This is the postscript from the three books that will be COME HELL AND HIGH WATER.
The Extinction Level Event (ELE) that
took the mammoth, most of the large mammals, and many other species really did
happen. Our fictional Aduan did not, of course, cause it. Neither did anyone
else; it was a fluke of nature, ‘one of those things’.
The presentation of the event is definitely
fiction, but the sequence set in motion by such an impact is not. I have in no
way exaggerated what is likely to have happened back on that day. I have, if
anything, minimized it.
The temperatures generated; the
velocity at which those big rocks, heightened even more by Earth’s
gravitational pull, hit the crust of this planet; the amount of raw energy
unleashed by the backlash, and what was forced into the ground; the magnitude
of the earthquakes triggered; the effects of fiery impact infernos fueled by
forest and plain, hot enough to create their own winds to drive them onward and
outward with nothing to slow them; the volume of volcanic ash in the air and metres
deep on the ground, on top of the ashes left by surface fires, and toxic gases
released to create a havoc of their own; the ravaging of coastlines and far
inland done by tsunamis ten times larger than we have ever seen; the steam rising above ice caps (glaciers) as
the temperatures and velocities of those hyper-heated rocks hit them; the ice-melt
breaching barriers, creating outlets for glacial Lake Agassiz (for example)
resulting in an overland tsunami; an atmosphere so thick with steam, ash,
noxious gases, and smoke that sunlight could not make its way through;
particles of sulfur in the upper atmosphere turning back said sunlight;
ultra-hot winds carrying raging electrical dust (and ash) storms for months,
perhaps years, perhaps decades on end; intense heat and bitter cold, meeting in
thunderstorms that send water vapor down in torrents that cause their own
floods … it’s too much, and too big, for me to be able to wrap my head around.
Not a gradual progression over
centuries, or decades, or years, or even weeks – but an abrupt onslaught with
no time for rhyme nor reason, let alone recovery from one before the next
hit.
And that was just the beginning.
Atmosphere blocking sunlight means no
photosynthesis, no growing plants putting oxygen into the air, nothing for
herbivores to eat. Dying prey feeds predators only until the prey is gone. Drought
brings famine; famine brings disease; disease brings death; death brings more
disease and death and despair. Despair brings desperation brings war brings
more death brings more disease … and the vicious cycle goes ‘round and ‘round
for a real long time.
Waters sealed by ash; waters whose
saline balance is disrupted by an influx of fresh water ice-melt; waters whose
surface becomes way too hot; waters clogged with dead and decaying plants and
animals … how could they support their own life forms, let alone contribute to
the rest of the world?
The same thing happened to the dinosaurs
millions and millions of years ago. Nobody caused that one, either. It just
happened. Earth did not die; a whole new set of life forms (with but a very few
exceptions, the rare survivors whose descendants live today among us) rose to
take their place. Compared to that
one, what happened 12,800 years ago (give or take a couple of thousand years)
might be considered but a bump in the road.
But if ‘Something Happened’ today that
was even a fraction as bad as that bump in the road … uffda … that’s the only
word that comes to mind.
When it comes to the technologically
advanced city of Phi in the middle of North America, that’s pure-dee fiction.
Not that something like that culture might not have existed, mind you. I have
no idea. Neither do you, for that matter. Nobody knows and none of us are
likely to ever know. Whatever was on North America at that time is now a part
of a black mat of carbon well below our feet. Anything that might have survived
was in for more of the same, although on smaller scales, as time went on.
With our own technological advances
soaring right along, in terms of finding the biggest and the smallest we can
manage, in just the past few decades – it’s not beyond the shadow of a doubt
that someone before us might have gotten to and beyond where we are now. We are
not as invincible as we like to believe.
The world of my grandparents will seem
as ancient to my grandchildren as we think of when we talk about the Iron Age,
or the Bronze Age, or the Stone Age. Our young ones will never know life
without electronics, as we will never know life the way our grandparents knew
it. The ‘learning curve’, only a few generations instead of thousands of years,
is accelerating rapidly, faster than most of us are even aware of. We have
among us a lot of very smart people. Relatively speaking, it won’t be long
before ‘Hiving the Stars’ might become a part of the lives of our young folk.
Who knows?
Not me.
But if that time should ever come, I
hope they will carry with them the Circles of Dunnottar and the SONG of PHI.
Someone up there out there might
recognize them.
