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HARD-BARGAIN HOLD
By Waddie Greywolf
THE SETTING Date: 355 New Date (355 years after the disaster that occurred in the year 2035 Old Date) A new retro-society has risen from the ashes of the terrible consequences of a complete shift in the Earth's axis of 173 degrees. The geography of the world would be unrecognizable to us today. The north pole became subtropical along with the North American continent that now rotates below the old tropic of cancer. Major portions of Russia, Western Europe, and North America, are under water. Land masses never before seen on our planet have arisen from the seas. Austraulia and Antarticia is now approximately in the position that North America use to be. CHAPTER ONE: WORMWOOD Oh, what made fatuous sunbeams toil, To break Earth's sleep at all. ~Wilfred Owens The sun was setting on one of the most successful species since the last of the dinosaurs disappeared one hundred and fifty thousand years ago. I know, you're probably thinking, I thought the dinosaurs were extinct ninety three million years ago. True, the majority of the vast herds of dinosaurs did become extinct around that time: however, several species existed until as late as fifty thousand years ago. Numerous species existed until approximately a thousand years before that when something happened to decimate the survivors. The last bands of species homosapiens roamed the planet in small groups foraging like animals for food. It had been three hundred and twenty years since a rogue planet entered the solar system causing great devastation to all the planets. It would have been a wonderful time for anthropologist and evolutionist to observe how an advanced technological society could digress to an almost primative state. How nature, in it's infinate wisdom, could make a last minute reprieve for a species about to vanish from the planet with an evolutionary jump to strengthen and thus insure the best of it's genetic qualities are passed on to a new hardier species. Homo sapien was about to go the way of the dinosaurs. It's extinction was immanent. It was often stated in scientific publications that Darwin's theories of evolution were questionable due to large gaps in the fossil records and sudden evolutionary jumps that could not be explained by the concept of survival of the fittest. Creationist tried and would have loved to plug in the missing equation but somehow, "...and then a miracle occured..." just didn't get it for the scientific process. Then in the late '80's a couple of scientist published a paper and from their research concluded evolution was not necessarily a slow process. They discovered that evolution came in jumps and spurts and that numerous species were quite capable of adapting quickly to changes in there enviornment. There seemed to be periods in Earth's past when there occured an explosion of new speices and jumps in the genetic strengths of existing species. During the Cambrian period hundreds of thousands of new species emerged. Twentieth century scientist discovered that just before this phenomenon occurred there seemed to be a thin layer of iridium in the Earth's strata and it seemed to repeat approximately every 150,000 years. Iridium is an extremely rare in the Earth and can only be found in minor quantities in the ash of volcanos and larger amounts in the chemical break down of comets. It was questionable whether one or even two large volcanos could layer the Earth with such significant quantities of iridium and the sporatic comets that burned up in the Earths atmosphere could not have created these layers in such proportions. To add to the mystery or at least solve the conundrum of an evolution explosion in regular intervals was the microbiological study in the early twenty first century that found the introduction of even minute quantities of iridium absorbed or digested by a species would cause the emergence within five generations of an altogether new species. Was the emegence of several new species of apes that walked upright nine hundred thousand years ago a fluke? What's that got to do with the time period of one hundred fifty thousand years? Do the math! Divide 900 by 150 you get 6. There may have been six shifting of the Earth's axis with large quantities of iridium falling to Earth since a man like creature took it's first steps. Each time producing genetic jumps in the intelligence of the naked ape until the arrival of Homosapiens, freely translated, the wise ape! Twentieth century scientist found undeniable proof in ice core samples from the artics that there had been a significant shift of the Earth's axis one hundred fifty thousand years ago. Was the timing of these phenomena coincidental? Hardly! In the early '60's paleontologists discovered a near complete Woolly Mammoth in the Tundra of Siberia. It appeared to have been flash frozen because the flesh was so well preserved that the natives took some for eating. They claimed they had often stumbled across a frozen hairy beast and thought nothing of scavaging the meat. The most remarkable thing about this frozen find was it still had a mouth full of buttercups that it was chewings when it was suddenly frozen. The flowers were perfectly preserved. What force of nature could have flash frozen something as large as a Woolly Mammoth? Astronomers knew for sometime that there was a mathematical error in the constancy of our solar system. They were not quite sure of the reason but suspected that there might be another undiscovered planet that was throwing the calculations off. Then in the 1940's O.D. they discovered Pluto and thought, "Ah, ha! The missing