Continued from The
Plunderers
The Nitrogen Era
The Nitrogen Era, era 7, lasted 37,759 days - or 129
Earth years. So, in duration it was one of the minor
eras. But it has left a huge shadow on the collective memory
of Uranian civilization.
Unfortunately we don't know nearly enough, as yet,
to fill out our picture of the era. As with Earth's Dark Ages, we
can get fooled by the term we've invented for the period. The
shadows caused by our ignorance, the incompleteness of the record, can
get laughably mistranslated by our imaginations into real, literal
"darkness", as though people had to grope around with flashlights
during those times.
Also like Earth's Dark Ages, the Nitrogen Era
leaves us with awkward questions regarding urban life during the
period. Basically, how did civilization endure? For endure
it did, somehow. What finally put paid to the archaic cities of
Syoom was not the perils of this transition period but - as we shall see
- the mighty rebuilding which took place shortly afterwards at the
beginning of era 15.
Era 7 was "dark" because it was a time of
disorder, partial chaos, wars and, most notably, that rare
thing in Uranian history, demoralization.
Battles were fought over the distribution of the
dwindling remains of the Sun-Egg, while, with the disbandment of the
Rin-Stazel, there was no more centralized supervision of research
into alternative sources of energy. Hope dwindled,
and many people believed that human civilization was on the
way out, that the eternal pressure of Fyaym would
overwhelm Syoom. In this exceptional era there
seems to have been a fading, an obscuring, of the
usual awareness of the destined future. Many people lost the faith
that there would be 92 eras; and instead there came a sense that
the 7th was most likely the last, and that the end was nigh.
Despair was by no means universal. People still
strove. Guilds and corporations and secret societies, as well as a
few of the city governments, did their best to take over where the
Rin-Stazel had left off. Research became more competitive, less
scrupulous. Some avenues of research, which had been shunned as
repugnant and dangerous in the previous two eras, were now
surreptitiously embarked upon. These included lines of
inquiry into certain sinister relics left by a previous Great Cycle
civilization which by far pre-dated humanity. We also suspect that
some organizations investigated other dimensions apart from Chelth;
dubious dimensions which to us are no more than names.
And finally there were some emanations from the remains
of Dmara. The now-dry sivvan from which humans had
originated, had become a sacred, shunned, deserted site. One
theory goes that there must have been a fateful attempt to sample and
utilise the exhalations from the basin of that vanished lake. The
result: a mix of qualities, a perversion of the natural order,
analogous to something paradoxical in Earth culture, expressed in
that odd juxtaposition of ideas: ghosts (unholy) and
churchyards (holy).
From some such source, or perhaps from some home-grown
evil genius, came the dread invention known to posterity as the
Corruption Ray.
This is no mere legend; it definitely existed, and on at
least one later occasion was actually rediscovered, though fortunately
not for long. We are ignorant as to how it worked, but the effect
is certain: it was a long-range weapon, trained in secret upon a
city by another city or fortress, and what it did can be summed up in a
phrase which may raise a laugh - the weakening of moral
fibre.
At first, this was traceable statistically as a drop in
the level of public spirit and cultural integrity. Possible
analogies to Earth history include the cultural revolution in
Britain during the century after World War II, when the
country's constitutional, institutional and cultural heritage was abandoned. One symptom of this type
of illness is that referents are despised. For example, by
the alteration of historic boundaries and the abolition of historic
weights and measures, inherited categories and institutions are "brought
into line" with abstract notions of modernity and thus shorn of their
character and individuality; and finally, when the people have been
deprived of all their roots, the enemy's task of conquest or absorption
is rendered easy.
The Uranians of era 7, however, did not altogether give
in to this sad process. Enough of them resisted, to make
the corrupters feel unsafe. We hardly know any of the
details, but it seems that the "rayers" were driven out of city after
city until the last and most desperate phase of the struggle, when,
towards the end of the era, the Ray emanated from a hidden
fortress. By this time, the users of the Ray had obtained help
from some non-human enemies of mankind, somewhere in Fyaym,
and had become much harder to find and overthrow.
It may be not quite fair to characterise all the users
of the Ray as villains. In the early stages at least, their action
may have sprung from a ruthless but partly justifiable desire to
increase the tough-minded element in human society, to concentrate on
facing the energy problem and dare to plunder the dimension of Chelth as
had been planned before the disastrous end of era 6. But by the
finale of era 7, the Corruption Ray and its users formed an
unquestionable and increasing force for evil.
