Evolution

And on the ground, the shock wave moved out from the shattered caldera at twice the speed of sound. Silent until it hit, it leveled everything in its path, houses, temples, trees, bridges. Where it passed energy poured into the air, compressing it and raising it to enormous temperatures. Anything combustible burst into flames.

People could see the shock was coming, but they could not hear it and they certainly could not flee it. They just popped into flame and vanished, like pine needles on a bonfire. This was just the beginning.

Space suited soldiers bundled Joan out of the smoke-filled bar, out of the hotel, and into fresh air. She was put on to a stretcher that was hauled away at running speed. All around her was a blizzard of movement, people running, cars rushing, tarmac beneath, helicopters flapping through an orange sky.

Now they were bundling her into the back of a van. An ambulance? One, two, three, lift. The stretcher slid inside the vehicle, alongside a kind of narrow bunk bed. There was anonymous equipment on the walls, none of it bleeping or humming, nothing like the equipment in the medical soaps she had once been addicted to.

She waved her hand through the air. "Alyce."

Alyce grabbed her hand. "I’m here, Joan."

"I feel like an amphibian, Alyce. I swim in blood and piss, but I breathe the air of culture. Neither one thing nor the other—"

Alyce’s drawn face was above her, distracted, fearful. "What? What did you say?"

"What time is it?"

"Joan, save your breath. Believe me, I’ve been through this; you’re going to need it."

"Is it day or night? I lost track. I couldn’t tell from the sky."

"My watch is broken. Night, I think."

Somebody was working on her legs — cutting away her clothes? The ambulance lurched into motion, and she heard the remote wail of a siren, like some animal lost in the fog. All she could see was the bare, gloomily painted roof of the vehicle, those meaningless bits of equipment, and Alyce’s thin face.

"Listen, Alyce."

"I’m here."

"I never told you my family’s true history."

"Joan—"

She said sharply, "If I don’t make it out of this, tell my daughter where she came from."

Alyce nodded soberly. "You came to America as slaves."

"My great-grandfather worked out the story. We came from what is now Namibia, not far from Windhoek. We were San, what they called ‘bushmen.’ We nearly got wiped out by the Bantu, and in colonial days we were killed as vermin. But we kept some cultural identity."

"Joan—"

"Alyce, gene frequency studies show that female-line DNA among San women is more diverse than anywhere else on Earth. The implication is that San genes have been around in southern Africa much longer than any genes anywhere else on Earth. People of San ancestry are about the closest we’ll ever get to the direct line of descent from our common grandmother, our mitochondrial Eve—"

Alyce nodded soberly. "I understand. So your child is one of the youngest people on the planet — and the oldest." Alyce covered her hand. "I promise I’ll tell her."

The pain came in waves now. She felt as if her mind were dissolving; she struggled to think. "You know, normal human births are statistically likely to happen at night. An ancient primate trait. It’s as well to bear your child in the safety of your treetop nest."

"Joan—"

"Let me talk, damn it. Talking makes the pain go away."

"Drugs make the pain go away."

"Ow! That one felt different. Is there a midwife in this damn van?"

"They’re all trained paramedics. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of."

"I think my daughter is keen to see the inside of this scruffy ambulance."

"You’ve done your classes. Breathe. Push."

She began to breathe in gasping snatches, Oof, oof, oof.

Alyce kept glancing down toward the business end. "You’re doing fine."

"Even if I do have the pelvis of an australopithecine."

"You really are full of shit, Joan Useb."

"Not anymore, I fear."

"She’s coming. She’s coming," Alyce said.

The baby’s skull bones and their junctions were soft, able to mold under the pressure of being squeezed through the birth canal. And she was able to withstand oxygen deprivation up to the moment of birth.

These last moments were the most extreme physical transformation she would suffer up until the moment of death itself. But the baby’s body was flooded with natural opiates and analgesics. She was feeling no real pain, just a continuation of the long womb dream out of which her self, her identity, had gradually coalesced.

A space suited paramedic took Joan’s child, blew into its nose, and slapped its backside. A satisfying wail filled the ambulance. The soggy little scrap of flesh was hastily wrapped in a blanket and handed to Joan.

Joan, exhausted, wondering, touched her daughter’s cheek. The child turned her head, and her mouth worked, seeking something to suck.

Alyce was smiling down, sweating and exhausted herself, like any proud aunt. "By God, look at her. She’s already communicating with us, in her way. She’s already human."