"8.45 am February 19th," said the Storyteller. "Janus year zero. Earth year 2360."

  "This is the journal ofJames Cook, Leader of the Janus expedition..."

  "James Cook!" cried Geirrod in amazement. "One of the First Fathers..."

  "Shut up," Tarvos told him sharply. "Just listen."

  "On our first day on our new world," the voice continued, "it seems appropriate to start a new journal even though there's still a little space left on the old one. Everything that happened to us before this moment, every part of our old lives, is gone forever, twenty five light years away across empty space. We can never go back to it, and no part of it will ever come here to touch upon us. Even news of the Sol system will be twenty five years out of date by the time it gets to us...

  "Zol" cried Geirrod again. "The land of..."

  "Gyre," said Tarvos with growing frustration. "If you can't just sit and listen, go somewhere else. The rest of us want to hear this." The other man nodded with chagrin and returned his attention to the words coming from the Storyteller.

  "For all intents and purposes, the twenty four of us are all alone in the universe. A new journal, therefore, in which to record my new life.

  "The Stargate jump went perfectly, and we re-entered the universe less than a million kilometres from Janus, the world we came to study. A quick systems check showed that our ship had come through the transit in perfect condition and we fired up the engines for the two day trip to reach orbit. Another twelve hours was enough to confirm that the data sent back by the unmanned probes was accurate, and we stared out through the viewports in wonder at the jewel of a world that lay spread out before us. The only other planet discovered so far with an advanced biosphere of multicellular life. No mere slime and microbes here but herbivores the size of the biggest dinosaurs lumbering across the landscape, preyed upon by fearsome predators reminiscent of Earth's ancient history. All just waiting to be studied, catalogued and analysed.

  "It is a treasure of a world that will never be colonised. Nothing will be allowed to pollute this pristine wilderness. No cities will ever be built here. No industries will ever dig up the landscape and pollute the environment. Even the habitat in which we will live is biodegradable, although it will take a thousand years or so for the last trace of it to vanish. The twenty four of us will spend the remainder of our lives studying this world, and when we die we will leave it as we found it.

  "To ensure this, we have all been irreversibly sterilised. A procedure so thorough that it can never be reversed. They must have thought we might be tempted to try, though, with several of us having doctorates in surgery and medicine, so only people who already have children to carry on their names and legacies back in the Sol system were considered for the expedition. When we come to the end of our lives, there are drugs on board that will ensure that our final hours are peaceful and pleasurable, and then the only knowledge the human race will have of this world will be the data streams we will have sent back to Earth. I suppose it's possible that someone might build another stargate one day to send another ship here, but I really hope they don't. If we are successful in exploring every corner of this world and uncovering its every secret, they won't have to.

  "Our descent to the landing site that had been selected for us was textbook perfect and we had a party to celebrate, although the stores only contain non-alcoholic beverages. Maybe they thought one of the pilots might override the autopilot and try to land the ship manually while under the influence. Now that we're safely on the ground, though, I can see no reason not to let Bill build a still, and once all the essential work is done, a few weeks from now, we'll be able to have a real party.

  "Later today we will begin unpacking and assembling the habitat in which we will spend the rest of our lives. One of the first priorities will be the uplink with which we will communicate with Earth, sending back our results and receiving twenty five year-old news of home. I have never felt so excited. Everything lies ahead of us and I can't wait to get started.

  The voice fell silent, although the text remained on the upper surface of the Storyteller. Tarvos stared at it in fascination while the others crowded close on either side to see as well. "He's speaking our language," he said, "but there are so many strange words."

  "Only to be expected when he comes from the world of the Ancestors," Fornjot replied. "The shamen say it was a world of wonders and miracles."

  "It's like the tribal records," said Daphnis, frowning down at the strange words. "The records of the great deeds done by the people of past generations." She was almost trembling with awe and wonder, Tarvos saw. "This is the greatest discovery since the days of... In all history."

  "Make it speak again," said Geirrod. "Make it tell us more."

  Tarvos was looking at he small symbols above the text, though. The number followed by the symbol of the diagonal line with circles above and below. It had been a seven when the Storyteller had started speaking. He'd noticed it drop to a six and now it was a five. He had no idea what it meant but it filled him with a strange foreboding. When it reaches zero something will happen, he thought, but what?

