Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

covered with dust, and all sorts of domes, bulges. and the craters of burst bubbles poked above the rubbish of the sundered planet that had been used as a starter.
    Closer at hand, vacuum welding over the eons had cemented a rocky cliffside in place. But here, too, even the languorous stresses that the diskworld was heir to had from time to time torn great chunks of material loose and left a pattern of cracks and cavities.
    Ame’s beam found one of the holes. “I wonder how deep—” she began, and stopped.
    A pair of animal eyes shone in the beam of light for a startled second, then whisked out of sight.
    “Oh!” Ame squeaked. She dropped the torch. It seemed to hang in space beside her, the light beam revolving in lazy circles. Ame recovered before the torch had drifted down more than an inch or two, caught it by the wrong end, and got it pointed at the cave again.
    “Did you see it, too?” she whispered.
    “Yes,” Bram said.
    There was life in this place. And it was shy.
     
    They stayed clinging to their dizzy perch until Lydis’s radioed warnings about their reserve air supply became too impatient to ignore. But the beady, luminous eyes never reappeared.
    “It’s hunkered at the back of the cave, waiting for us to go away,” Ame said.
    “Or there’s a way out through the rear,” Bram suggested. “There may be a whole system of burrows.”
    She had tried the light in every opening it would reach. Far below, at the limit of the beam, they thought they saw a pair of pinpoints of reflected light for the briefest flash, but it was impossible to be sure. Finally, when Lydis began making threats, they gave up and hauled themselves back along the gigantic crane arm to the security of the rim.
    They had left the walker parked a short distance away in a square at the intersection of two avenues of raised gravel. As they approached it, there was an explosion of movement around it, and dozens of small furry forms streaked away into hiding.
    Brain gave a start. The little beasts were gone in an instant, before he had time to react.
    “We scared them off,” he said.
    “They must have been watching us the whole time, everywhere we went,” Ame said. “The ones here got up the courage to investigate the walker when we were gone so long.”
    A wary little face peered out from around a block of stone, then jerked back as Ame’s light beam found it. Bram had a quick impression of huge round eyes, button nose, tiny mouth, and the flash of a bushy tail.
    He found himself laughing. “They’re curious,” he said.
    “They’re descended from terrestrial life,” Ame said. “That’s for certain. Like every picture I’ve ever seen. Everything in pairs—eyes, ears, limbs—just like us! And they’re furred—they’re not only vertebrates but mammals, too!”
    “But how do they breathe vacuum?”
    “I wonder … they’ve had millions of years to adapt to this place. Have you ever heard of whales’?”
    “I know the word. Stands for something big.”
    “It was a real animal once. It adapted to a new environment, too. It learned to go for long stretches without breathing.”
    They were at the walker now. The biovehicle was in the same kneeling position they had left it in. Bram gave Ame a boost, and she hoisted herself up to the passenger bubble. Then she froze.
    “Bram -tsu ! Look!”
    He levitated to a position beside her, and she grabbed his arm. One of the little animals was trapped inside the bubble, scurrying about frantically, looking for a way out.
    He stopped her as she as about to insert herself into the bubble. “Wait. Let’s see if we can shoo that thing out of there first.”
    “Why? What harm could it do?”
    “I don’t like the look of those little teeth.”
    “It’s more afraid of us than we are of it. Oh, look at it, Bram -tsu ! It’s so small ! It’s just a little baby ! It must have gotten separated from its mother. It’s terrified.”
    Without waiting for a response, she swan-dived through the lips of the bubble. Bram followed, letting out at least a pound of air pressure in his haste.
    “The poor thing,” Ame said, reaching for the small creature. It cowered against the far side of the transparent bubble, chittering at them. It was a little roly-poly thing, a ball of soft brown fluff with enormous golden eyes that were mostly round pupil.
    “Ame, don’t touch it.”
    “Nonsense! It couldn’t bite me through my vacuum suit even if it tried.”
    She picked the creature