Terrific and heroic efforts must have been made to seek
out and battle the users of the Ray and to destroy their horrendous
weapon. We hope that in due course research will reveal how it was
done. Meanwhile, one of the things we do know about
the period of that epic struggle - the last few thousand days
of era 7 - is that a certain Hyala Movoun was growing to womanhood
among the crystal groves of Opahej.
The Oxygen Era
Crystal "groves" are actually small forests of
crystalline plants, with so many natural defences that they are
virtually immune to attack. Their proprietors are people whose families
have, over many lifetimes, patiently fostered a relationship of trust
with their groves. Often nicknamed the Lucky Ones, these
proprietors are in a position of comfort and security. A lucrative
crop of excess crystals is ceded to them by the grove in return for
services easily rendered such as weeding and pruning.
These families form an independent class of people, able
to withdraw deep into their groves in times of trouble, and thus
relatively unaffected by the political chaos and moral darkness of
periods such as the Nitrogen Era. So by merely existing, the Lucky
Ones have performed a service to Uranian mankind. On the debit
side, they have tended to be rather selfish, and their positive
contribution to history has been surprisingly small. Except, that
is, for Hyala Movoun.
She first became famous as a teacher. Educational
systems in the Terrestrial sense are not a feature of Uranian
civilization, for Uranian children do not have to be coaxed to learn;
but Uranian teachers do exist: freelancers who appear on the scene if
and when they see a need for some special service which only they can
perform. Hyala Movoun, as a young woman of about 7000 days,
decided that her vocation was to help restore the meanings of words
which had become blunted and rendered almost useless by the cynicism
prevailing during the blight caused by the Corruption Ray.
Accordingly she perfected some mental exercises and some
appropriate dialectical techniques, and set up as a tutor - a
sophist, our ancient Greeks would have called her - to advise those in
positions of influence in her adopted city of Narar. But her
success was so astonishing and so widespread that she was soon
established at Contahl, then still the most powerful city on
Ooranye. Her message of verbal purity swept through Syoom like
flame through dry tinder. Part of the explanation must lie in her
own exceptional nature, and part in the fact that this was what the
world was desperately waiting for: someone to wean it from sniggering,
from flippancy, from the whole miasma left behind by the evil events of
recent times. The effect of her teaching built up quickly to the
point at which the general public emotion affected the rhythm of
daylight, and this eomasp marked a change of
era.
This Oxygen Era lasted a mere 40
days, heady days of pan-Syoomean renewal. Hyala Movoun was invited
to make her home and office in the central north-polar city of Skyyon,
and to take the government of Syoom into her hands. She agreed to
the move, but as to the government her answer was neither a straight yes
nor a straight no. No single individual had ever ruled Syoom, and
she went on record as saying that it could not be done. On the
other hand she saw the need for some international focus, some living
symbol to whom the cities of mankind could give their allegiance in
certain matters of common interest and common principle. In short,
she recognized the need for a Noad of Noads; and she became the first
one in history - the first individual to bear a number after nen's name:
Hyala Movoun 1. Her investiture as Sunnoad and the festivities
associated with it caused another heightened, etheric wave of emotion:
the 22 hours known to history as the Fluorine
Era.
The Neon
Era
Lasting 5,558 Uranian days or 19 Earth years, this
era is also known simply as the Reign of Hyala Movoun. Naturally
it is crammed with legends, some believable and some not, centred around
the personality and exploits of the First Sunnoad. A few critics
have tried to find fault with her, but it has not been easy.
Obviously her charisma must have inspired such a combination of awe
and affection that problems which would have baffled other
statesmen simply dissolved before her glance. Yet this
reliance on individual greatness has been cited as a defect of the
regime; for what then happens when the individual who sustains it is no
more?
Another criticism is that Hyala as time went by began to
rely too much on her own past record; in other words, it could be said
that she became lazy, or at any rate naive, believing that her
influence, her beauty and kindness and lremd
intuition, would suffice to solve every problem.
A few people voiced these doubts at the time.
Historians will argue forever as to whether they were justified.
What is certain, is that Hyala came to agree that a Sunnoad must submit
occasionally to freelance Correction - provided the Corrector was
willing to put nen's life on the line.
The institution of Correction, therefore, is almost as
old as the sunnoadex: for the first Corrector, Lehal Thoal, corrected
the first Sunnoad, Hyala Movoun.
The occasion was close to the end of the Neon Era.
