The Doors of Eden

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

These intellects will never look up and see the stars, yet they effortlessly understand and communicate profound truths about the nature of existence that we cannot grasp, and we are the poorer for it. They have gone beyond us to a realm of contemplation that we, the ape-children with our bloodied stone axes, are not fit for.

You may get asked to chew meat for someone – full disclosure, right?’

‘There was one winter, my second, when the hunting had been really bad. You’d not believe the lengths they went to, to find food. They’ve got a whole library of desperation measures you’ve not had to see. The sheep were a godsend for them.’ She shook her head. ‘There was this one hunter – I couldn’t understand much of what they said then, so I got this in retrospect – but she went to this hill every day, sat out there and starved, and the rest obviously thought she was mad, or whatever passes for mad with them. But she was remembering – they have their stories, and the stories are often tied to places. So one day in midwinter, she comes back dragging this carcass. And it was a cow, an actual cow. Somehow she’d got through to our side and came back, like some fucking mythic hero stealing fire from the gods. They still tell the story of it.’

‘There will be light. Probably.’ Not the most inspiring way to start a new religion, Lee thought,