issue overcoat, pushed her way out of the house. She breathed deeply. ‘Clean air in the lungs. Nothing better. Tell you what, I’ll put on my tracksuit and we’ll jog over.’

‘We won’t, you know.’

‘I think she is teasing you, Yuri Eden,’ the ColU said.

She was grinning. ‘You’re so easy, ice boy. We’ll ride on the ColU, and you can walk. Deal?’

They took their time to get ready for the little expedition, with the ColU laden with blankets, water and hot drinks for Mardina, and expressed milk for the baby. Then they set off towards the lake. The air, under the increasingly mottled face of Proxima, was fresh, even cold.

Before they reached the eastern shore, they climbed one of the many shallow bluffs that studded this landscape and looked out over the lake.

Which had changed, dramatically. Those big flooded areas behind the northern dams were drained. But the risen lake water had now broken through its bank on the south side, and, guided apparently by the builders’ middens, was gushing into the dry river channel that Yuri had walked through many times. Already it was beginning to flood a depression some way to the south. Everywhere the builders were on the move, adults with infants, even a few apparent invalids being carried by parties of adults, streaming around the banks of the lake towards the outflow channel.

‘They did this deliberately,’ Mardina breathed.

‘That’s correct, Lieutenant Jones. This has been engineered by the builders. The sudden release of the trapped flood water behind the northern dams created a surge that broke the southern banks and scoured the outflow channels, deepening and widening them. Now much of the lake, I calculate, will drain away. And it will reform in the depression you see to the south, which extends some way beyond, but which will drain in its turn . . . I have studied the topography. I believe that by the time this manoeuvre is completed, the lake will have been moved some ten kilometres to the south.’

‘ “Manoeuvre”,’ repeated Mardina, cradling the baby. ‘ “Moved”. The way you put that makes it sound as if you believe this was purposeful.’

‘That’s exactly what I believe, Lieutenant Jones. The builders have engineered this; they have deliberately shifted the lake to the south. And once it is there, presumably, they will replant stem beds, perhaps restock the water with the fish analogues and other creatures . . . They have been aided by that steady uplift to the north, I mean the geological uplift, the magmatic event that appears to be occurring there. But, yes, it seems clear to me that they have moved this lake.’

‘Why?’

‘I have no answer to that,’ the ColU said. ‘I can only speculate. But there must be a good reason. I suspect we will find out in time.’

Mardina asked, ‘So what does this mean for us?’

‘That’s our only stable supply of water,’ Yuri said. ‘We can’t rely on the rain. We know that. If the lake moves, we have to move with it.’