The Seeds of Time (31 page)

Clio jerked the stowage door open, grabbing boxes of seeds, then dropped them as Zee hauled her away. “Goddamn it, Clio, we’re sinking!”

Zee opened the escape hatch, then helped Clio drag the raft up the ladder.

Outside, the ocean came at them in a moderate chop. As
Babyhawk
lurched in the waves, Zee managed to slit open the raft casing, and the craft inflated. Clio clambered down into the lander and helped Russo to climb up to the open hatch, where the cold ocean air swept over them in sheets. She and Russo jumped in. By the moon’s sallow light, Clio could see Zee perched on the edge of
Babyhawk
,
waiting for the raft to swing closer. Across a million years of space, and now a few meters left to go. Zee hesitated.

“Jump!” Clio yelled.

He jumped, and landed heavily in one end of the raft, bringing a spray of salt water over the bow.

“We made it,” Zee said, triumphant.

Clio lay in the bottom of the craft, no longer caring.

In the morning they surveyed their surroundings. The raft floated easily in the calm, blue sea. The salt air burned Clio’s lungs, the sunlight crushed against her eyes, as though she were an alien, accustomed to fluorescent lights and stale air—as indeed she was. The tranquil blue Atlantic Ocean stretched away to the edge of vision on every side.
Babyhawk
was nowhere to be seen.

“So where the hell do you suppose we are?” Clio asked.

“Somewhere off the eastern coast of South America,” Zee said.

“That narrows it down.”

Russo squinted against the hot white sun. “Should be somewhere near French Guiana,” she said. “Maybe the northern tip of Brazil. If the readouts were OK.”

Clio watched Russo scan the horizon. She was back to business.

Clio looked out at the sea, turned north. North America was only a few thousand miles away, but as far from her in a practical sense as Niang had been for
Starhawk
. She would never see it again. Unless captured, she would never see it again. The thought struck her with more force than she expected. But it wasn’t the U.S. in particular that came to mind, it was North Dakota, and a little town called Upham, halfway between Buffalo Lodge Lake and the Canadian border. She closed her eyes and saw Petya walking through the wheat field, his arms outstretched, the grain up to his waist. From a distance he appeared to be surrounded by an undulating, yellow sea. He laughed and pointed at her, and she stretched out her arms in the field and walked like a
goddess through the waves. “We’re swimming!” Petya shouted. “We’re swimming!”

Zee put his hand on Clio’s shoulder. “Some plants—Earth plants—floated across seas, and lived to grow on new islands,” he said. “Maybe some of the Niang plants made it out. Maybe the sea will be a good mother.”

Clio turned toward him, put her face against his chest. “Goddamn it all, anyway. We were so close, so close.” She looked at Zee. “You know? We fought so hard to bring them home. We lost everything. Everyone died.” She was crying hard now, giving in to it. The rising sun was behind Zee’s head, backlighting his ears, his light hair, giving him a sunny halo.

“You did the best you could, Clio. Like you told Russo, you did good. You did real good.”

Clio looked at him, tried to smile. Failed.

They set their course by the sun, and took turns rowing southwest toward what they hoped was a relatively unpopulated tract of northern Brazil.

Between her turns at rowing Clio flopped in the stern of the raft under the tent of blanket they had rigged to fend off the sun. The glare of the water and the heat blasted all thought, melding each minute to the next, making a circular progression of misery. Clio’s light skin took a sunburn within a half hour, despite the hat she had fashioned.

When at last Zee sighted land, she tore her mouth with a smile. It was a long way, appearing as a mere line on the horizon, but suddenly they rowed with renewed strength.

By nightfall they were still far off shore, but doggedly rowed on by the light of a crescent moon.

“What happens when we get there?” Zee asked.

“We sleep,” Russo said. She slapped the water with the oars again, taking her full turns despite the protests of the others. She wasn’t in the best shape for fifty-one, but, as she pointed out, neither were Clio and Zee after months aboard
Starhawk
.

“But I mean, after we sleep, in the morning.” He looked at Clio. “When we meet any people.”

“I don’t know,” Clio said. “Think three white folks dressed in rags, without passports, will attract much attention?”

“Guess we give it a try and see what happens,” Russo said. She pulled on the oars again. “And we stick together. If they pick us up …” She pulled on the oars again, rested them on the gunwales. “No regrets.”

Zee took Clio’s hand. “No regrets,” Clio said.

An hour later they pulled the raft up onto a small beach, half-encircled by the rocky arms of a headland. A black primeval forest stood before them, its hot, fecund breath whispering to them at the edge of the beach. They dragged the craft into the undergrowth, deflated it, and buried it in a shallow hole. It would be a long time before Biotime, before DSDE found it, if ever, Clio thought.
Buried things often stay buried. The earth can keep secrets, sometimes forever
.

They laid their blankets out on the ground and fell on them, asleep instantly.

In the morning Clio woke to find a stranger staring at her.

A little girl, hardly more than six years old, dark-skinned, with black hair cut bluntly across her forehead, leaned on a staff watching them. She was naked except for a short cloth with a Mickey Mouse pattern tied around her hips.

Startled, Clio stared a moment, then said, “Hello. What’s your name?”

The child backed off a few paces into the jungle. She moved behind a tree and disappeared.

Clio lay back down, watching the morning sun spray through the forest, lighting their nest of blankets as well as the fifty-meter tops of the trees. She allowed herself, for a moment, to pretend that the Earth was a forest, from sea to sea. That giant trees like these ruled, and humans lived among them, small, two-legged, and frail. And for a moment, the jungle took on a turquoise tinge.