equation!". Well, to their disappointment it didn't prove to be the answer and in the year 2001 O.D. Pluto was downgraded to a significant large chunk of floating cosmic ice. The only other explanation that made any sense was the existance of another planet slightly larger than Earth that had an unusual elongated eliptical orbit that would only return to the boundries of our eight planets (Pluto was demoted, remember!) every one hundred fifty thousand years. Anthropologist had discovered in the writings of ancient people all over the Earth the description of another planet that was the cause of some gigantic cataclism which occurs every one hundred fifty thousand years. Mysteriously, even a primative African tribe, the Dogons, perform a ritual dance in which they describe the orbits of the planets of our system. Then tied to a huge leather ball they swing this final representative of a planet way out and then through the other dancers representing our solar system. They have told anthropologist that people who came from the sky had told them about this tenth or ninth planet. All of this information was beginning to form a picture. Then in the year 2005 O.D. a brilliant young meterologist Christopher Wormwood, connected all the dots, the unusual weather patterns of the past fifty years and found the missing equation. Planet X or as it was later known, Wormwood, did indeed exist and was on it's way back to pass through our solar system. Shortly thereafter it was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope and it's exact time of arrival was plotted. The most horrible thing was there was absolutely nothing that could be done about it. The scientist knew that the planet would cause the Earth to shift it's axis but they had no idea of the destruction the comets would reak upon the Earth. Hundred's of thousands of Comets followed the gravatational pull of Planet Wormwood, as it passed through the ort belt, a large cloud of comets and debris on the the outer rim of our solar system. There was no way to estimate the number that slammed into the Earth let alone the other Planets in our system. The orbits of Venus and Mars was slightly altered and so was the Earths to a smaller degree. As usual, the governments of the the Earth shifted into their Need to Know mode (knowing something everyone else dosen't, makes you more important!) and decided not to tell people due to the potential of panic. The fatuous bureaucrates knew that probably four fifths of the Earth's population were going to die but they were more concerned about panic. When small men cast big shadows it is a sign the sun is setting! The devastation of the Earth and it's people due to the shift in it's axis was the death knell of a society already in decay and what the catastrophe did not rip asunder, small bands of starving, scavenging, marauding survivors did! Some tried to hold on to the memories of a civil, organized society where the better Angels of their natures sought to recreate even a small facsimile of what they had lost. But it was too late. As soon as one of the groups began to settle into a community of any kind a stronger more aggressive band would attack and wipe them out. Thus it was, for over three centuries. Ideas and concepts of how a community could best survive with the greatest benefits to all came and went. As time passed memories of what had been became vague mouth to mouth myths. No one really knew what an organized society should be, democracy and the -ism sisters were mear words that had little meaning to people that had digressed to barely more than an agrarian, hunter gather bands of struggling humans. The concept of survival of the fittest was never more apt. The struggle for exsistance overcame any attempt to organize. The bands of retched people roamed through the caverns of abandoned cities that over the centuries had decayed and overgrown with vegetation. They literally walked over and around technology that could have made their lives a bit more comfortable but no one remembered what it was for nor how to use it. It's best purpose for them , if it could be picked up, was to throw at an attacker. Then toward the middle of the third century, known as the years of pathos, or the darkest years, things began to change. It always seems the darkest hour is just before dawn. The fifth generation since the Old Date was just coming to maturity and had a new superior genetic quality which made them more intelligent and physically larger. Some possessed what we would describe as full blown paranormal powers thanks to the iridium that their ancestors had injested during the comet storms of 2035 O.D. Perhaps a better term would be pan-normal. The prefix para gives the idea of above normal. They considered these mental gifts as a bridge to greater power, an understanding of the universe and their place in it! Pan- means across. Thus, pannormal. The arrival of a new bipedal hominid species and it's rising from the ashes of a destroyed world much like the fabled Phoenix bird had come to be. Homo Omnisciens was born! Homo sapiens, humankind, the wise ape was to become extinct within less than a hundred years of giving birth to this new species. Homo sapien became the flowering branch which bore the fruit that all human kind had strived for centuries to become. And it's extinction became their gift to their children to become the new hope, a bigger, stronger, gentler, more intelligent, knowing, aware, understanding, compassionate, loving and tolerant new species. Indeed, the meek had inherited the Earth! End Chapter I Waddie Greywolf waddie@earthlink.net
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