In the future deep space travel is a regular occurrence. After completing a mission to take supplies to Earth 2, or Genesis as the colonists call it, something goes horribly wrong with the space shuttle returning Adam Evans and his crew mates to Earth. The shuttle crashes and Adam and Jason survive, but the Earth they return to has changed greatly.<br><br>When tragedy strikes, leaving Adam on his own, he finds the paradise surrounding him has an increasingly darker side. He assumes he can outsmart it, beat it. The product of a lost past, where men and speech are free, he rebels against the rules restricting him. But is he just setting himself up for failure, for pain and misery? Can he ever hope to outwit the powers that be?<br><br>Then he meets River Boy, the only person in a village full of dirty, animalistic villagers with whom he connects. There is something intelligent about River Boy. Something civilized about him. Yet is Adam’s growing closeness to River Boy going to save him from himself? Or will his stubbornness, his rebelliousness, cost him more than he is able to pay?

Animals

“Only one Dark Cloud. Dark Cloud destroy all. Kill all people.” She shook her head and another leaf fell out. “Not all people, most all people.”


“A nuclear bomb?” asked Adam. “A nuclear war?”


Full Moon shook her head again. She leaned forward, her breasts hanging down from her chest like twin pendulums. She took Adam’s bowl to fill it with more broth. “Very good this,” she said, passing the bowl back to Adam. “Make starman better.”


“But I don’t understand. How can it be that the war happened over two hundred years ago?” Adam spooned more of the watery broth into his mouth and swallowed. “Unless something went wrong. A malfunction with the auto-pilot.” He remembered his three crew mates in the cock pit. “But no. That’s a hundred and fifty years.” He stopped eating and stared into space with a frown of concentration. “Impossible.”


“What starman say? Starman words no meaning.”


Adam realised he’d been mumbling to himself. “Why did you ask if my friend had killed anything?”


Chapter 7