Manifold 2 - Space by Stephen Baxter

Author:Stephen Baxter [Baxter, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: sf
Published: 2011-04-08T21:05:59+00:00

Life was long, slow, unchanging.

Even her thoughts were slow.

In the timeless intervals between the comets, her growth was chthonic, her patience matching that of the rocks themselves. Slowly, slowly, she rebuilt her strength: light traps to start the long process of drawing out fire for the next seeds, leaves to catch the comet Rain that would come again.

She spoke to her children, their subtle scratching carrying to her through the still, cold rock. It was important that she taught them: how to grow, of the comet Rains to come, of the Giver at the beginning of things, the Merging at the end.

Their conversations lasted a million years.

The Rains were spectacular, but infrequent. But when they came, once or twice in every billion years, her pulse accelerated, her metabolism exploding, as she drank in the thin, temporary air and dragged the fire she needed from the rock.

And with each Rain, she birthed again, the seeds exploding from her body and scattering around the Land.

But, after that first time, she was never alone. She could feel, through the rock, the joyous pulsing of her children as they hurled their own seed through the gathering comet air.

Soon there were so many of them that it was as if all of the Land was alive with their birthing, its rocky heart echoing to their joyous shouts.

And still, in the distant future, the Merging awaited them.

As the comets leapt one by one back into the sky, sucking away the air with them, she held that thought to her exhausted body, cradling it.

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