Darwin's Paradox Read Online Free

goes back for supplies. Supplies that he shares with us.” He pointed down. “Those Enviro-Center hiking shoes on your feet, for instance. Everything you’re wearing, for that matter, is thanks to him. He taught you how to tan hides and make clothes to replace our worn-out Icarian stuff.”
    Daniel was right. She had so much to thank Aard for, including his incredible patience with her as she bumbled through her first efforts at preparing the hides of young does. Killing the deer had been the easiest part, she recalled, admitting that her aim and speed surpassed even Aard’s expert marksmanship. He’d painstakingly taught her how to glove-skin rabbits, how to flesh, soak, grain and dress, and then smoke various larger animal hides like deer and moose. She’d even learned to apply the grizzly task of cracking open the skull and removing the animal’s brain for later use when “dressing” the hide. He’d shown her how to remove and prepare sinew fibers for cordage and thread and so much more.
    “Besides,” Daniel went on, “it doesn’t matter who or what Aard was in Icaria. Out here he’s proven to be our friend.”
    She winced and fought from glaring at him. His words carried with them a hint of their own history in Icaria, one of mutual deception. She’d also been Prometheus, the reason for Darwin disease. When they’d first left Icaria, there had been some concern as to whether she would pass the lethal form of Darwin to Daniel, but obviously, that didn’t happen. As far as Daniel was concerned all that was history, along with her communicating in her head with Icaria’s machine world and SAM, her A.I. But he was wrong , she thought. She was still a veemeld, even if he’d decided it was irrelevant out here and didn’t want to talk about it or think about it. And she still carried Darwin. So did her daughter. There was no doubt in her mind that Angel was also a veemeld and, like Julie, one with extremely unique qualities.
    “I think you’re selling Aard short,” Daniel continued, crossing his arms over his chest. “He has lots of admirable qualities that he shares with Angel.”
    “Like feeding her all those tall tales about Icaria?” she said with a sharp laugh. Angel had been getting annoyingly curious, almost obsessed, about Icaria of late.
    “You’re just jealous he isn’t filling you in on the news,” he responded, smirking back at her.
    She blushed at his inference. He knew her feelings about Icaria, even though she tried to hide them. She knew she wasn’t easy to live with and her incomprehensible yearning to return to Icaria must have played havoc with his ego at times.
    “And you’re one to talk,” he went on. “I can remember a certain young girl feeding an impressionable inner-city boy with the tantalizing wonders of the outer-city...”
    She blushed harder and bowed her head, ashamed at having fed Daniel those stories when they’d techno-slummed in the inner city as adolescents—before she’d left him behind for the outer-city. Despite his earlier insistence that he’d understood her actions, she wondered if he still harbored a trace of bitterness.
    As if reading her mind, Daniel chuckled and embraced her by the waist, touching his head to hers. “Darling, I loved you for sharing your dreams,” he said quietly. “You were my angel.” He kissed her forehead. “You still are.” When she looked up, his mouth closed over hers.

3
    Gathering her lower lip in her teeth, Julie peered over the ledge of the gorge. She could just make out the tree that had saved Angel’s life, its gnarled branches stretching out from a crevasse about ten meters down. She firmed her lips with determination and tied the rope to a pitch pine tree behind her. After pulling on her gloves and looping the rope through her belt buckle as a makeshift caribiner, Julie flung the remaining line over the edge. She’d have preferred to use a caribiner to rappel down the cliff but Aard’s zeal to carry out