  There was another symbol at the top left. A strange symbol that turned back on itself. He touched it and the lines of text vanished to be replaced by the row of numbers they'd seen before. "I bet they're dates," he said. "The date on which each entry was written. The top one, the one we just heard, was the first entry. The next one down will be the second entry."

  "So make it speak the second entry," said Geirrod impatiently.

  He reached out a hand, one finger pointed, but Tarvos grabbed it and pushed it away. "We need to be careful," he said. "We don't dare risk damaging it." He was looking at the 5 again and knew he'd be a lot happier if that number were higher.

  "It can't hurt to make it speak one more time before we go to sleep," said Daphnis, staring at him with eyes that reflected the last light of the sunset. "Just one more."

  "Just one perhaps," said Tarvos, feeling himself relenting as her eyes fixed on his. He could feel them reaching deep into his soul, touching the most basic essence of who he was. He could no more resist it than he could fly. "Just one. Okay?"

  "Just one," Daphnis agreed. "So go on. Do it."

  Tarvos nodded and gently touched the second row of numbers. Another page of text appeared and the voice began to speak again.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  "7.20 pm February 23rd Janus year zero

  "The main habitat is complete and I am exhausted. We all are. We're going to take a day or two to relax before we begin work on the outposts. All except for Carol and Bill who have already begun gathering specimens for their little zoo. They're the youngest of us, and evidently the ones with the most energy. Just watching them fabricating equipment and welding them together for sixteen hours at a time makes me feel tired. Tom had to threaten them with sedatives unless they took a break.

  "Thanks to them, though, we got the habitat up a full day before schedule, and now begins the fun job of moving into it. The ship was okay, but the cabins were small and cramped. Now we can spread out with each of us having a stateroom of the size that only the very wealthiest can afford back on overcrowded Earth. We're located about twenty klicks from the coast, within easy travelling distance of a dozen major biomes, and our latitude is at what would be the Tropic of Cancer on Earth. That means that, hot though it is at the moment, we'll still be comfortable during the long, brutal winter. We'll be able to observe how the local wildlife copes as the temperatures fall, about three years from now, and if any of us are still alive when the winter comes to an end we'll be able to observe how they adapt to the returning heat. Even if we have all succumbed to old age by then, though, we'll have left automatic equipment that should continue to operate for several years longer, so that the folks back home will be able to see it even if we can't.

  "The local wildlife has absolutely no fear of us and seems quite curious, often wandering up to investigate while we're out and about and sniffing at us with their long, trunklike noses. Some are even playful, especially the ones Helga calls the heffalumps. They seem to think that we're the young of their kind and keep trying to feed us the local vegetation that they bring to us scooped up in their long tusks. This worries me a bit, because if we look like the young of a local herbivore, that might make us attractive to the local carnivores.

  "Janice isn't as worried about this as I think she should be. She thinks that the tasers we carry with us whenever we're outside will drive away even the largest rexes. Maybe she's right, but I've still made it mandatory that no-one goes outside alone. The fact that our alien biochemistry will kill any Predator that tries to eat us will be little consolation while we're being crunched between their teeth.

  "All in all, though, I'm very pleased with how things have been going so far. Everyone, including myself, is itching to get down to some serious exploring. Kwame and Soichi are almost bursting with eagerness to take the aircraft up for a spin, and Hans has already been driving one of the rovers around like a race car, ignoring my half hearted condemnations. That made me realise that we have no way of punishing anyone who does anything naughty, but I really don't think that will be a problem. Being here, with the rest of our lives to explore this brand new planet, simply has everyone brimming over with enthusiasm and things will quiet down once they settle into their new lives.

  "Habitat?" said Fornjot. "That sounds a bit like house. They came here in their ship and built a house. Is that what they said?"

  "What's a ship?" asked Daphnis.

  "Like a wagon but for travelling on water," said Fornjot. "The sea folk use them. The people of the Merlin tribe trade with them sometimes. I imagine they're abandoning their coastal villages as the sea level rises. Preparing to move inland."

  "They don't move north like we do?" asked Geirrod.

  "They're better at enduring the heat than we are," Tarvos told him. "And the desert won't reach all the way to the sea. There'll be a strip of forest along the coast. They'll live there, returning to their winter villages when the sea level drops again as the long winter returns."

