“As far as we can estimate, there were at least six or seven million species of animals living on Earth before the Event. Now there’s about a hundred thousand. Can you imagine what it must have been like?”
“He was cagey about it,” Lamont explained to Ed Spratt as he drew a cup of coffee from the dispenser in the Chief Technician’s office. “He said something or other about using the implants to track animals. Doesn't sound much like doctor’s work to me.”
Ed took a slow puff from his pipe and leaned back in his chair. He had his feet on his desk, with several layers of papers scattered haphazardly beneath the boots. “Faust’s a doctor, all right,” he explained, “But he was picked for this crew mainly because of his other experience. Most of his career has been spent traveling all over the earth, studying the aftereffects of the Epiphany event. Tracking animals would have been part of that.”
“Why?” Lamont asked. He settled into a chair across from the desk and set his steaming cup on a relatively stable-looking area before lighting a cigarette.
“How much do you know about the Event?” Ed asked.
“As much as anyone,” Lamont shrugged. “An atmospheric explosion of exotic particles. Mass extinction. Black sky.”
“Think about what mass extinction really means,” Spratt said, dropping his feet and leaning forward. “As far as we can estimate, there were at least six or seven million species of animals living on Earth before the Event. Now there’s about a hundred thousand. Can you imagine what it must have been like?”
“God,” Lamont whispered, taking a long pull from his cigarette. “It’s hard to think about.”
“That’s literally true,” Ed nodded. “One theory is that the Epiphany event was so traumatic that our whole species is shell-shocked. That’s why the people who remember what it was like before tend not to remember much. It takes a special kind of person to focus on something like that day-in and day-out for nearly fifty years.”
“And Rosemary was his assistant doing that before she followed him here, is that right?” Lamont asked.
Ed nodded, his expression obscured by the glare of fluorescent lights in his thick glasses. “She seems like the happy-go-lucky type, but take it from me: That girl’s seen things.”
Next: That’s Space For You