The issue was, yet again, the energy crisis. The crisis had been
muted for a while because the very depths to which society had sunk
during the Nitrogen Era had lessened people's demands for energy, and
humanity during the Neon Era for a while had lived on gratitude and
euphoria; yet the situation was not stable, and Hyala Movoun knew that
the problem had merely been shelved for a short period. Any
concerted threat from Fyaym would find Syoom unable to defend
itself.
Be it noted that the gentle, charming, beautiful Hyala
Movoun made the ruthless decision to renew the project of the
Rin-Stazel to plunder the dimension of Chelth. She saw no
other way to obtain for her people the power-source they needed.
Tapping the last dregs of the Sun-Egg, the great Project was
revived. Since the records have been hidden or destroyed, we
do not know how it was done, and it is doubtless best - though of course
frustrating for the historian - that we do not know.
What we do know is that towards the end, Hyala Movoun
had doubts about this transdimensional solution to the energy
crisis. She found out something - we are not sure what - which
made her try to delay or even halt the Project. This is where
Lehal Thoal took the action which might have resulted in his execution -
he coerced the Sunnoad. In fact he kidnapped her and kept her
hostage for three days, until he managed to persuade her to rescind her
order and let the Project go ahead. Then he released her, and
she - with a genius for turning defeat into victory - created an
institution and a tradition out of what had happened, proclaiming Lehal
Thoal the first Corrector.
These events, dramatic though they were, are
overshadowed by the universe-shaking epic which followed. The
next four eras lasted a very short time in total, but it is fair to say
that no other period has had such an impact upon Uranian
history.
Here it will be mentioned, in passing, that one of the
memorable achievements of the Neon Era was the invention of the
skimmer, the vehicle which ever since has been used more than
any other for individual personal transport on Ooranye. The
skimmer's design grew out of that of the hover-raft of the Lithium
Era. A skimmer is lighter, more streamlined and much more
swift. Mounted on skimmers, Uranian wayfarers feel most in their
element, roaming free across the plains of the giant planet.
Legends grew up around the pioneer skimmer-pilots of the Neon Era,
though the vehicles were not mass-produced or available to all who
wanted them until the Phosphorus Era.
Chelth
It proved impossible to keep the plunder of Chelth a
secret. As soon as the source was tapped, as soon as power
began to flow from Chelth to a receptable at a location in
our universe - namely the Vaults of Skyyon on
Ooranye - such a disturbance arose in the air, that everyone
knew a new era had begun. The need for secrecy was, however,
universally understood. Secrecy not with regard to Uranians, but
with regard to the people - if any existed - of Chelth. In other
words it was feared that other things besides power might flow along the
transdimensional "cable" - namely, knowledge, tension, guilt. The
people of Syoom made a supreme effort to quieten their thoughts, to say
"Sh....." with their minds, to avoid the subject which was uppermost in
all their thoughts.
For 130 days and 6 hours (the Sodium
Era) it worked: the tapping of energy continued, the energy-vats in
Syyon and other cities grew fuller, the enterprise went ahead
successfully. Then came what became known in history and folklore
as the "flare of arrest".
It lasted 58 minutes, and has counted in history as the
Magnesium Era. No one who lived through it
ever described it scientifically. Poets and storytellers have
likened it to a sense of being tapped on the shoulder by an invisible
being who somehow personifies a whole universe. Scientists
generally assume that the mental effect was caused by something real,
namely the action of a Chelthan entity who had become aware of what our
universe was doing to his, and who was trying to reverse the
process.
Then came the last great action of Hyala Movoun.
At least, it is supposed that the action was hers. It is unlikely
that anyone else could have done it - could have made a mental bargain
with the forces from Chelth, could have found an ally there who was
willing to come to an agreement: "destroy the Project now, destroy its
records, and we will allow you to keep what you have gained so far;
provided that you also give us.... yourself." This bargain
was struck during the 2 hours and 43 minutes of the Aluminium Era, while the world held its collective
breath.
The deed was done, and a strange peace fell over the
land of Syoom, a quietness of sorrow and triumph. The Silicon Era lasted one day and 26 hours, during which
millions of inhabitants of Uranian cities sat or stood waiting for Hyala
Movoun to die. Her people all had the idea in their minds,
that her soul would soon be borne away to Chelth, to be experimented on
by her adversaries. They trusted that her ally there would spare
her torment, but there was nothing they could do. Everyone quietly
knew these things, though since the tap was now off, the cable cut,
between Chelth and our universe, this knowledge was fading like a dream,
and would not outlast the hours of this era.
>> The
Phosphorus Era
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