Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

“So many ! As many as the Nar! And it looks crowded to me with only a few thousand here!”
    “Most of the shirt-sleeve traffic between buildings would have been through the tunnel system. Still, it must have been pretty lively on the surface.”
    Two space-suited people walked by, bearing a huge slab of granite that seemed to be covered with bas-reliefs. They were walking almost normally, thanks to the tons of mass that kept their boots pressed to the ground. One of them freed an arm to wave at Bram and Mim as they passed. The slab dipped, but the person caught it before it floated too far down out of its inertial path.
    Bram waved back, frowning within his helmet. “I wonder where they got that,” he said. “They’re supposed to leave things in place till an archaeologist can have a look at the site. There are too many helpful amateurs wandering around.”
    “Does it matter?”
    “Very much, apparently. Ame says that the way finds are sited tells them as much as the finds themselves. And with bones especially, there’s a question of missing pieces.”
    “Those longfooted skeletons?”
    “She’s got some fairly complete ones. There’s a question about the dating. She sent word that there’s something she wants to discuss with me.”
    “And lots of Cuddly bones?”
    “Yes, and some they can’t identify. She thinks that they may have been pets of Original Man.”
    Mim gave a subdued shudder and linked arms with Bram. “Ugh—bones! Still, it makes a good excuse for an excursion. The view gets more spectacular all the time.”
    They both looked toward the horizon at the half-risen disk. It was a swollen red orb that stretched across most of the sky, its oblique angle squashing it out of shape. A smaller disk, back-to, made a black shadow across the glowing field. With the overhead moon brightening up, the diskworld was a reasonably well lit place these days— about on a par with the Father World nights when the lesser sun had been in the sky.
    They had been in the system long enough for the diskworld’s rotation to bring this segment of the rim down almost to the plane of orbit. Yggdrasil, after some complicated maneuvering, was about a quarter diameter behind them again and catching up fast. At present, the trip from the tree took eleven days, the trip back even longer, but that didn’t stop the excursionists. With Yggdrasil renewed and the crust of the diskworld itself to tap, there was fuel literally to burn.
    They continued their shuffling stroll. A Cuddly popped up out of a hole in the ground in front of them, sat up on its haunches, and gave them a fearless, big-eyed stare. The little animals had quickly allowed their natural curiosity to overtake their initial caution of human beings, and now they were all over the place.
    Mim gave a cry of delight. “Aren’t they cute? Look at those clever little paws! They’re almost human! Can we take one back with us?”
    “Why not? Half the people on the tree seem to have adopted a Cuddly. Or vice versa. They’re easy to tame, they eat anything, and they’re nice to have around.”
    There had been some fear at first that the little burrowing beasts would spread uncontrolled through Yggdrasil’s vessels and passageways and perhaps interfere with the tree’s internal ecology. But that hadn’t been the case. The Cuddlies seemed to prefer human company, and they hung around the living quarters, attaching themselves to a particular person or family. They were affectionate little things, rubbing against a person’s leg until picked up and stroked, or even forcing matters by climbing up themselves to an arm or a shoulder. They were also shameless little beggars. Few people could resist them. They had quickly discovered all the outside exits, and during Yggdrasil’s “night” they liked to prowl about in naked space, among the leaves and branches. They could go an hour or more without breathing, living off the compressed oxygen in their accessory lungs or trapped in their amazing fur with its overlapping erectile follicles.
    “Oh, look, I think it’s begging for food,” Mim exclaimed. “Do you have anything with you?”
    “Afraid not. I had half a cornwich in one of my sealpockets, left over from the shuttle snack bin, but I threw it away when we helmeted up.”
    The big-eyed little furball, its coat fluffed out for vacuum, was balancing itself on one foot and its tail, holding out its right paw and right foot in tandem, like a pair of tiny