Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,290

continue to exist in the nooks and crannies of the Land, as Cairn and other old souls do here in Camp, but it is the Autochthons who are meant to prosper and to rule.”

It had been a long while since Adam and Eve had copulated, but they did so on the day that the Autochthons came down from Elkirk, and after that made a habit of it.

The Autochthons made camp in the cleared land surrounding Eltown. This had become overgrown with low scrubby vegetation considered inedible and useless. But the mounts of the Autochthons could seemingly subsist on any kind of vegetation that they could get into their mouths, and so it suited them. When their beasts had cleared an area, the Autochthons, rather than allowing the weeds to grow back, would plant it thickly with seeds that they had brought with them in sacks. Concerning these there was much curiosity among the people of Eltown. Adam did not need to wait for them to sprout and grow to know that it would be some manner of new plant invented by El to sustain his people and that it would grow well and feed them more abundantly than the crops traditionally raised, and the wild plants gathered, by the folk of Eltown.

The Autochthons kept coming, a few at a time. According to Mab, who flew far and wide across the sea of grass, they issued from the base of the Hive every day in scores, each score behind a Captain, and formed up in columns that headed off in several directions. Some rode straight for Elkirk, but others strayed off toward parts of the Land of which Mab knew nothing.

Before long, Eltown was surrounded on all sides, save the riverfront, by fields cleared and sown by the Autochthons. This gave fresh impetus to Feller’s project. For until then it had been the habit of the people of Eltown to assume that they could go on forever sprawling out into the treeless waste that they had made around them. But the enclosure of the town changed their thinking and made them of a mind to build more on what space was still to be had. The result was a demand for more logs. Feller renewed his planning and preparations, which had languished as his enterprise had grown more ambitious. His promise to build a new town on the site was of interest to those who now felt hemmed in by the Autochthons and their mounts and their farms.

The old souls of Camp had been slow to grasp the nature of these changes, for little had altered in their world since the days of the Trek. They did not think or act at the same pace as others. Cairn, for example, though he had moved rapidly against Messenger of El, had been known to remain motionless for years at a time. Though they were fascinated with and delighted by the twelve children of Adam and Eve, they were unable to keep up with the speed and agility of their play. The best that they could do was to weave a makeshift barrier of branches and vines around the edge of Camp’s central clearing and then try to dissuade the little ones from climbing over it.

Returning every so often from his errands in Town, Adam would tell the people of Camp about the settlements being created by the Autochthons and the tools and materials being stockpiled by Feller. Though they listened and seemed to take in his words, they did not seem to grasp the nature of things until one day when Adam insisted that some of them must leave the familiar confines of Camp, even if only for a few hours, and go down to the river with him.

They made arrangements for the twelve little ones to be looked after, entrusting them to souls such as Mab and Dusty who could be relied on not to be outrun or outwitted. Adam walked down the hill in the company of Eve, Walksfar, Beast, and Cairn. When they had emerged from the woods that girded the hill and come out into the open they were able to look across the river into the heart of Eltown.

Formerly this had been partly concealed behind ramparts of logs, but these had become depleted of late and so the flames and smoke of the forges and kilns were directly visible, and around them the camp where newly arrived souls were wont to dwell in the open. Behind that