Zee was sitting behind her, slid his arms around her waist. “Thought I heard you say something.”

“There was a little girl in a Mickey Mouse skirt.”

Russo was up, folding blankets. Raised an eyebrow.

They found a trail leading deeper into the forest and followed it, carrying their blankets and empty canteens. They drank water from the cups of flowers where dew had collected, and looked for food. When Clio came upon the man standing just off the path, she almost stumbled into him, so intent was she on finding something edible.

Clio regained her footing, stood stock-still, watching him. He wore only a loincloth and several necklaces of bead and bone. The little girl was behind him. Clio kneeled down, took off her watch, held it out to the child. The girl came forward, reached out toward Clio, touching her hair. She smiled, a sudden splash of white teeth and lively dark eyes. Then she took the watch, moving back behind her elder.

He spoke a few words in his language and motioned for them to follow him. The three went with the natives deeper into the brush until they came upon a tiny encampment of twig huts, where cooking fires burned and some thirty natives crowded around them.

Here they were fed and helped to wash. One of the women dressed Clio’s sunburn with a sticky ointment, and offered her a bed where she rested, then slept, as did Zee and Russo.

In midafternoon Clio awoke as the camp broke up and the group prepared to move on. One of the natives brought Clio a woven bag, showing her how to carry it slung over her shoulders. It seemed they were being given permission to travel with this small tribal group. Clio looked at Zee and Russo. They also had hefted up their carrying bags onto their backs. Clio walked over to them. “This isn’t going to be easy,” she said.

“You got a better idea?” Zee asked. Somehow, he managed to seem cheerful. That counts a lot when you’re in deep shit, thought Clio. She smiled at him.
Damn, if it doesn’t count a lot
.

Russo was already moving off, following the others.

“I’ll be right back,” Clio said. She walked to the edge
of the former encampment, moving into the undergrowth. Here she removed a small packet of seeds from her breast pocket, tore open the thick plastic, and knelt down in the moist soil. She pressed the seeds in, one at a time, patting the black earth over them.

She crawled on her hands and knees, continuing her planting until the seeds were gone. They were safe. These few seeds, at least, had a fighting chance. All you can ask for. In a few more hours the
Eisenhower
would confront
Starhawk
, Brisher would get her resignation message, and
Starhawk
would disappear in front of them. That was as far as her predictions could go.

Clio saw the young native girl standing before her, silently watching. She wore Clio’s watch tied closely around her throat. It was 2:15.

Time to leave. Clio brushed the soil from her knees and followed the girl into the forest.

Amid the ruins of the abandoned Earth camp, the lander from the Dive ship
Pilgrim
perched on its jointed mechanical legs. The jet housings creaked and groaned as they cooled, answered in symphonic measure by the alien jungle. Beyond the perimeter wire and a short clearing surrounding it stood the spindly, vanguard trees of the world forest, bulging toward the camp as though pushed from behind by rampant vegetation. One of the tall, opaque trees lay fallen across the clearing, its frondy top just short of the nerve wire. It seemed to be pointing right at the lander, right at Corporal Janacek, as he pressed his nose against the viewport.

Someone grabbed Janacek’s arm. “Time to head out.”

He wiped the imprint of his nose off the plasiglass, then turned to follow Sergeant Fraley down the middeck, joined by the rest of the platoon, their heavy boots rattling the deck plates and echoing off the bulkheads.

Whiteout fell in beside him. “Ho, daddy, we are going to breathe some gen-uuu-ine air. Ain’t that a boot in the butt?” He slapped Janacek on the ass. “After these canned goods, it likely to kill me, no shit. One toke, my eyes be fizzin’. Two tokes, pop ’em right out of their sockets.” He clamped his hands around his neck and bulged his eyes. “Think you could still love me, boy-o. I look like this?”

“Shut up, Whiteout.” Janacek felt jumpy, wanted some quiet, standing there waiting for his turn to cycle through the hatchway, watching it swallow one crew member after another. Not his first mission, not as though he’d never been off-world or clutched a pulse rifle waiting for trouble.
Janacek scrambled down the ladder from the ship, into a plastic quarantine cell reeking of chemical sprays. Here, everybody’s face took on a blue-green glow from the jungle scene that climbed the walls and bent toward the top of the cell. Whiteout did the self-strangulation number again, bluish tongue sticking out.

“Keep moving,” came the sergeant’s order. They ducked, one at a time, through the flexible hatch door. Janacek followed Whiteout into the blasting light of Niang.

His nostrils and lungs filled with hot, verdant air. Whiteout was right, it was hellish—and wonderful. Janacek gasped, filling his lungs again with the thick soup of real atmosphere, smelling of sweet citrus. Maybe this is how real air smells. Three months on the
Pilgrim
, living on recycled army farts, and now we gag on the real thing. If you could call this the real thing, two million years from Earth.

Beyond the camp remnants and perimeter wire, they were surrounded by open field for thirty meters before the jungle massed up. From its tight nest, bedlam: screaming, hooting, chirring, and buzzing in a nonstop caterwauling that made you want to hit something.

The platoon fanned out into the abandoned camp. Signs of the firefight were everywhere. On sergeant’s orders, the platoon walked with pulse rifles at the ready, sweeping the encampment for signs of the mutineers, the crazy remnants of the old science team, who killed off their crewmates, the ones who wouldn’t stay.