Axela

The characters in the story were created to advance, on just a peripheral basis, the cultural and historical perspective of this adventure – and not to be melodramatic progenitors of the novel. My intention was to concentrate on the progress of the society as a group and the institutional process necessary to that progress - to wit, a study in cultural anthropology. In this regard the story is much closer to non-fiction than a fictional novel populated by characters presented in endless depth – a depth that would not have advanced the basic infrastructure of the story and whose detailed personality development would not have allowed the brisk movement I felt was necessary to keep the story interesting - given the thousand years it covered..

Nonetheless, I felt a few characters sprinkled in here and there would bring a certain and important understanding to the reader. Among the few characters arising from these pages was Axela who represented the fifth generation of the family that the book follows throughout its journeys. Axela was developed for the interest of younger readers. She was an exceptionally bright girl, whose parents schooled her early and who were constantly amazed at her rapid advancement. By the time she was twelve, she was already attending and beginning to contribute to political leadership meetings. She would be the youngest person in the leadership council at the pace she was learning.

Axela’s parents were high officials in the leadership council and when it was decided to rescue the middle two Xran descent groups from half way around the world by ship, they deemed it necessary to go on that perhaps two or more year long voyage. Axela would be left at Nexra with her grandparents until her parents returned. Axela was heartbroken, and, at the last minute just before the rescue armada left its port, Axela became the world’s first stowaway with the help of her best friend’s brother who had volunteered as a deckhand on one of the ships of the armada.

Fully one-third of this story takes place at sea as the humex set out to retrieve the nearly 4,000,000 newly marooned Xrans fresh from orbit. Axela soon is discovered on board one of the armada’s ships and assigned to hard deck duty for her intransigence. But eventually she becomes an important member of the crew and goes on further to become a contributing member of the botanical science contingent attached to the armada. Axela, then, was the central, albeit incidental, character as the armada follows a colorful as well as educational geographic sea adventure.

Topography vs Typography

 As I started writing the novel, I thought that I would attach a game to the story. That is, I would leave enough written clues so that the reader should be able to determine where on Earth the story’s various scenes were taking place.

Alternatively, perhaps I should make the adventure easier to follow by inserting appropriate maps and photos of the landscape. I am still contemplating the addition of maps and photos in the next edition. For those of you who have read the book or who are currently reading the book, perhaps you could drop me a short comment or opinion about that.

Geomaritime Progression

       The south boundary of Nexra was formed by the Channel Sea, a body of water shaped more like a river than a sea. It flowed south into another small sea which in turn fed a narrow passage to a large sea, named the Southern Sea, which, finally, in turn, led to the Earth’s second largest ocean. There had been little expansion of empire south or west of Nexra because of the increasingly hostile human tribes encountered in that direction. Since Nexra was settled, the Channel Sea was utilized primarily for small boat recreation and was the center of the empire’s premier resort area.

As the reality of the barren location of the second and third descents was analyzed and understood, the inevitable conclusion required a major rescue expedition by ship. For fifty years, the humex developed marine engineering techniques – from river rafts to raft sail technology – to recreational speed sailing developed at Plateau Lake Outpost, most notably the development of sleek hulls to cut through water with far more efficiency than the river rafts. Then as copper was discovered all along the shores of the Prairie Lakes, larger ships were constructed to handle that cartage. These ships were much wider than any water vessel that had come before. Their width enabled them to sail with great cargo across relatively calm waters. Then, as the empire surrounding Nexra expanded north, out around the Great Sea, ships became larger, narrower and deeper to counter the severe storms that frequently occurred.

So by the time the decision was made to mount the effort to rescue the second and third descent groups from half-way around the world, humex ship-building techniques were quite advanced. Still, adjustments and modifications to existing ship-building technology in order to prepare them for safe ocean travel were necessary. Of primary importance was the strengthening of the infrastructure of the sailing vessels – especially the keel beams, thickness and spacing of the bulkheads, masts, centerboards and rudders. Further, construction materials to withstand the salt of the seas over which these ships would be sailing needed to be identified and developed. And, finally, the malleability of the tar and pitch used in sealing the ship from water-breachment needed to be improved to account for the increased circumstance of violent torquing the ships were bound to encounter on the high seas.