  He looked at the number beside the strange symbol at the top of the Storyteller. It now said 3. "Maybe we can listen to one more,"he said. "Just one."

  The others grinned at each other in amusement. "Well, if you want," said Daphnis. "If you think it's worth the risk."

  "What risk?" asked Geirrod, suddenly looking worried.

  "There's no risk," said Tarvos. "At least, I don't think so. The number shows how much sunlight it's got left, I think. When it runs out, it stops talking until it's soaked up some more sunlight. All we do is leave it in the sun and it'll talk again later."

  "So go on," said Daphnis. "Make it talk again. Let's hear the next bit."

  Tarvos nodded and took the Storyteller back to the list of contents. He touched his finger gently to the next one down.

  "15pm February 27th Janus year zero

  "We have finished setting up the uplink that will communicate with the radio telescope we left up in orbit, and can now begin sending data reports back to Earth. It will take them twenty five years to travel all the way across space, and it will be another twenty five years before we learn how they react to them. I like to think that a good many of us will still be alive when that day comes. I'll be in my nineties, still in the prime of my life, and Carol and Bill will still be in their early eighties. Alberto, the oldest of us, will be the only one over a hundred, and even he has a good chance of still being hale and hearty with the youth serums we can manufacture in the lab.

  "The greatest threat to our lives, I think, is accident. We know almost nothing about the geology and the weather patterns of this world yet, and there are plenty of large animals that might harm us, mistaking us for local animals they have reason to be antagonistic towards. There is almost certain to be a learning curve that may cause injuries to some of us, but there's not much that our large and well equipped medbay can't handle. So long as the brain is undamaged, pretty much everything else can be fixed, and so I am cautiously hopeful that all twenty four of us will still be here to hear the congratulatory message Earth will send us in half a century.

  "Maurice and Sebastian have found a spot where they want to set up their first research outpost, near the coast of the Eastern Ocean. They want to study some of this world's aquatic life as well as the denizens of the coastal forests. They say that the...

  The voice suddenly fell silent with a squawk like the cry of a gribb. Tarvos leaned forward to stare at the Storyteller in concern. Some words had appeared at the bottom, he saw. 'Contents of journal corrupted' . "What does that mean?" he asked.

  "Is it broken?" asked Daphnis. "Did we break it?"

  Tarvos went back to the list of dates. He tried the next one down but the surface of the device turned black with only the words 'Contents of journal corrupted' in the middle. He tried again and again, growing more worried and anxious as he did so. but eventually words returned and he breathed a sigh of relief as the device began to speak again.

  "...that his leg iniury should heal fully in just a couple of weeks. More worrying is the loss of a rover. We still have five others, it's true, but they were supposed to be good for fifty years. Maybe a lemon slipped through the inspection process, or maybe there's something in the environment here that ages them prematurely. I've got Hans and Charles going over the other rovers and the aircraft with a fine tooth comb. They say they haven't found any cause for concern yet, but we'll see what they've found when they've stripped them right down and put them back together again.

  "I'm trying not to jump to the conclusion that Hans, driving them like racing cars as he does, was responsible for the failure of the steering system. If that's the case, Charles will find the evidence and then I'll have to have a conversation with him. I really don't want resentments to start forming between us so early in the mission, though. We're all stuck on this planet together, and life will be a lot more bearable if we all get along.

  "All that time lying in the broken quetzal," said Tarvos. "I think the Storyteller's like a sheet of vellum that's been left in the damp too long. Mold grows on it and you can't see the words any more. That's what 'corrupted' means, I reckon. I reckon there'll be more bits that have been corrupted. We'll just have to pass over them."

  The number at the top of the Storyteller was now 1 and it had turned red. "And that's it for tonight," he said. I'll make sure it gets plenty of sun tomorrow, and we can hear more when we stop to eat. Right now, though, it's time to sleep."

  The others agreed, but they stared at the tiny, black device as Tarvos tucked it back into his tunic and Tarvos guessed that their minds were as numb and overawed by what they'd heard as his was. Then they moved back to the area of level ground they'd found. They lay down and cuddled up to each other as the evening began to grow cold, but it was a long time before any of them were able to fall asleep as the strange words of the Storyteller kept going through their heads, as if thinking about them would make them easier to understand.