Below you will see the prologue for the second book in the trilogy. I am currently just shy of half way through the rough draft. Enjoy!
A Brief History of Humankind
Book II
Working Title: All Hands (this will most likely change)
PROLOGUE
The Border People
Surface of Earth, 2170
The shaking of the ground had stopped. Ash and soot no longer fell from the skies. The constant play of lightning, which had lighted the skies at night and filigreed the skies during the day, ceased. It had been several days now that the Earth was silent as if it were in mourning. The planet had rid itself of its dominant species. But the new freedom had come at a great price. The plan had been for the species to leave the planet before any of the disasters struck. The purpose of the earthquakes and the changing of the skies was not to kill humankind. No, the purpose of the catastrophic shifts in climate and the sudden rearranging of several smaller segments of the planet's crust was not to kill off humankind. In the end that it what happened but that was not the intent behind the actions.
Earth had tried desperately to send its child species out into the heaven long before the catastrophes struck. Indeed, at the very beginning of the humankind's evolution Earth implanted the drive to leave the planet, to explore space deep inside the fabric of the new species. Earth knew that millennia would pass before humankind developed the technology and abilities to travel out into space just as it also knew that the species could not hope but follow the deepest urges from within inside its being to lift itself up to the stars.
But something had deviated along the way. Humankind had left its home planet but only a small fraction of the population had done so. Not the whole species. Earth had tried to communicate to the species, had tried to provide incentive for its children to head out on its own. Time and time again it had implanted the needed knowledge inside a human mind. The knowledge needed to take itself out into the stars, to other planets where it could further its evolution. Earth wanted its children to survive. But it also needed to ready itself for it next wave of children. There had been others before humankind and there would be others after humankind. The Earth needed its surface cleansed and prepared for that next wave. Only when the next wave of children had passed through many generations would humankind be welcomed back to its home and then only to begin the next stage of battle to end the quarantine. To regain the galaxy.
The Border People
The Stone Men came from the lowlands. The Timber Giants from the far west. The No Necks from the south. Across the seas came many cousins: the splintercats, the wood devils, the goat men and the owl women. The Sasquatch welcomed them all. They had all heard the voice of the Earth speaking to them through the trees and the dirt many years ago. The Earth had prepared them for this moment in time. Had warned them. They had all of them lived in the shadows of humankind for eons. Just as humankind had lived in the shadows of the dragons before them. The Earth spoke to the border people years ago telling them that this time would soon come upon them. The time of their uprising. The time of humankind's temporary departure and eventual return. The time when the border people would need to make a great sacrifice. The quickening was upon them.
Some of them had wings. Some claws. Some stood tall and broad, like trees come alive. Others were squat and obdurate like stumps made of stone. The eyes of some glowed a bright yellow. Other eyes were dark blue, bordering on indigo. Most preferred the night but some welcomed the warmth of the mountain sun on their slate-like skin. Others were cover in ragged fur. Some had layers of feathers to protect themselves from the elements. But all of them knew each other.
They called themselves border people. This loose collective of sub-species had patrolled the borders of humankind's existence for as long as can be remembered. Humankind was the dominant, sentient species of the planet but not only one. The border people were brought forth by the Earth shortly before the planet gave birth to humankind. They were called forth as protectors, as guardians for humankind. The Earth had a plan that required humankind at its center. But the border people were told that their time would come. That their service to humankind, to the planet and to the age-old war would be repaid with an even greater role. That time was now.
As they all gathered on the North American continent, the border people set about their first task silently. These creatures capable of such horrific, bone deep terrifying screams and shrieks went about their business in complete quiet. They needed to collect the bodies of the humans who had not gone to the stars. The bodies of the humans who had failed to understand the proddings of their mother planet and stayed behind when they should have left. Even the border people with their space twisting abilities could not hope to gather together all the billions of dead around the planet. If they had years in which to carry out their task then maybe they would have been able to accomplish it. But they had only weeks. Weeks before the quickening commenced.
