On a few spooky occasions, the people of Syoom have
known that an era has ended without knowing why. That is how it
happened at the end of the Tantalum Era and the beginning of the
Tungsten.
Although it had been over seven hundred lifetimes since
the last eomasp, there were
some historically-minded people who knew what it signified when the
day's rhythm faltered. The day in question was a mere couple of
hours longer than usual, but the event could not be ignored by anyone
brave enough to face the truth. So instead of dating it 17,532,220
Ta, these people realized that in reality there was no 17,532,220
Ta. Rather, it was 1,W.
Awareness of the change did not spread as fast as such
news usually did. For many days innumerable documents
continued to be dated 17,532,221 Ta, 17,532,222 Ta and so on, as if the
Tantalum Era still existed. After all, if nothing big seemed to
have happened, why begin the count of days anew? Eventually,
however, the believers in era 74 won out.
This was partly due to persistence, partly due to the
scientific fact of the eomasp, and partly due
to the gradually increasing rumours that something big had
happened after all.
Uranian scientists still argue as to how it
happened. Was it a rare instance of the aerial micro-organisms
being affected, not by a wave of intense emotion, but by a gradual
process reaching a tipping point? Or was the emotion present, but
concentrated and hidden, among the few kalyars to reach
awareness of their condition on 1,W? For the age of the
kalyar - the evolved man - had dawned.
Era 74, the Tungsten Era, lasted 18,934,797 Uranian
days, or 771 Uranian years, equivalent to 64,800 Earth years. It
was a time of long-drawn-out reckoning for the flaccid culture inherited
from the Tantalum Era. Mankind found its unity
apparently disintegrating into several species. One of these
was a continuation of the Nenns - ordinary Uranian humanity. The
others were called, generically, kalyars, but each
referred to themselves, at different times and frequencies, by
different names. It was an age of confusion that is still
only partially understood by subsequent historians. The land of
Syoom became a melting-pot of species' cultures.
Towards the end of the era, during its last two or three
million days, a mighty process of Syoomean regeneration began, and at
the core of this process was the gradual restoration of the vitality of
the sunnoadex. The Sunnoad, Syoom's living symbol, became
once more its focus, its chief citizen and its recourse in times of
crisis. Parallel with this process, was a movement of population,
a trend by which the Nenns of Syoom were sifted out of the mass of
different kalyar species, and came together to dominate a smaller,
tighter Syoom. The kalyar societies which were left round the
edges of this area gradually took on greater definition.
A crisis brewed, and war threatened, between the central
Nenn area and the kalyar periphery. Complex issues were
involved. A revival of one of the teleological guilds of the
Zirconium Era had conducted research into the planetary id, suggesting
that the Nenns were privileged with regard to destiny, and that they,
and not any one of the kalyar species, must carry the principle torch of
human civilization down through the ages. The guild's research
team had included kalyars as well as Nenns, and could not be accused of
species bias; but for many its conclusions were understandably hard to
accept. If kalyars were so peripheral, why had they evolved?
In answer to this, it was suggested that perhaps they and not the
Nenns were the key to the future, but only the very far future - the
next Great Cycle, in fact. In which case, they should wait and be
content and learn what they could while waiting for thousands of
millions of days till their hour came. Not many of them were
prepared to accept that their species would have to wait that long for a
major role in history.
>> The Rhenium
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