Except for small boat building operations on the Channel Sea, the area was devoid of any activity that could be utilized to jump-start a major ship building effort. Also no infrastructure aid could be gotten from any source on the Great Sea whose sea level lie four-hundred feet below Channel Sea levels. So giant dry-docks had to be constructed from scratch, and, even while the docks were being built, the construction of new enormous ships began in closely scheduled unison. Time was of the essence.

Fly Me From the Moon – the next descents from orbit

       Nearly one-hundred years after the first Xran descent group landed on Earth, the time had come for the second of the eventual three remaining descents to begin. Initially all four of the moons and therefore the closely following descents were estimated to arrive on Earth in close order over a period of less than one year. All Xrans had been prepared for immediate departure. But what the scientists had not counted on was the fact that the first moon entering the Earth’s atmosphere was larger than the rest of the moons in Xra’s orbit. The result of the heaviest moon leaving Xra’s orbit for Earth shoved Xra into a slightly higher orbit. This in turn moved the expected remaining moon entries back some one-hundred years, although this was not discovered for many years. All that the remaining Xrans knew is that this delay had severely disrupted their lives. Many of the Xrans believed that the first descent group had died in the descent attempt and that the scientist had no idea what they were doing, or, worse yet, had lied. Many of the Xrans, now quite disillusioned, sought the comfort and spiritual protection of the Great Cavern. It was nearly five Xran generations before most Xrans were convinced of the truth of the science and that eventually all Xrans would be able to descend to Earth safely. But not all Xrans could be converted to those beliefs and chose to stay and pray within the Great Cavern. Since it would be approximately thirty generations before the next descent, a live-and-let-live philosophy between the cavern dwellers and the surface dwellers continued relatively peacefully. There was time.

It was now time for the second descent to follow the next of Xran’s moons into Earth’s atmosphere. The century-old delay had been fortunate for the second and later descents. There had been many improvements in the science and the operations of the descent vehicles, and, the social data generated by one hundred years of the humex experience on Earth jammed the computers of the next descent group.  During the second descent one of the vehicles was sacrificed to keep the disintegrating moon from disintegrating too quickly. The brave action by that captain served to save the rest of the group – 200,000 deaths; 1,800,000 saved.

The second descent group landed on the opposite side of the Earth from Nexra with two oceans, one on either side of the group’s location  separating it from the center of empire. Worse yet, the second group had landed at a desert site that was devoid of almost all life, bringing with it no chance for assimilation with a non-existent human population. And, to make matters more difficult the third descent group, against all odds, was slated to land very near the second group and of course would suffer the same lack of human population available for assimilation. Having discovered that the third descent group would be landing near the second, the third descent vehicle was over supplied with food and food sources to allow both of the groups to survive until the humex of Nexra could figure out a way to rescue them.

After it had become obvious that no humans or any other useful form of life was going to be present at the second descent site, the humex leadership council began to discuss a rescue plan, made doubly urgent because the third descent group would likely end up in the same area. That, combined with the potential loss of the human assimilation value of four-million Xrans, rendered the failure to rescue the second and third descent groups unacceptable. The humex employed the orbiters to continue refining maps of Earth, concentrating on the most likely rescue route.

Crossing one or the other of the Earth’s large oceans was, of course, the only choice. Some suggested developing a shipbuilding facility at the Grove, some 8,500 land miles away from Nexra; then sailing 12,000 miles directly across the Earth’s largest ocean. This solution seemed unworkable from the beginning. All the shipbuilding expertise resided at either Nexra or Prairie Outpost. It would no doubt be difficult to entice enough humex engineering talent back to the Grove, however compelling the reason. Had there been no other choice, a mass migration of maritime engineers and the army of necessary associates to achieve such a feat may have been possible. But another choice was available – sailing from the long narrow sea that was Nexra’s southern border. This route led directly to the smaller ocean, but would be a longer voyage. It, however, would be closer to land much more of the way than the alternative of sailing 12,000 miles over completely open water from the Grove. Construction of the ship-building port began.

