“No. Like a Mapping, I think. But not a Mapping. The truth is nobody knows, Mane. But the Astrologers can see it is approaching, in the shivers of the starlight.”

“It must be artificial, this moving of a Moon. A contrivance.”

“Yes, of course. It is a deliberate act. But we do not know the agents or their motive.”

Manekato thought through the implications. “There will be tides,” she said. “Earthquakes. Great waves.”

“Yes. And that is the danger posed to our Farm, and some others.”

Suddenly she was filled with hope. “Is that why I am here? Is it possible to avert this Moon — to save the Farm?”

“No,” he said, sadly but firmly.

She pulled away from him. “You talked of my mission. What mission, if the Farm is doomed?”

“You must travel to the Moon,” said Babo.

“Impossible,” she spanned. “No Mapping has ever been attempted over such a distance.”

“Nevertheless you must make it possible,” Babo said. “You must use the resources of the Farm to achieve it.”

“And if I reach the Moon?”

“Then you must find those responsible for sending this rogue here. You must make them remove it, and have them assure you it will not return.” He forced a smile. “We are a species good at negotiation, Mane. The Lineages could not have survived otherwise. You are all but a matriarch, the matriarch of Poka Lineage. You will find a way. Go to the Moon, Mane — take this chance. I will be with you, if you wish. If you succeed, Poka will be granted new land. We have pledges…”

“And if I fail — or refuse?”

He stiffened. “Then our Lineage will die with us. Of course.”

“Of course—”

There was a fizz of purple light, a stink of ozone. A Worker fell from the sky and landed in the centre of the room. Semi-sentient, it raised a sketchy face and peered at them. Recognizing Manekato, it gave her the doleful news it had brought, its voice flat and unengaged.

Orphaned, brother and sister clung to each other as they wept.

Reid Malenfant:

After days of pressure from Malenfant, McCann agreed to lead them in an orderly expedition back to the crash site of the lander. Malenfant felt a vast relief, as if he was being let out of gaol: at last, some progress.

First, McCann inspected them critically. “I’ll have Julia fit you both with buckskin. One must go cannily. You’ll stand out a mile in those sky-blue nursery rompers.”

The buckskin gear turned out to be old and musty — presumably manufactured, with much labour, for deceased inhabitants of this place. And McCann loaned Malenfant and Nemoto calf-length leather boots, to keep out the snakes and the bugs. The boots were ill-fitting, and much worn. The gear was heavy, stiff and hot to wear, and its rough interior scratched Malenfant’s skin. But it was substantial, feeling like a suit of armour, and was obscurely comforting.

McCann wore a suit of sewn skin and a Davy Crocket hat; he had a crossbow on his back, and a belt of flechettes over his shoulder. He looked capable, tough and well-adapted.

Malenfant wrapped up his coverall and other bits of gear in a skin pack that he wore on his back. He insisted Nemoto do the same; he wanted to be sure they didn’t have to return here if they got the chance to get away.

A party of six Hams was gathered in the courtyard. They were all squat, burly men. The Hams wore their peculiar wrappings of skin, tied in place by bits of thong or vegetable rope, not shaped or sewn. They carried weapons, spears and clubs on loops of rope or tucked into their belts, and their broad elliptical heads were shaded by hats of woven grass.

One of them was Thomas, the man who had rescued Malenfant and Nemoto from the wild Runners in the first place.

Malenfant couldn’t figure out why the Hams had gotten the lens to him (or come to that how they knew he would be interested). Maybe they just like the story, Malenfant thought, the guy who flies to another world in search of his wife. Just like the American taxpayer. Or maybe there are aspects of these quasi people none of us will ever understand.

When Malenfant approached to thank him, Thomas shook his hand, an oddly delicate gesture he must have learned from the stranded English, taking care not to crush Malenfant’s bones. But, when Malenfant questioned him away from the others, he would say nothing of where he had found Emma’s lens.

Two Hams opened the gates of the stockade, and the little party formed up. McCann was to ride in a kind of litter — ‘What a Portugoose would call a machila, I’m told.’ The litter, just a platform of wood, was to be borne by two Hams, and McCann had offered the same to Malenfant and Nemoto.

Malenfant had refused.

Nemoto had been sceptical. “You are sentimental, Malenfant. After a few hours you may long for a ride. And besides, the Hams are well capable of bearing our weight. They are treated well—”

“That’s not the point.”

“Survival is the point. What else?”

Anyhow, with the sun still climbing — with McCann’s litter in the van, Malenfant and Nemoto walking in the centre with Hams beside and behind them — the little party set off.

McCann said they would take a roundabout route to the lander. It would take longer, but would avoid the densest forest and so would be less problematic.

They walked through the forest. The air was laden with moisture and without a breath of wind. The sweat was soon dripping from Malenfant’s scalp into his eyes, and his buckskin was clinging to his back as if glued there.

The Hams walked barefoot along a trail that was invisible to Malenfant, with their feet splayed at wide angles, making fast, short steps, almost delicate. Malenfant tried to keep up. But the brown sheets of dead leaves on top of wet mud made him slip, or he would walk into thorny lianas, or trip over the surface roots that splayed out from the boles of the largest trees. As the feet and legs of the Ham in front began to blur, he realized he was going to have to imitate the Ham’s small movements, but he lost further ground as he tried to master the oddly precise mincing motions.

McCann walked alongside Malenfant, musing. “Hear how quiet it is. One does miss birdsong. Africa is full of birds, of course: parrots and plovers, kingfishers and skimmers. How sad a world without the song of birds, Malenfant.”

Here was a canthium tree: a massive straight black trunk, branches spreading high above the palms. “Keep away from it,” McCann said. “The flowers stink like corpses — to attract flies, you see, which carry its pollen. The pre-sapients keep away from it. The trunk is covered in biting ants—” He froze, and held Malenfant’s arm. “Look there. An Elf.” He dropped to all fours and crawled forward, hiding behind a tree.

Malenfant followed suit. The two of them finished lying in cold mud, side by side, peering through a brush of greenery.

A man sat on a bough, a few feet off the ground — a dwarfish, naked, hairy man with a face like a chimp’s, and no forehead to speak of. He had long legs like a human, long arms like an ape. He pulled twigs towards his face and bit off leaves, with thick, active lips. His face was black, his eyes brown, sheltered by a thick brow of bone. He moved slowly, thoughtfully.

A twig cracked.

The Elf stopped eating. He leaned forward, rocked from side to side to see better. He urinated, a stream of acrid piss that splashed to the floor not feet from Malenfant’s face.

Then he turned away and called. “Oo-hah!”

Suddenly there were more of them, more Elves, shadowy figures with glinting eyes and empty hands. They had black faces and palms and soles. If they had crouched like chimpanzees it would have been okay, but they didn’t; they stood eerily upright, as if their bodies had been distorted in some hideous lab. They were wrong, and Malenfant shivered.