7.50pm Day 131 Janus year 52 Earth year 2370

  Sally says the weather has finally calmed down enough to risk a flight to the Eden outpost, so Hans set off in the Blackbird early this morning. It was a ten hour flight, and a couple of hours ago he called back to say that he'd arrived safely and had landed next to the Mistral, which was showing very clear signs of neglect. One glance was enough to tell him that it'll take weeks of work to get it flying again, if it's possible at all. There was clear anger in his voice, and I don't blame him. Bill and Carol could have sent the plane back on autopilot. We would have respected their wish for privacy. Instead, they deprived us of an important asset that has affected our work severely.

  Worse was to come, though. Hans told us, from the cockpit of the Blackbird before he disembarked, that the Malets had built a number of outbuildings around the main structure of the outpost. One was clearly a laboratory, but the others looked more like habitation modules, as if they were planning for more of us to join them there. There was determination in his voice as he signed off, telling us he was on his way to find out what was going on.

  He called back just a few minutes ago, his voice shaking with shock, and at first we all thought some tragedy must have struck Bill and Carol as we all gathered around in the main common room, listening to his voice coming from the speakers. They've been making babies, he told us. Human babies. Growing them in artificial wombs and then caring for them in a nursery with the help of a couple of nursemaid robots. It seems they've decided to replace the family they lost on Earth with a new one right here on Janus.

  They're not natural children. The Malets have completely re-engineered their biochemistry to allow them to survive on Janus by eating local animals and plants. They have twenty four of them already, created from tissue samples taken from each of us, and Hans says that they intend to create more until they have enough to make a viable breeding population. When they are old enough, Hans says, they intend to release them onto the planet to make lives for themselves. To go forth and multiply.

  Hans was as much at a loss what to do about this as the rest of us. The babies exist. Even after only having known about them for a few minutes, it's obvious that we have no choice but to let them grow up and make lives for themselves. Anything else would be a terrible crime. We can't deny them the right to have children of their own. We made the choice to have ourselves sterilised, to protect this planet from human despoilment, but we have no right to made the same choice for them. The Malets have presented us with a fait accompli and all we can do is try to come to terms with the new reality.

  We're probably going to be talking long into the night about this, but I really can't see any alternative to letting the Malets continue what they've started. I blame Samantha for this more than anyone else. Even more than the Malets themselves. She's the psychologist. She should have seen just how badly the loss of their family affected them.

  But then, we've all lost our families now. Maybe some of us will end up sympathising with them.

  "They made babies," said Fornjot, staring at the others in shock. "Somehow I get the impression that they don't mean in the normal way."

  "One of the first things the Storyteller said was that they couldn't have children," Daphnis agreed. "They deliberately did something to themselves so that they couldn't have children. They didn't want people despoiling... What did he call it? This jewel of a planet."

  "We haven't despoiled it," protested Geirrod. "The world is just the same as it's always been."

  "Maybe they were worried about something we might do," suggested Tarvos.

  "Like what?" asked Geirrod, but Tarvos could only shake his head in bafflement.

  "Making babies," said Daphnis meanwhile, looking unhappy. "The way you might make a bowl or a piece of clothing. It just seems wrong to me."

  "The First Fathers had poisonous blood," Tarvos reminded her. "It meant that any animal that tried to eat them died. I wonder if that meant that animal blood was poisonous to them? Maybe they had to make us with their magic so that we could eat the animals and plants of this land."

  Daphnis was shaking her head, though. "It still feels wrong to me," she said. "And James Cook thought so as well. You could hear it in his voice."

  "But the Malets did it," said Fornjot, "and now the babies exist. The only way to undo what they'd done would have been to kill the babies. Would you do something like that?"

  "They shouldn't have been made in the first place," said Daphnis firmly.

  "If they hadn't, we wouldn't be here," Fornjot pointed out. "And from what he was saying, we might be the last people anywhere."

  "Make it read the next entry," said Fornjot. "Maybe that'll make things clearer."

  Tarvos nodded and did so.

  6.34pm Day132 ,Janus year 52 Earth year 2370

  So, having talked to the Malets for ourselves, we know a bit more than we did yesterday.

  The 24 babies are all just over one Earth year old, each created from tissue samples from one of the original members of the Janus expedition. We've checked the freezers and found that some tissue samples are indeed missing. We didn't check before because we had no reason to believe that a theft might have taken place.