Nexra - Some Finishing Touches

There were two political divisions of the humex empire – the first division included the island of Nexra itself, the Great Sea Valley, the sea's surrounding plateau, and the eventual annexation of Interlaaken Camp to the east.  The second division included the trail, the outposts and the camps from The Grove to Interlaaken. Within its western portion there were two distinct elevations - Nexra itself, along with an average fifty mile wide plateau surrounding the Great Sea and its Great Sea Valley and rose four-hundred feet above the Great Sea and its valley.  This severe elevation difference presented a serious problem with transportation of goods and humex to and from Nexra from Great Sea Valley locations which number were increasing inexorably. There were a few traversable canyons some hundred miles north of Nexra from the valley, but the time it took for that route to be travelled was simply unacceptable – especially as trade commerce grew between the elevations.

There appeared to be no way to construct a road up the steep side of the mountain that was Nexra because of the conspiration of gravity and the unstable ground on that side of the island. The problem was becoming unbearable when an engineer, in response to a contest, came up with a brilliant approach – a tunnel. The tunnel would zig-zag up to the upper level inside the mountain where the ground was stable and then would reappear some four hundred feet above its mouth to the base of Nexra's urban center.  The tunnel, from start to finish, took the humex some six years to build. It included a hand operated bellows system to supply fresh air to the eight mile long tunnel aided by windmills set to extract poor air out of the system. A small town was built to handle the needs of all the workers and their families. Brick factories were constructed and ran day and night. At its completion, the tunnel was one of the top wonders of the humex empire, along with the 8,500 mile trail and its bridges.

Once the tunnel was completed, a Great Sea port, at the lower base of Nexra was built and the ship building industry came to Nexra, and in time rivaled its commercial contemporary, Prairie Lakes Outpost. The Port of Nexra utilized the town built for the tunnel builders and expanded it, and humex commerce took another giant leap forward.

The final great public works project undertaken by the humex was to build a port solely for ship building on the upper waterway isolating Nexra on its southern shore. The humex had decided long ago not to venture any farther south or west, rather they would concentrate on consolidating their influence over the Great Sea Valley and its accompanying plateau to the north. In early explorations to the south and west, the humex found human tribes increasingly hostile. Now with the next Xran descent slated to arrive on the other side of the planet, the humex decided to build an armada to rescue them. It would be a long and dangerous voyage.

Infrastructure of Empire

Infrastructure of Empire

          As the humex traveled west toward Nexra, they came upon an increasing number of human tribes with an increasing level of cultural sophistication, although such contact was infrequent. But it was a surprise, that, by the time they arrived in Nexra, the humex found many and diverse tribes of humans, mostly settled in the Great Sea Valley. As the humex and the humans came in contact with each other, most of the humans wanted to join the humex for the usual reasons – security and food. The problem that the humex encountered was the startling cultural diversity of the humans – not only from the humex, but from each other. Cultural assimilation, therefore, took on a new sophisticated requirement. Initially, after the first descent, human tribes encountered were simple and had no strong cultural practices. There was no special need to disabuse the tribes of their old cultural traits – they had little or none. But, the human tribes encountered in the Great Sea Valley were markedly more sophisticated, and, many of their social practices were unacceptable to the humex.  

The loosely confederated humex assimilation administrators, headed up by Airam, were able to manage the cultural assimilation of the human tribes found along the trail with a minimum of administrative and educational effort. Now, cultural assimilation had been thrust into a professional imperative. More training of more administrators was required to keep up with the demand of the increasing number of human tribes wanting to join the humex. First, a brand new program of cultural detoxification had to be developed. And, the program had to be different for each tribe - to get the new tribes to a point – a blank slate so to say – where they could be taught the humex culture and to be placed within it as a contributing member of their new society. It took Airam and associates over two years to get in front of the curve of cultural assimilation, but finally they had it under control. As usual, the new humans brought with them many social and material contributions to their new culture and by virtue of the vast numbers of new humans; the overall security of the fledgling Humex Empire was appreciably enhanced.

