After that the groups separated, the men issuing a few last threats to each other, the women apologetically abandoning their grooming. Mothers had to pry their children away from their fascinating new playmates.

Shadow watched all this. And when her old family group dispersed into the trees, she followed.

Manekatopokanemahedo:

The delegation of angry and fearful citizens was led by a stocky, sullen woman called Hahatomane, of the Nema Lineage.

They met at the centre of the platform of Adjusted Space. Manekato waited patiently, resting easily on her knuckles, with Babo and Nemoto to either side of her. Hahatomane stood facing her, with her followers in a rough triangle behind her, and attended by Workers that crawled or hovered.

“What is it you want to talk about, Hahatomane of Nema?”

“That should be obvious,” Hahatomane said. She glanced into the sky, where the rising Earth was a fat banded ball, almost full. “Renemenagota of Rano is already dead. Many others of us have suffered unspeakable deprivations. This is a foolish quest, devised by foolish Astrologers, which will not help germinate a single seed. We have done what we can. We should leave Workers here to complete the rest, and return to Earth before more of us lose our lives or our sanity.”

Babo stepped forward. Though the medical Workers had striven to heal his injuries, the Zealots” crossbow bolts had been laced with an exotic poison of vegetable oils and fish extracts, and he suffered internal agonies that caused a heavy limp. “But you have no place on Earth, Hahatomane. Your Farm is destroyed by the tides and “quakes, and the Nema Lineage is extinguished.”

Hahatomane kept her gaze locked on his sister. “You do us a dishonour by keeping a man and your ugly hominid by your side, Manekato of Poka,” she said. “I do not hear the words of this one.”

“Then you should,” Manekato said quietly. “For we are all hominids. We are all people, in fact, of one flavour or another.”

Hahatomane bared her teeth, an unconscious but primal gesture. “We do not recognize you as any form of leader, Manekato.”

“Fine. If you wish to leave, do so.”

“And you—”

“I intend to stay on this Moon until I have unravelled the mystery of its design.”

Hahatomane growled. “Then none of us can leave.”

Everybody understood that this was true. If this expedition were a success its members would be honoured, even allowed to carve out new Farms. But if Hahatomane were to split the group, those who abandoned the project could expect nothing but contempt. This was the true source of Manekato’s power, and Hahatomane knew it.

Hahatomane’s shoulders hunched, as if she longed to launch herself at Manekato’s throat — and perhaps it would be healthier if she did. Mane thought. Hahatomane said, “You drag us all into your folly, Manekato of Poka. I for one will be happy to witness your inevitable disillusion.”

“No doubt on that day you will remind me of this conversation,” Manekato said.

Hahatomane snorted her frustration and turned away. Her followers scattered, bemused and disappointed, and Workers scuttled after them, bleating plaintively.

Manekato sat on the yellow floor. Now that the confrontation was over she felt the strength drain out of her. Babo absently groomed her, picking non-existent insects from the heavy fur on her back. Nemoto sat cross-legged. She had a large bunch of young, bright yellow bananas, and she passed the fruit to Manekato and Babo.

“You did well,” Babo said; then, glancing at Nemoto, he repeated the remark in her tongue, slowing his speech to suit her sluggish oxygen-starved pace of thinking.

Manekato grunted, and spoke in Nemoto’s language. “But I would rather not endure such encounters. We faced off like two groups of Elf-creatures, in their matches of shouting and wrestling. Hahatomane’s group even surrounded themselves with Workers to make themselves look larger and stronger, just as male Elves will make their hair bristle in their aggressive displays.”

Nemoto laughed softly. “We are all hominids here, all primates.”

Babo said, “But it is cruel to be reminded of it so bluntly. Perhaps there is something in the bloody air of this place which has infected us.”

“That is foolish and unscientific,” Manekato said. “Even Earth is no paradise of disembodied intelligence and pure reason.” She glanced at the banded planet that shone brightly in the sky. “Think about it. Why have we clung to our scraps of land for so many thousands of generations?”

Babo looked offended. “To cultivate every atom, the final goal of farming, is to pay the deepest homage to the world which bore us—”

“That’s just rationalization, brother. We cling to our land because it is an imperative that comes to us from the deepest past, from the time before we had minds. We cling to our land for the same reasons that Nutcrackers cling to their tree nests — because that is what we do; it is in our genes, our blood. And what of the exclusion we suffered when we lost our Farms? Why must it be so? What is that but savage cruelty — what is that but sublimated aggression, even murder? No, brother. This Moon has not polluted our souls; we brought the blood and the lust with us.”

“You should not be so harsh on yourselves,” Nemoto said.

Even now Manekato felt a frisson of annoyance that this small-brained hominid was trying to comfort her.

But Babo said, “She’s right. Isn’t it possible to celebrate what we have achieved, despite our limitations? Can we not see how we have risen above our biological constraints?”

Manekato said, “That is true of your kind, Nemoto. You spoke of the contagions of madness that sweep your people. And yet those grand obsessions have driven your kind to a certain greatness: a deep scientific description of the universe, an exploration of your world and others, even a type of art… Achievements that press against the boundaries of your capabilities. We, by comparison, have done little to transcend our biology — have done little for the past two million years, in fact, but squat on our Farms. Two million years of complacency.”

“Again that is harsh,” Nemoto said. “Two million years of peace, given the savagery in your breast, is not a small achievement. We must all strive to embrace the context provided by this place — perhaps that is one of its purposes.”

“Yes,” said Babo. “There are many ways to be a hominid.The Red Moon is teaching us that.”

“And,” said Nemoto, “we must anticipate meeting the Old Ones, who may be superior to us all. Then we will see how long a shadow we cast in their mighty light.”

Babo said, “But are you content with such abstractions, Nemoto? Don’t you long for home too?”

Nemoto shrugged. “My home is gone. One day there were eight billion people in the sky; the next they had all vanished. The shock continues to work through my psychology. I don’t welcome exploring the scar.”

The three of them sat in their small ring, soberly eating the sweet young bananas, while Workers politely scuttled to and fro, removing the discarded skins.

Reid Malenfant:

Much of the time he slept, drifting through uneasy, green-tinged dreams of the kind that had plagued him since the day he had come to this unnatural Moon. And then the dreams would merge into a fragmented wakefulness, fringed by blood and pain, with such soft transitions he couldn’t have said where dream finished and reality began.

He was lying on his side — he could tell that much — with his arms and legs splayed out in front of him, like a GI Joe fallen off the shelf. He didn’t even know where he was. He was surrounded by wood and earth. Some shelter, he supposed, something constructed by hands and eyes and brains, human or otherwise.