  Looking at it objectively, what Bill and Carol have done is a magnificent achievement. Out of over five hundred amino acids, the proteins of Janus life are based on 22 of them while Earth life uses only twenty. Only two amino acids, Proline and Tyrosine, are common to both worlds. The Malets have had to construct every single protein in the human body, of which there are hundreds of thousands, out of Janus amino acids. Now we know what was taking so much time on the habitat mainframe.

  The same thing then had to be done with their genetic material, lipids, fats and so on. Basically they just took every tiny part of a human being and replaced it with the corresponding Janus part, like taking every plank and timber from a wooden ship and replacing it with a gold part until the entire ship is made of gold, and yet it's the same ship. That makes it sound simple, and yet there must have been a thousand other obstacles to overcome to ensure that all the various proteins, fats and sugar molecules come together to make a living human being. One that can feed on Janus animals and plants. If this had been an official project, there's no doubt they would have received Nobel prizes for what they've done, and yet they had to do it all in secret, knowing that we'd have stopped them if we'd known.

  And they succeeded! We've seen the babies for ourselves over the visual link, and they look like perfectly normal Earth babies, gurgling and looking adorable as they crawl across their nursery. Several of the women are already cooing and aahing over them, looking as if they can't wait to hold them in their arms. The Malets also created a population of mice so that they could test their ability to breed over several generations. To their credit, they did this before they created the first human baby. They say that tenth generation mice are just as perfect as the first generation, and that they have no reason to think that the human babies won't also breed true.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  The genius of what they've done has left us all speechless with wonder, while at the same time we're shocked by their arrogance and presumption. All by themselves, they have decided to overturn the central principle of our mission, which was to make the smallest possible impact on this planet and eventually leave it as we found it. Now, though, we face the prospect that there will soon be a permanent human presence on Janus, possibly becoming industrialised one day. This pristine paradise might one day be polluted and overcrowded, just as Earth was, with many of the wonderful creatures we've been studying driven to extinction. The magnitude of the crime they have committed exceeds everything else in human history, and yet we have no way to punish them and may have no choice but to collaborate in this illegal venture. The babies are innocent, after all, and deserve all the help we can give them.

  We've got a lot to talk about over the coming days, but I wouldn't be surprised if several of us end up going to the Eden outpost to help with the babies. Bringing them back here is out of the question, of course. The Blackbird can only carry four kids at a time, plus the Pilot and another adult to look after the babies, and none of us thinks the aircraft is reliable enough for the job. The very thought of the aircraft having to make a forced landing hundreds of klicks from either habitat and leaving babies stranded in the wilderness is frightening. We will very probably be transferring resources to Eden, therefore, to help expand the outpost as its population grows.

  I'm just glad we'll never have to answer to anyone for this situation. For good or bad, we're completely cut off from whatever is left of the human race. We're free to do whatever we want and no-one can stop us.

  "Crime," said Tarvos, his mouth suddenly dry. "He said that creating us was a crime."

  "The shamen will call it blasphemy," said Fornjot. "If there was any doubt before, it's gone now." He fixed his eyes on the others, one at a time, to make sure they were giving him their total attention. "The shamen can never know any of this. Not if we want to avoid being stoned to death."

  "I hate that thing," said Daphnis with feeling, staring st the Storyteller. "We should destroy it. Smash it to pieces."

  "Let's hear the rest of what it has to say first," said Tarvos, though. "There's only a few more entries left."

  7.31pm Day 135 Janus year 52 mEarth year 2370

  As I expected, two of us, Tom, our doctor, and Sam, his wife, are going across to Eden, taking with them the only functioning type three fabricator to make new outbuildings. Eden, which has turned out to be appropriately named, might end up being larger than the main habitat.

  It'll mean going in the Blackbird, of course, but they're willing to risk it for one journey...

  Tarvos cursed as the voice broke up into static, and he tried several more entries until he found another that would play. He needed to know what has happened! Losing so much of the only surviving record was so frustrating!

  7.15pm Day 200 Janus year 55 Earth year 2372

  The fourth batch of 24 babies has been removed from the artificial wombs. Like all the others, they're all perfect, the result of the Malets having removed all their parents' bad genes and replacing them with good ones taken from another adult. Tom says that their perfect genes means that a viable breeding population might be formed from a far smaller founding population than would normally be the case. Maybe as few as a hundred individuals. Bioengineering technology might have caused a war back home, but it's turning out to be quite useful here and there's no one left to tell us how illegal it is.

