How much easier would that have been if the panspermists or the extreme convergence theorists had been right, he wondered. How much difference did it make now that they had been proved wrong— doublywrong if you added the biochemical version of Gause’s axiom to the package? How much hope was left, when even Hopehad been riven by conflict and virtually torn in two, each part far less than the ruined whole? What comfort was there in having to hope that one of the seven humans at Base Three had killed their colleague, because the alternative was even more discomfiting?

“Matthew?” Solari said, again, although it was he who had let the silence fall.

“Still here,” Matthew said. “Still awake. A petty triumph, I suppose, but one I can still treasure.”

“I keep waiting for the bump,” Solari said. “Utterly pointless tensing my muscles, I know, but I can’t help it.”

Until Solari had mentioned it, Matthew hadn’t tensed his own muscles at all, but now that the subject had been raised he felt himself flinching in anticipation … then relaxing…. then flinching again …

“We’ll be down soon enough,” he muttered, trying to jerk himself out of the absurd pattern.

And soon enough, they were.

The impact was distinct, but not in the least dangerous. It felt like an elevator coming to rest after sliding down the core of a building.

“What happens now?” Solari asked.

The glorified dandelion seed provided his answer by splitting apart, as if it were indeed some kind of seed. The silvery mist before Matthew’s eyes was oddly illuminated, as if the threads of his cocoon were transmitting the sparkling light and reflecting it at the same time, dividing the rays of the new sun into a million glittering shards.

Then the cocoon began to split too, to deliver its precious cargo to the peak of Ararat, the broad sweep of Tyre … or whatever.

Matthew took firmer hold of the bag containing the essence of his former life, and began to struggle free of the disintegrating wrapping that had confined him. He hoped that there would be a crowd to greet him, even if circumstance dictated that it could not possibly be more than seven strong. He had always liked to look upon faces that were pleased to see him, and this was the kind of moment that demanded a veritable host of sympathetic witnesses.

PART TWO

Delving into the Past

SIXTEEN

Had the landing worked out exactly as planned it would only have been necessary for Matthew to step down onto the new world’s surface, exactly as he had imagined doing. Unfortunately, the braking shuttle had been driven by the wind into an inconvenient stand of treelike structures, where the parachute-web had become entangled with the branches. Although the capsule itself was far too heavy to be prevented from descending to solid ground it had come to a rest at an awkward tilt.

The hatchway from which Matthew had to make his escape was three meters above the ground and his egress was blocked by clustered “leaves,” which bore more resemblance to plastic plates and leathery fans than the leaves of Earthly trees. Some of these structures had shattered, leaving jagged shards hanging loosely from broken branches, but the majority were whole, their more elastic elements having grudgingly made way for the arrival of the capsule in their midst.

He could see through the tangle that there wasa crowd hurrying to greet him—seven strong, as he had hoped—but they were still some way off, descending a slope made treacherous by loose gravel. He knew that he must be almost completely hidden from them, and had not space to wave a greeting. The manner of his entrance was obviously going to leave much to be desired: he would have to force his way through the purple tangle in a most ungainly fashion, confused as much by the peculiar textures of the barrier as by the sudden recovery of almost all his Earthly weight.

“Can you get down?” Vince Solari asked, having divined that there were problems.

“It’s okay,” Matthew assured him, after further investigation. “Not many thorns, no vicious wildlife. It’s just a matter of treading carefully.”

Fortunately, the branches of the dendrite seemed strong enough and dense enough to facilitate a gradual descent. He hesitated slightly over the business of thrusting himself into their midst, because he was wary of the sudden intimate contact with any local life-form, no matter how innocuous it seemed to be, but he wanted to proceed with an appropriate boldness and he did.

The twisted “boughs” of the dendrite looked and felt more like a work of art than an active organism, the foundations in which the plates and fans were set having a texture more like vulcanized rubber than wood. He was glad that there would be no need to handle any of the bulbous structures that were suspended from the end of each branch, although he had no reason to think that they were dangerous.

Eventually, he arrived on the ground and scrambled out into the open.

By this time the people he had seen approaching were all gathered about the thicket, but they hung back and waited for him to emerge, having realized that pressing forward would only make things more difficult.

Lynn Gwyer was the first to step forward and the only one to hug him, although Ikram Mohammed’s greeting was only marginally less enthusiastic. It was Ikram Mohammed who introduced him to the others, but the round of handshakes was hectically confused. He had expected to be able to recognize the faces readily enough from the photographs Vince Solari had displayed on the wallscreen, but the heavy-duty smartsuits made more difference than he had expected to their coloring and their hairstyles. Maryanne Hyder had preserved her blond tresses, albeit in a more economical form, but Lynn Gwyer had opted to go bald. Dulcie Gherardesca’s scars were no longer visible beneath the extra dermal layer and Godert Kriefmann looked a good deal younger than his picture. Tang Dinh Quan and Rand Blackstone were the only two who had contrived to maintain their Earthly appearances; the fact that Blackstone was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and carrying a rifle only served to emphasize his image.

Matthew was slightly disappointed by the hesitancy of so many of their responses, and wondered for a moment whether they had mistaken him for the policeman sent to interrogate them, improbable as that might seem. It only took a few seconds, however, to realize that they were almost as awkward with one another as they were with him. It occurred to him that they might not have assembled into a single company for some time. They were, apparently, divided among themselves. Bernal Delgado’s death had presumably emphasized those divisions rather than bringing them together.

The manner in which the capsule had come to rest posed obvious problems so far as unloading the cargo was concerned, but the difficulties should have been easily overcome. As soon as Rand Blackstone began barking orders the mood of the seven seemed to suffer a further deterioration. No one actually started a quarrel over the tall man’s dubious right of command, and the instructions he gave were sensible enough, but the resentment was almost palpable. Having been briefed by Solari, Matthew had no difficulty figuring out that Tang Dinh Quan and Maryanne Hyder were the two most seriously at odds with the Australian, and that none of the other scientists wanted to take his side unequivocally.

“What’s the hurry?” Matthew asked, when he had tried and failed to introduce the newly arrived Vince Solari to the company. “There’s nothing in there likely to rot.”