The whole planet had been destroyed by nuclear bombardment, and the avian race had perished with it.
The Outlanders called this planet Armageddon. They remained on the frigid surface for some while, discussing what should be done, spellbound by melancholy.
One of the powerful leaders spoke. “I think we might agree that we have found here on Armageddon an answer to one of the questions which has plagued mankind for many generations.
“How was it that when man went into space, he found no other intelligent species? It was always assumed that the galaxy would be full of life. Not so. How was it that there were scarcely any other planets like Earth?
“Well, we do realise that Earth is a pretty unusual place, where a number of fine specifications are met. Take just one example—the amount of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere is close to twenty-one percent. If it was twenty-five percent or over, forest fires would be started by lightning—even damp vegetation would burn. On New Earth, the oxygen percentage is eighteen; there are no plants to lock away the carbon dioxide and release oxygen molecules. No wonder the poor boobies there live in a dream.
“Nevertheless, statistics suggest that there must be other planets like Earth. Maybe Armageddon was one. Suppose a race with a wide-ranging diet reaches supremacy and dominates the planet, as happened on Earth before the nuclear war. That race must use technology to do so—from the club and bow-and- arrow onwards. It masters the laws of nature.
“The time comes when technology is advanced enough for the race to choose alternatives. It can put out into space, or it can destroy its enemies with nuclear weapons.”
“Suppose there are no enemies on the planet?” someone called.
“Then the race invents them. The pressure of competition which technologies generate makes enemies necessary, as we know. And there’s my point. At that stage, poised for a whole new way of life, no longer to be confined to the planet of its birth, on the brink of major discoveries —right then that race is set the big examination question: Can I develop the international social skills required to bring my aggression under control? Can I excel myself and make a lasting truce with my enemies, so that we throw away these vile weapons for good and all?
“You see what I mean? If the race fails the exam, it destroys its planet and itself, and shows that it was unfit to cross that vital quarantine area space provides.
“Armageddon was unfit. Its people failed the exam. They destroyed themselves.”
“But you’re saying everyone everywhere was unfit. We never have found another space-going race.”
The leader laughed. “We’re still only on Earth’s doorstep, don’t forget. Nobody is going to come looking for us until they know we’re trustworthy.”
“And are we trustworthy?”
Amid general laughter, the leader said, “Let’s tackle Armageddon first. Maybe we can get the old place going again, if we press the right button.”
Further surveys showed what the world had once been. One notable feature was a considerable high- latitude sea which—before the nuclear disaster—had been only partially ice-covered. After the disaster, atmospheric contamination had cooled the umbrella of air, leaving the water of the high-latitude sea warmer than its overlying air. The air was in consequence heated from below, and moisture drawn upwards. Violent high-latitude storms had resulted, probably enough in themselves to finish off any survivors of the nuclear strike. Plentiful snow fell on middle-altitude ground, a plateau once covered by urbanisation. The major glaciation which set in became self-sustaining.
The Outlanders decided to drop what the leader had called vile weapons on the frozen high-altitude sea, in order to “get things started” again. But the ice wilderness remained an ice wilderness. Here, the local tutelary spirit, the biospheric gestalt, was dead.
They were now almost out of fuel. They decided to return to New Earth and conquer it. Their discoveries on Armageddon had provided them with a strategy. Their idea was that one—just one— thermonuclear device dropped over New Earth’s north pole would cause heavy rainfall, transforming the planet. The sea could be enlarged; the local zombies could make themselves useful by cutting canals. More kelp could be encouraged to grow, and eventually more oxygen released into the air. The calculations looked good. To the Outlanders, the decision to try just one more nuclear bomb was a sane one.
So they climbed into their ship, leaving Armageddon to its eons of frost.
For the people who lived on New Earth, one part at least of their only myth came true. The sky cracked and fell.
What were the vital differences here? Why could New Earth never recover, while Earth flourished and put forth new forms like the geo-nauts?
When the terrestrials developed their empathic link with the gossies of Helliconia, a new factor entered the universe. The terrestrials. whether or not they knew it, were acting as a focus of consciousness for the whole biosphere. The empathic link was not a weak thing. It was a psychic equivalent of magnetism or gravity; it bound the two planets.
A more startling way of putting it would be to say that Gaia communicated directly with her lusty sister, the Original Beholder.
Of course it is speculation. Mankind cannot see into the greater umwelts about him. But he can train his ample senses to look for evidence. All the evidence suggests that Gaia and the Original Beholder made contact through their progeny’s projecting the link. One can only guess at the ripples of shock that contact caused—unless the second ice age and its ripples of remission provide evidence of that contact.
It is speculation that Gaia’s recovery was prompted by the refreshment of encountering a sister spirit in the void nearby.
There were the geonauts: serene, calm, apparently amiable, a new thing. They can be understood not as an evolutionary freak but as an inspiration born of a fresh and powerful friendship…
While on Helliconia, the august processes of the seasons were in undeniable stride.
In the northern hemisphere, small summer was nearly over. Frosty nights foretold colder nights ahead. In the winding passes of the Shive-nink Chain, frost already ruled, and the living creatures who ventured there were subject to that rule.
It was morning. A screaming windstorm, the frigid breath from the pole. The supplies were being stacked away. The phagor and Uuun-daamp were harnessing up their asokins. Seventeen days had elapsed since leaving Sharagatt. They had seen no sign that they were being pursued.
Of the three passengers Shokerandit had fared best. Toress Lahl had lapsed into speechlessness. She lay in the tent at night as if dead. Fashnalgid seldom spoke, except to curse. Their eyebrows and lashes were frosty white within a minute of leaving shelter, their cheekbones black with frostbite.
The last section of the trail ran above six thousand metres. To their right, in fuming cloud, was a solid mountain of ice. Visibility was down to a few feet.
Uuundaamp came to Shokerandit, eyes merry in his frosted face. “Today soft going,” he shouted. “Downhill through tunnel. You ’member tunnel, chief?”
“Noonat Tunnel?” It was an effort to talk in the wind.