trouble in the stars. According to Malla, it had already started.
The desk, of age-darkened wood, had been beautifully carved and built into the wall by some early relative. Automatically he opened it and looked curiously at the large cloth-bound volume lying before him. It was his fatherâs journal.
The sight of it now, on this day of growing uncertainty, somehow gave him comfort. It was almost as if his father stood close and could talk to him. He thumbed slowly through the journal, pausing occasionally to glance over a page. Most of the entries had to do with weather and the crops, and local happenings. But his father had been interested in a thousand things. A question at the top of a page suddenly caught his eye. In strong script his father had written:
What actually happened at the Barrens? Was ancient manâs last huge city destroyed by a meteor, as we have been taught? Or was that teaching a lie?
We in the Five Communities think highly of ourselves, as if man could do no wrong. But secretly I think otherwise. I suspect we are the remnants of a murderous race, and that man himself was mainly responsible for what happened at the Barrens.
I hope I am wrong. Emmon insists that Nature alone caused the destruction and points out that the entire surface of the globe was entirely changed at about the same time. I do not like to think that man might have disturbed a balance that triggered the entire changeâbut I cannot help wondering.
The fact remains that there were only a few survivors: a small group of humans who were our ancestors, and a limited number of birds and animals. Why did these few survive when all the rest died? Were they tougher than the others, and immune to something that killed the majority? Or were they mutants? If they were mutants, then all of us today, man and beast, belong to new breedsâthough whether or not we are any better still remains to be seen.
Boy Jaim, shocked by what he had read, had momentarily forgotten the Golden One. Could man himself have caused the destruction at the Barrens? He couldnât believe it. Even early man must have been too intelligent to kill his own kind. But there might be something to the mutant idea. He flipped the page and read:
Here is another puzzle: Why do we build the lower levels of our houses the way we do? They are cut deep into the hillsides and are more like caves. Itâs just an old custom, we say, and very practical for storage. But I suspect our ancestors first built them as hiding places. Only, what were they hiding from? Radiation, or poison air from volcanoes or meteors? Extreme cold or heat? Vicious animals? I understand there were once some monstrous bears that were highly dangerous to humans, but there are no records that our ancestors had actual conflict with them.
Boy Jaim paused with a quick intake of breath. Bearsâmonstrous bears! Were they like the Golden One? His eye raced on:
So many centuries have passed that any written records would have crumbled to nothing. What really happened at the Barrens and in the long period afterward when our ancestors must have struggled to live are puzzles we may never solve. Unless, as Emmon says, we learn to make better use of the Pool of Knowledge. Occasionally weâve been able to dip into it a bit. The ability is a rare one, but Jenna and I are beginning to hope our son may possess it. Boy Jaim is too young to show it at this writing, yet already he has developed a remarkable ability to converse with animals.
Most animals, I have noticed, are telepathic. Not only can they communicate to some extent with each other, but they also know in advance when trouble threatens. If Boy Jaim can somehow manage â¦
There was more about himself, but Boy Jaim did not read it. The words suddenly blurred as a startling thought came to him. Abruptly a switch seemed to click in the back of his mind.
He visioned Scatterbrain hurrying to store away foodâand the Golden One driving
The desk, of age-darkened wood, had been beautifully carved and built into the wall by some early relative. Automatically he opened it and looked curiously at the large cloth-bound volume lying before him. It was his fatherâs journal.
The sight of it now, on this day of growing uncertainty, somehow gave him comfort. It was almost as if his father stood close and could talk to him. He thumbed slowly through the journal, pausing occasionally to glance over a page. Most of the entries had to do with weather and the crops, and local happenings. But his father had been interested in a thousand things. A question at the top of a page suddenly caught his eye. In strong script his father had written:
What actually happened at the Barrens? Was ancient manâs last huge city destroyed by a meteor, as we have been taught? Or was that teaching a lie?
We in the Five Communities think highly of ourselves, as if man could do no wrong. But secretly I think otherwise. I suspect we are the remnants of a murderous race, and that man himself was mainly responsible for what happened at the Barrens.
I hope I am wrong. Emmon insists that Nature alone caused the destruction and points out that the entire surface of the globe was entirely changed at about the same time. I do not like to think that man might have disturbed a balance that triggered the entire changeâbut I cannot help wondering.
The fact remains that there were only a few survivors: a small group of humans who were our ancestors, and a limited number of birds and animals. Why did these few survive when all the rest died? Were they tougher than the others, and immune to something that killed the majority? Or were they mutants? If they were mutants, then all of us today, man and beast, belong to new breedsâthough whether or not we are any better still remains to be seen.
Boy Jaim, shocked by what he had read, had momentarily forgotten the Golden One. Could man himself have caused the destruction at the Barrens? He couldnât believe it. Even early man must have been too intelligent to kill his own kind. But there might be something to the mutant idea. He flipped the page and read:
Here is another puzzle: Why do we build the lower levels of our houses the way we do? They are cut deep into the hillsides and are more like caves. Itâs just an old custom, we say, and very practical for storage. But I suspect our ancestors first built them as hiding places. Only, what were they hiding from? Radiation, or poison air from volcanoes or meteors? Extreme cold or heat? Vicious animals? I understand there were once some monstrous bears that were highly dangerous to humans, but there are no records that our ancestors had actual conflict with them.
Boy Jaim paused with a quick intake of breath. Bearsâmonstrous bears! Were they like the Golden One? His eye raced on:
So many centuries have passed that any written records would have crumbled to nothing. What really happened at the Barrens and in the long period afterward when our ancestors must have struggled to live are puzzles we may never solve. Unless, as Emmon says, we learn to make better use of the Pool of Knowledge. Occasionally weâve been able to dip into it a bit. The ability is a rare one, but Jenna and I are beginning to hope our son may possess it. Boy Jaim is too young to show it at this writing, yet already he has developed a remarkable ability to converse with animals.
Most animals, I have noticed, are telepathic. Not only can they communicate to some extent with each other, but they also know in advance when trouble threatens. If Boy Jaim can somehow manage â¦
There was more about himself, but Boy Jaim did not read it. The words suddenly blurred as a startling thought came to him. Abruptly a switch seemed to click in the back of his mind.
He visioned Scatterbrain hurrying to store away foodâand the Golden One driving
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