Firstborn

drifted down around the can’s stilts.

“We’d better get a bit further away,” Myra said.

“All right.” They walked forward, unsteady as the ground shuddered again. Yuri said, “It’s going to be a hell of a job to fix that rip.”

“So call Hanse back.”

“Bastard’s never there when you need him —ow. ” He stumbled, pulling at her so that she staggered too.

“What is it?”

“I hit my head.” They turned. An Eye hovered before them, this one maybe a meter across, its lowest point just below head height. “Bastard.” Yuri swung a punch at it with his free right hand. “Shit. Like hitting concrete.”

“Ignore it,” said Myra.

Just for a moment, the shuddering stopped. They stood together, near the Eye, breathing hard.

“You were right to have us come outside,” Myra said.

“And you were right to ask for a bit of ‘human contact.’ I think we got most things right these last few months, Ms. Dutt.”

“I think I’d agree, Mr. O’Rourke.” She breathed deep, and squeezed his hand. “You know, Yuri—”

The ground burst open.

In the temple chamber, the tall woman woke. Slowly at first.

And then with a start as she saw the Eye.

“Shit, shit. It would have to be now, when I need a pee. Come on, Suit Five, you’re as dead as a dodo but you’re the best protection I’ve got…” As Grasper watched, she began to pull herself into her green carcass thing, and she placed a glowing pebble on the floor.

“You’re leaving me again, Bisesa?”

“Look, phone, don’t guilt-trip me now. We worked this out. You’re the only link back to Earth. And if Abdi succeeds in his program of power-cell manufacture you’ll be powered up indefinitely.”

“Cold comfort.”

“I won’t forget you.”

“Goodbye, Bisesa. Goodbye…”

“Shit. The Eye. What’s it doing?”

Grasper was still standing, trembling but upright, gazing up at the washing lights, which cast complex patterns of shadows around the chamber. A fifth set of lines — a sixth set, disappearing in impossible directions—

The tall woman screamed.

Myra was lying face-down on a scrap of rock-hard water ice, her faceplate pressed against the surface. Yuri had fallen awkwardly somewhere behind her, and her right arm was wrenched back. She felt a pressure in her belly, as if she was being lifted up by an elevator.

She struggled to raise her head. The suit’s multipliers whined as they strained to help her.

She looked down, into Mars.

She saw ice chunks and rocks and even sprays of magma, all illuminated by a deeper red glow from within. All this filled her view, as far as she could see, to left and right. It was like looking down into a deep chasm.

And when she looked up a little further, she saw the Eye, maybe the same one, rising up before her, tracking her.

The fear was gone. Clinging to the bit of ice, still squeezing Yuri’s hand, she felt almost exhilarated. Maybe they could live through this, just a little longer.

But then a gout of molten rock like an immense fist came bar-relling up, out of the heart of disintegrating Mars, straight at her.

The scar in space became transparent, so Bella could see the stars shining through it, their light curdled and faded.

Then it cleared altogether, as if evaporating.

She hugged her daughter.

“So that’s that,” Edna said.

“Yes. Take me home, love.”

The Liberator’s blunt nose turned away, toward Earth.

Released from their parent’s gravity field, Mars’s small moons drifted away from their paths. Now they would orbit the sun, becoming just two more unremarkable asteroids. The thin cloud of satellites humans had put in place around Mars began to disperse too. For a time gravitational waves crossed the system, and the sun’s remaining planets bobbed, leaves on a pond into which a pebble had been thrown. But the ripples soon subsided.

And Mars was gone.

63: A Time Odyssey

A gate opened. A gate closed. In a moment of time too short to be measured, space opened and turned on itself.

It wasn’t like waking. It was a sudden emergence, a clash of cymbals. Her eyes gaped wide open, and were filled with dazzling light.

She dragged deep breaths into her lungs, and gasped with the shock of selfhood.

She was on her back. There was something enormously bright above her — the sun, yes, the sun, she was outdoors.

She threw herself over onto her belly. Dazzled by the sun, she could barely see.

A plain. Red sand. Eroded hills in the distance. Even the sky looked red, though the sun was high.

This felt familiar.

And Myra was beside her. It was impossible, but it was so.

Bisesa hurriedly crawled through loose sand to get to her daughter. Like Bisesa, Myra was in a green Mars suit. She was lying on her back, an ungainly fish stranded on this strange beach.

Myra’s faceplate retracted, and she coughed in the sharp, dry air. She stared at her right hand. The suit’s glove was missing, the flesh of her hand pale.

“It’s me, darling.”

Myra looked at her, shocked. “Mum?”

They clung to each other.

It got darker. Bisesa peered up.

The sun’s disk was deformed. It looked like a leaf out of which a great bite had been taken. It began to feel colder, and Bisesa glimpsed bands of shadow rushing across the eroded ground.

Not again, she thought.

“Don’t be afraid.”

They both turned, rolling in the dirt.

A woman stood over them. She was quite hairless, her face smooth. She wore a flesh-colored coverall so sleek it was as if she was naked. She smiled at them. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Myra said, “My God. Charlie? ”

Bisesa stared. “Who is ‘we’?”

“We call ourselves the Lastborn. We are at war. We are losing.”

She held out her hands. “Please. Come with me now.”

Bisesa and Myra, still hugging each other, reached out their free hands. Their fingertips touched Charlie’s.

A clash of cymbals.