The Sasquatch chose one city to center their attentions on. As the border people came from all around the planet they would bring with them corpses. They would bring as many corpses as each of their own strong, strangely shaped bodies could carry. The larger creatures carried dozens of dead humans cradled in their thickly muscled arms. The smaller ones worked together to make living chains that arranged the bodies into wide and long piles that mounted ever higher as the days passed. The fliers gently laid bodies down on the growing mounds from above then were gone only to return moments later with another corpse.
The border people could travel through windows of space that took them from one place on the surface of the planet to another. Tens of thousands of them worked at a feverish pace to gather and erect pyramids of dead bodies on the edge of the city that the humans called Denver. Out where the human planes had landed and left all the border people focused their energies. Seen from above the broad open area looked like a field full of lightning bugs. Quick, silent flashes of light accompanied the departure and return of the border people as they traveled through the windows to gather ever more and more dead humans.
The border people felt a strong need to honor humankind. The species that they had protected over the eons. The border people provided a unique stimulus to humankind. They both terrified and intrigued humans. Encounters with border people served to keep humans focused on their parts of the world but also to remain ever curious about what existed beyond their realms of comprehension. Whether those realms were actual physical areas with specific boundaries or mental spaces with regions of unknown detail the presence of and the idea of the border people provided both a check on humankind's development and an impetus for its growth. The border people were the embodiment of the mysterious unknown. So far beyond humankind in ability and nature as to terrify it. So wondrous in form and operation as to draw it forward. Forward into a future of its own creation. Or so it thought. A future that was inspired by the border people but never contained them. Humankind reached for the stars - as Earth had encoded it to do at its very inception - as a way to come to grips with the unknown. But in leaving the planet, humankind merely supplanted one form of the unknown for another.
Now the border people as they gathered the many dead, both mourned the loss of humankind and welcomed the time of their purpose as foretold them by Earth. The border people had always been able to more clearly understand and communicate with Earth then humankind had. Humankind's spread as a species had been due in part to its inability to hear the voice of the planet. The border people, sensitive to the needs of the planet, had kept themselves close to its bosom. Humankind deaf to all but the grossest of messages from Earth spread across its surface like a virus adapting to new environments quicker than the planet could devise and enact ways to prevent the heedless species from damaging its surface. But the planet must have known this would happen for the other reason the border people existed was to help heal the damage done to the planet by humankind. With their closer connection to Earth, the border people were able to restore the balance that humankind had such a knack for disturbing. The Earth needed humankind to fulfill its destiny of reaching the stars and had limited the species' awareness of its destructive behavior to hasten humankind's attainment of its goal. However, the planet would need to suffer certain abuses as the species recklessly followed its drive to expand, unable to sense the damage it was doing. Thus Earth had created the border people in all their forms to help contain humankind while inspiring it and, also, to rectify the wrongs against the planet humankind engaged in unknowingly as it sped to the stars.
The gathering was done. The border people had gathered bodies from all across the globe. From every region, from every country, from every culture. All of the many faces of humanity were represented and assembled into three massive pyramids of corpses. Several thunderbirds flew up from the ring that the border people formed around the pyramids and circled three times overhead. Then the thunderbirds unleashed lightning bolts from their talons down upon the mounds. The bolts struck the gathered bodies again and again. The rest of the border people began a low rumbling chant that crashed into the sides of the pyramids where the lightning struck. After several moments the pyramids burst into flame. Fire licked across the surface of the piled bodies and dove deep into the center. The thunderbirds settled back into the ring of the border people and joined in the rhythmic growl of a prayer.
The pyramids danced with fire for several days as the border people remained encircled around them ever chanting. The sound of their combined voices hammered at the bodies like ethereal hammers as the flames turned them into ash. At the end of five days, the thunderbirds took to the skies once again. This time they gathered together and sent one combined blast of lightning down onto the now reduced, ashen pyramids. The plasma bolt struck with such force as to send the remnant dust of the corpses high into the sky and out onto the nearby border people still encircling the area. After the lightning strike was over, the thunderbirds headed off to the west, to the mountains. The other fliers took off after them into the thick sky while all the rest began a solemn march from the edge of the plains, through the foothills and into the mountains. The ashes of humankind rested on the border people like an ancient shawl as they headed off to meet their destiny.