After assisting Airam in the establishment of the so-far-successful incoming human cultural assimilation agency, Ahlu turned his full attention to his primary professional duty – that of the leader of Nexra’s development activities. Surveying, engineering and topographic map making had been in process for about three years before Ahlu arrived on the scene. Continual planning meetings had been held to attempt to establish zones, dividing the site into ten political precincts. Definitions of commercial, residential and governmental sites were established. Each land-use was defined, in some detail, describing allowable building types and uses.  Rules for development were established. And infrastructure requirements were outlined.

Who would settle where in Nexra? There had been many demographic maps considered, constructed, and changed often because of the new human groups who were given citizenship and whose entry had resulted in oft-changing humex cultural demographics, although usually slight. Until Ahlu arrived and became active, the progress of the development group had ground to a virtual standstill. Infighting between the departments had been endless. The consensus necessary to begin development in earnest was nowhere to be found. Ahlu estimated that most of a year had been lost. The next descent group was scheduled to arrive somewhere on Earth in fewer than fifteen years. This, coupled with the increasing pace of humex emigration from cities all the way back to The Grove in higher than anticipated numbers, added significant pressure to this dysfunctional process.

Ahlu held a meeting with the managers and staffs of the planning agency. He acknowledged that urban development, especially on this scale, was a difficult undertaking. He knew mistakes had been made, but there would be no recriminations for past errors. For now, it was time for everyone to pull together for the common good. He stated the obvious, but underlined forcefully, that most immigrants were still living in their wagons or other temporary facilities. He further observed that although the euphoria of arriving in Nexra was the adrenaline carrying the hopes and the enthusiasm – and the patience of the new arrivals for now, signs of disillusionment were appearing sporadically. Ahlu pounded his fist on the lectern and implored the crowd that from now on progress must be visible and immediate – period.

He asked to meet with the department heads for an early next morning meeting to establish new and imperative progress parameters. He asked the department heads to be thinking of the most urgent and efficient projects available to start within the guiding principles – visible and immediate.

Ahlu was comforted to find that much good basic legwork had been done on the preparation to begin certain activities. For instance, the political precinct maps had been overlaid with development zoning maps providing five or six good alternatives. Demographic statistics and estimates were acceptably up to date so the political and developmental maps could be finalized and populated. The rules on infrastructure required with each type of development contemplated were almost completed and Ahlu could see that the typically extensive humex analysis was present in the work completed so far. Once the mapping was complete, the first visible activity would be infrastructure construction. Ironically, the first physical commitment of materials and labor would be assigned to the longest term commitment. Once a basic grid of roads, along with accompanying underground water and sewer systems was engineered and installed, the Nexrans would be able to begin to erect apartments for the incoming throngs as well as supporting manufacturing, distribution, service and government buildings and attendant activity, including hospitals and schools. Ahlu believed that after his morning meeting, his department heads would share his short-term vision that would make development progress visible and immediate. He was right.

A Novel Divided

It was at this point in writing this novel, that it was becoming apparent that the story had more than one distinct sub-story. The first was an introduction to the universe and to one of the civilizations that inhabited it. The Xrans, as a civilization, were established as one of the story’s complex characters – their story being told as a study of their alien anthropology.

The second sub-story followed the humex (the biological partnership of human and Xran) west, across an entire continent and on into a second – 8,500 miles in all – to a point on the Earth, Nexra, chosen from orbit as the most favorable location for not only developing empire, but as the rendezvous point for the expected multi-Xran descents from orbit. The choice assumed the descent groups would land above the equator and in a common hemisphere with Nexra. But the landing locations identified were just a lightly educated guess.  Many of the ancient technologies and discoveries were made during this trek: the wheel, building construction techniques, continual progress on sailing techniques and the assembly of ever larger ships, transport wagon development, bridge construction, copper discovery, money and banking, windmill development, the discovery of horses, among many others. The humex learned quickly how to manipulate their environment with the tools they found and developed along the way - necessity being the mother of invention.

