“Human faces at first, of course.” Among those faces would have been the disciples of Mother, ancestors of the African population from whom Joan was descended. And if Lucy could have followed her European father’s line back she would have seen, among the morphing faces, Juna of Cata Huuk, and a little deeper Jahna, the girl who had met the last Neandertal, themselves descended from Mother’s band. “But then,” Joan said, “the subtle changes come, from one generation to the next. Gradually their eyes lose the light of understanding. Implosions: a shrinking forehead, a shriveling body, an apelike face, and at last the great anatomical redesign to restore the wide-eyed creatures that lived in the trees. And back further, shrinking and shriveling, eyes growing wider, minds simpler — ” The last common ancestor of humans and another hominid species, the Neandertals, was a quarter of a million years deep. Deeper still the shining line passed through Far and her beautiful, upright folk, and then through the pithecines and back to Capo’s forest, and deeper, deeper yet, Purga, who had scurried past slumbering dinosaurs by the light of a comet. “And yet,” Joan said, “each one of those ten million, almost all of them uncomprehending animals, lying side by side like frames from a movie, was your ancestor. But you met none of them, Lucy, and you never will. Not even my own mother, your grandmother. Because they are gone: all gone, dead, locked in the ground. No motion has she now, no force / She neither hears nor sees / Rolled round in Earth’s diurnal course / With rocks, and stones, and trees.”

Lucy said dryly, “Wordsworth, right? Another dead person.”

“The world is unfortunately full of dead persons. Anyhow, that’s our story. And I think, in my glimpses of the great encompassing mechanism that has shaped us all, I’ve seen a little of the numinous. That’s enough of God for me.” Joan sighed. “Of course you’ll have to figure it all out for yourself, which is most of the fun, of course.”

“Mom, have you been happy?”

Joan frowned strangely. “You never asked me that before.”

Lucy stayed silent, not letting her off the hook.

Joan thought about it.

Like all her ancestors, Joan had emerged from deep time. But unlike most of them she had been able to peer into the dark abysses that surrounded her life. She had come to know that her ancestors were utterly unlike anything in her world, and that nothing like herself could survive the most remote future. But she knew, too, that life would go on — if not her life, if not this life, as long as Earth lasted — and maybe even longer. And that ought to be enough for anyone.

“Yes,” she told her daughter, and hugged her. “Yes, love. I have been happy — ”

Lucy silenced her with a gesture. Now Joan could hear it too: a rustling, a subdued, wistful crying. They peered around the rock.

A little girl had been caught in the net. No older than five, naked, hair matted, she was crying because she couldn’t get to the plate of spicy vegetables Joan had set out.

Joan and Lucy showed themselves. The girl shrank back.

Carefully, their hands open, with measured footsteps and soothing words, they walked up to the feral child. They stayed with her until she calmed. Then, tenderly, they began to pull the net away from her.

There is grandeur in this view of life… that… from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. — Charles Darwin, op. cit.

Afterword

This is a novel. I have tried to dramatize the grand story of human evolution, not to define it; I hope my story is plausible, but this book should not be read as a textbook. Much of it is based on hypothetical reconstructions of the past by experts in the field. In many cases I have chosen what seems to me the most plausible or exciting idea among competing proposals. But some of it is based on my own wild speculation.

I’m very grateful to Eric Brown, who kindly commented on the manuscript. Professors Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart of Warwick University were very generous with their time in providing expert advice to shore up my layman’s guesswork. I’m also indebted to Simon Spanton, for support above and beyond the call of editorial duty. Any remaining errors are, of course, solely my responsibility.

— Stephen Baxter

Great Missenden, U.K.

May 2002