The Border People
The Earth took the form of a giant tree. The border people gathered into the broad, mountain valley. The tens of thousands of them nearly filled the area from rim to rim. Many of them flew languidly around the great, golden tree. Some hovered silently above the heads of the gathered crowd. The golden tree stood four hundred feet tall and its trunk was fifty feet from edge to edge. Its bark was a deep golden smooth to the touch with miniscule pores sprinkled across its surface. It looked more like a stiff skin than the bark of a real tree. The trunk rose out of the ground straight until and branchless until two thirds of the way up. There several thick limbs shot out parallel to the ground far below to create a dense crest of branches and leaves. Seen up-close the leaves were knife-edged flattened ovals stiff like parchment. Rough to the touch and heavier then expected. The branches and trunk of the tree glowed with a faint golden light while the leaves exuded a pale moonlight hue. The tree sang to the border people.
The branches quaked ever so slightly and the leaves shimmied in response. The trunk of the tree trembled but slowly so. The border people understood. They had been communicating with the Earth in this fashion for as long as they could remember. Now was the time of their sacrifice. The greatest difference between the border people and humankind was the length of their lives. The border people compared to humans lived long, ancient lives. Lives covering three centuries were common and those that spanned five were not unheard of. Their small population was balanced out by the length of their lives. Humans could never learn what the border people learned. They simply lacked the longevity to do so. But now, Earth was asking of them all a sacrifice of this defining trait. Earth needed the border people to give up their long lives in order to have many generations live out their lives in the course of twenty years. For, twenty years from now, the dragons, humans and giants would return.
The border people listened to the shining tree knowing that there was only one possible outcome to this gathering. The Earth had spoken to them all years ago when humankind first took to the air, warning them that this time would soon be upon them. Earth had warned the border people then in order to prepare them for this day and also to allow any of the border people who wanted so to find a way to another planet. Earth had grown all her children to carry out a specific task but it was not unaware of individual needs. The dragons had chosen en masse to leave the planet when told of the coming catastrophe. It was their hope as a species back then to lead the giants away from Earth, to become a target for them so that Earth would have enough time to carry out its plan. The long travel and passage of time had erased only but the most basic element of their plan from the dragons' collective memory.
The dragons' leaving had allowed Earth to bring about humankind and the border people. The giants had been fooled long enough that Earth had prepared a new wave of humankind to replace the first and some of that wave - enough, thankfully - had gone out to the stars as hoped. But everything was moving so quickly now. The galactic superwaves had speeded up the entire process. A process that should have played out over centuries was now happening over decades and they were all at the crux now. After a moment of silent communion, the border people told Earth that they were ready for the next step.
Border People
The golden tree sublimated into a hanging cloud, a thick, bright mist that slowly expanded out and hung itself on the shoulders and wings of the gathered border people. The mist sank onto their skin in small patches. It seeped into their lungs with each slow breath. The whole mass was breathing as one now. Slow inhales and long exhales gave the glowing mass a pulse. The valley was now completely covered by the golden, shining mist. A glowing fog-like protoplasm that united all it enshrouded into one massive cell. Individual figures could no longer be seen. Only lighter and darker forms amongst the radiating haze. Silence and light filled the valley.
After a time the mist began to evaporate. Each drop invisibly absorbed back into the surrounding air. When all the mist was gone and only when all the mist was gone did the shadow people start to move again. They climbed out of the valley and up into the peaks of the encircling mountains. At first it seemed impossible for such a large mass of living creatures to leave no trace behind. But moment by moment the hills and vales, gullies and ravines that comprised the base of the mountains swallowed the border people. Engulfed them, absolved them. Like the mist before them they disappeared into the highlands.
