My mind’s touch had been less light this time than before. But how would the creator of my little Eden react if he realized I was lying to him? I stopped only when I realized I was reading from the old children’s Bible. I smiled back, put on my suit, buckled my seatbelt, still according to the regulations, entered the descent data, pressed the lever and leaned against the backrest: from now on everything would be automated. “I don’t know,” shrugs Eva. Eventually they formed, and if they had seemed neutral before, this time the question seemed downright accusatory:
“Are you Adam? Nothing could be heard but a sort of rustling, as if somewhere in the distance the wind was passing through the willows. I leaned back again, took another deep breath and opened my helmet: if I couldn’t breathe the planet’s air, there was no point in prolonging the agony. I took Pauline, or Eve, gently by the elbow and explained:
“If what I suspect is true we shall live nine hundred years exactly as long as Adam and Eve lived. Of the thousands of shuttles launched before we left the mothership, none had sent such a signal. I tried to close my mind so that the rest of it couldn’t be read because it was clear to me now that my hallucinations
