Arclour, the
fabled Starward Polar region of Ooranye, antipodeal to the Sunward
City, Skyyon, has traditionally stood for everything that is utterly
remote, mysterious and unattainable. Sunnoad Fiarr Fosn 723 had
intended to reach it but although he had commanded fifteen hundred
airships his fleet had been destroyed many thousands of miles
short of his goal, and, for hundreds of millions of days since then, the
legendary disaster had seemed to confirm that mankind was not destined
to penetrate to Arclour. Recently, however, Uranians - like
Terrestrials after the first moon landings - have had to get used to
thinking of what used
to be unattainable, as
having now been
reached.
If we were to take it upon ourselves here to describe
the events which ushered in the present era, this history would become
more of a current affairs news-sheet, and, because it is far too soon to
assess the full significance of these tremendous happenings, the
account we might give would lack the perspective which can only come
from a more considered verdict. Besides, everyone knows the bare
outline at least: how the Second Great Fleet did succeed in reaching
Arclour and its ultimate sivvan, and how that discovery
triggered the Fostering of Ooranye, that is to say, the final
retrospective grafting of Ooranye's true history onto the history of our
solar system.
It also broke the
ontological barrier which had separated Terrestrials and Uranians. Henceforth in full co-dimensionality a number
of adventurers from each planet have
been able to visit the other, and Earthmen and Nenns
have met face to face.
A few remaining details will round off our sketch of
Uranian history.
The actual eomasp which
ended era 89 was caused
by the wave of emotion that accompanied the departure of the Second Great
Fleet. But the short era that followed - the 8 days, 9 hours, 20
minutes of the Protactinium Era, which was the duration of the voyage
to Arclour - counts as era 91, not 90. Why is this
so, and what happened to era 90, the Thorium Era?
The peculiar whisper in the
mind, experienced by so many as the fleet set out, might have been
ignored, but the interpretation of some unusual dreams, which came to innumerable
Nenns all over Syoom that night, powerfully suggested the following
conclusion:
The Thorium Era never happened, but it could have, and,
on another time-track, it did.
Sunnoad Iyen Noom has since admitted to chroniclers that
it was only at the very point of departure that he made up his mind
on a vital point of tactics. He decided that the ships under his
command would, if they were forced, do the thing which Fiarr Fosn's
fleet had not been able to do - namely, use the vibrational mode of
inter-molecular transport which had been invented in the Bismuth
Era. Due to its enormous expense it could only be used once by a
fleet of this size, and if that use were to prove inadequate, the
airships would be trapped and doomed. But the gamble - in this
universe - was taken.
Apparently, according to the Thorium Whisper, in another
universe it was not taken, and Arclour was never reached, and
the Terrestrials never landed, and the continuing era was the Thorium,
with a history very different from the one we are now launched
upon.
In our universe, as we write, we are now in era 92,
the Uranium Era, the last era, which, say the people of Ooranye, shall last
six times as long as all the others put together, constituting the rest
of this Great Cycle of 100,000 Uranian years, or 8,400,000 Earth years -
of which about 1,200,000 have now passed.
Our friends on Ooranye tell us, good-naturedly, that the
days of Earth's pre-eminence will soon be over and that leadership
in solar system affairs is about to pass to their own giant
world.
However, we wonder just how soon is "soon" to a Uranian.
Besides, although Arclour has at last been reached, Fyaym has
not been conquered, and perhaps never will be. Can the Nenns dominate
the solar system if they cannot even subdue their own planet?
And yet this may be the wrong way of looking at
it; perhaps Fyaym will always be needed to keep them fit for
adventure; perhaps the great wisdom of the Nenns lies
in not crowding their
horizon.
[Return to top of this
page]
[Return
to front
page]