Evolution

At the beginning of the twenty-first century Eros was the target of the first space probe to orbit an asteroid. The probe was called NEAR, for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. At the end of the mission the probe was made to land gently on the asteroid’s ancient ground. Those first astronomers had given their asteroid the romantic name of the Greek god of love. There was much talk of how the probe NEAR had "kissed" the target rock, and the press had been predictably excited that the contact had occurred only a little before Valentine’s Day.

But under the circumstances the asteroid’s name could not have been more inappropriate.

It had long been believed that Eros, with its eccentric orbit taking it endlessly across the orbit of Mars, was in no danger of collision with the Earth. In fact, it seemed much more likely to collide with Mars itself.

But Mars was gone.

And, over long enough periods, as it responded to the subtle tweaks of the planets’ gravitational pulls, the spinning of the sun, and its own intricate, intrinsic dynamic instabilities, the orbit of the asteroid evolved. One million years after the demise of mankind, Eros had sailed close to Earth — very close, close enough to be visible to a naked eye, had anyone been looking.

Some twenty-nine million years after that, it was coming closer still.

Stuck in her acacia tree, Remembrance itched. She scrabbled at her fur, hunting for the ticks and bugs that loved to feast on your blood, or lay their irritating eggs under your skin. But there were places she couldn’t reach, like the small of her back, and naturally the bugs congregated there.

It was a painful reminder of how alone she was. As language had declined, the habit of grooming had returned to serve its old function of social cement. (It had never really gone away anyhow.) But Remembrance had had no grooming since before her last sleep, when she had huddled with her mother in her nest.

Hot, itchy, hungry, thirsty, lonely, Remembrance waited in her acacia stand until the sun had once more climbed high in the sky.

Then, at last, she clambered down.

The elephant people and their rodent keepers had gone. Across the empty, dust-strewn grassland, little stirred. The silence was as heavy as the heat. Through dusty haze, she could see a dark smudge to the east that might have been a herd of elephantine pigs or goats, or even hominids. To the west there was a little pocket of motion, a glimpse of brown fur. Perhaps it was a predatory rat with her kits.

To the north, where the mountains loomed purple, she could see that splash of dull greenery. She still had no other impulse than to make straight for the forest’s alluring comfort.

Naked, her hands empty, she set off across the plain, slumping every now and again to let her knuckles carry some of her weight. She was a tiny figure crossing a huge, bare landscape, accompanied by nothing but the shadow under her feet.

She found no water, nothing to eat save handfuls of sparse grass. As she lumbered on, she was increasingly distracted by thirst. The silence settled still more heavily. Soon it was as if there were nothing in her life but this walk, as if her memories of a life of green and family were as meaningless as her dreams of falling.

She found herself walking down a shallow slope into a broad bowl of land kilometers across. Before this great depression she hesitated.

A valley was incised across the heart of the bowl — a valley once cut by a river — but even from here she could see that the valley was dry. The vegetation was different from that in the plain beyond. There were no trees here, few shrubs, and only occasional splashes of grass green. Instead, there was a broad mass of rustling violet leaves.

To distrust anything new was a good rule of thumb. But this great bowl lay right across her path, cutting her off from her forested slope, still far away. She could see there were no animals here, no herbivores, no prowling predators.

So she set off, wary, watchful.

The belt of violet purple turned out to be flowers growing in thick clumps, some tall enough to reach her waist, amid spindly, pale blades of grass. She walked on until she was surrounded by the clamoring purple. But there was still no water.

Once there had been a city here. Even now, so long after the city’s fall, the soil was so polluted that only metal-tolerant plants could survive here — such as the violet-petaled copper flowers that waved over the soil.

Eventually the purple flowers grew thinner. At the very heart of this strange place she came to the river’s shallow bank. The channel was dry, filled only with drifting dust: Ancient geological shifts had long since diverted away the water that had cut this channel. Remembrance clambered down the eroded banks and tried digging into the dusty substrate, but there was no moisture to be had here either.

As she climbed out of the shallow bowl it wasn’t long before Remembrance came to another obstacle.