  The oldest children, the three year olds, are eager to go out and explore the world. The six adults, the four biologists having been joined by Charles and Mae, have built a five hectare compound for them, surrounded by electrified fences and patrolled by guard robots to protect against predators. They've set up cameras so that the rest of us, back at the main habitat, can watch them running and playing, laughing and shouting at each other. There's talk of the rest of us taking turns to visit Eden, so long as the Blackbird's up to the job, so that we can bounce them on our knees for ourselves. Despite my outrage at what the Malets have done, I confess that I am just as eager to make the visit as anyone else. Some of them are made from my tissue, after all. They're just as much my children as if I'd made them the old fashioned way. and part of me is immeasurably grateful to Bill and Carol for this priceless gift even as I still deplore their actions.

  Samantha is recording some fairy tales on a pad for the children. They can listen to the story of Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty any time they want, even when Sam's busy elsewhere. The rest of us are also busy making toys for the children, as if we're Santa's elves at the North Pole. Everyone is beaming and happy, even Hans, and Bill and Carol are the happiest of all, thinking they've been forgiven for what they've done. I suppose we might as well forgive them because there's nothing we can do to punish them that won't hurt the children. Imprisonment? Exile? The children see them as their parents. Their sudden disappearance would confuse and bewilder them. Besides, we need their scientific expertise if we're to keep the children healthy.

  Getting back to the real reason for being on this world, the jungle has reached its full size and looks just the same as when we arrived here...

  "Little Red Riding Hood," said Geirrod excitedly. "Sleeping beauty. Stories from the first Storyteller."

  "The voice belongs to a woman called Samantha," said Tarvos, his eyes wide with wonder. "We never knew her name before. We've been hearing her voice for generations beyond count, but we never knew her name."

  "He called it a pad," said Fornjot. "The word means nothing to me. The Storyteller was just our name for it. I suppose we should have guessed they called it comething else."

  The number in the corner of the Storyteller (no, the pad, Tarvos corrected himself) said three. He looked at the remaining entries. There weren't very many of them. "I think we might just he able to hear the rest," he said. "If we're lucky."

  "Do it then," said Daphnis. "Get it over with."

  Tarvos nodded and touched the next entry, but he had to skip over several of them before he found another that would play.

  7.15pm Day 200 Janus year 67 Earth year 2381

  Hans died in his sleep last night. He was the third of us to die from old age. We're all stooped and grey now, even with the youth serums. They can't make us live longer. They keep us healthy in our old age, but the grim reaper will still come for us sooner or later. If it wasn't for the children, we would probably be thinking about the euthanasia drugs by now. Ending our lives with dignity before our increasingly infirm bodies rob it from us.

  We can't resist watching the children grow up, though. The eldest of them are twelve Earth years old now. Tall and strong. Healthy and happy. Tom and Charles have been taking them out into the jungle, along with a couple of guard robots, while they're still fit and healthy enough to do so. Soon now, the children will have to cope for themselves. They'll have to move away from the habitats, where more and more of the equipment is breaking down with age, and live in the wild. Hunting and foraging for food and building homes for themselves from leaves and animal hides. The last of us spacemen will die from old age and, as the generations pass, we'll become nothing more than legends to them, if they remember us at all.

  The robots will last a little longer, teaching them how to hunt and make tools, but eventually even they will break down..

  The voice broke off into whistles and pops and Tarvos tried to play the next entry. One entry after another refused to play, though, and he went through all of them without being able to make the device speak again. "That's it," he said. "That's all there is."

  "We could make it speak the first entries again," said Geirrod.

  "Why?" asked Daphnis. "What's the point? We know what we are now. The result of a crime. The greatest crime ever, the man's voice said. We are poison on this jewel of a world. How are we supposed to live with that?"

  "We're the same today as we were yesterday," said Tarvos. "And no matter how much of a jewel this land might be, there's nothing else on it that can talk and think and stare up into the stars with wonder. I think we're the real jewels. Before we came, this land had only eating and killing. Now, though, it has dreams and love and beauty."

  "It had beauty before," said Fornjot.

  "Did it?" asked Tarvos. "Can you have beauty without people to see it?" He looked down at the Storyteller again. "Maybe I will play the first entries again," he said. "It might make new meaning now that we know what we know. Not yet, though. It has to soak up some more sunlight first."

  "More than likely, all this new knowledge will die with us anyway," said Geirrod, staring around at the empty horizon.

  "Someone might still come," said Tarvos.

  All the talking was making his chest ache, though, so he lay back on the sand and tried to get some sleep.