The third sub-story would concentrate on the development and political rise of Nexra. Although, the humex developed processes to assimilate various, albeit occasional, human cultures along the way to Nexra, the increasing numbers of human tribes in the proximity of Nexra, called for a very sophisticated rework of those processes. These human tribes, in addition to being culturally different and more sophisticated than the early eastern human tribes, had unique qualities that were important to add to the humex civilization. This assimilation process was long and complicated. As has been written, fairness and evenly distributed prosperity were the watchwords of the humex. With everyone within the civilization happily contributing at each of their highest levels, the humex continued to advance exponentially.

Along with the social advances addressed by the third sub-story, the processes governing the physical layout of Nexra would be covered. Land set aside for residential, commercial and agricultural uses were defined and mapped efficiently in the usual humex way.  A major port on the Great Sea was developed as were ever larger ships – both for commercial hauling and passenger transportation. The entire great sea basin gradually came under Nexran rule and the anthropology of efficiently blending human societies with humex societies was at the top of the political to-do list for the humex.

At this point, I was certain of at least three more sub-story divisions, (1) The Middle Descents – covering the second and third Xran descents from orbit; (2) The Rescue Voyage, covering the rescue, half way around the world, of the middle two descent groups; and (3) Millenium, which summarizes one thousand years of humex progress, and follows archaeological adventurers retracing the original trail and outposts left by the humex pioneers on their way to Nexra. The last sub-story contains some surprising events and discoveries.

Geology Lesson – Nexra’s Delicate Balance

For millions of years the Vendian Particle Mass roamed the Milky Way. The Mass was born from the explosion of a planet circling a sun in a distant solar system. The particles were kept together with the gravity of a micro-black hole. Now, captured by the sun’s gravity, the Mass began to orbit the sun between it and the Earth. The temperatures on Earth began to drop precipitously as the mass thickened allowing less and less heat to reach the Earth. On Earth, water began to freeze and assemble into growing glaciers. As more water joined the glaciations, the sea level around the Earth began to drop having ceded trillions of gallons of water to mammoth ice sheets. Global sea levels diminished nearly one-thousand feet in some places. Receding shorelines brought increasingly exposed land masses to the Earth. Sea and animal life migrated toward the equator in self-preservation. And Man followed the food.

Glaciers scoured much of the Earth of its trees and mountains, but created new mountains and nurtured new forests. Glaciers covered lakes and rivers and created new lakes and rivers. Glaciers re-formed seashores and prairies. Glaciers allowed Man to walk from one continent to another where water had once been a barrier to such mobility. Then, the Vendian Particle Mass was disrupted by an enormous swarm of comets. The light show on Earth was dazzling and enduring. For most of a year, the light from the collisions lit the sky, both day and night. Many religions were formed around the globe as a consequence of these celestial events. Spiritual protection was sought and received for a small contribution of food and skins to the elders. As the light show ended, Man left his spiritual protection for the lovely anarchy and chaos of his youth.

 The Earth began to warm and the glaciers began to recede. And the water levels began to rise. Early in the period of the warming trend, a volcano was unleashed by a receding glacier. The volcanic vent had been plugged by mountains of sedimentary rock deposited by shifting glaciers. Then the glaciers scoured away this sedimentary rock, exposing the volcanic vent. Lava oozed out of the vent, not with explosive force, but with slow deliberate mountain building resolve. The volcano rose up between a long, deep waterless channel now exposed as the glaciers receded, and a large basin that had been a large sea before the glaciations. The sea was named the Great Sea by the humex. The volcano continued to rise. The Great Sea began to fill from several rivers now flowing into it carrying millions of cubic feet of glacial melt from the continent located to the west and north of the basin.

The waterless channel was also filling with water from a large western ocean to depths exceeding the Great Sea’s depth. The channel, that came to be known as the Channel Sea and the Great Sea basin, once connected, had been separated by the growing volcano. The separation meant that the basin and the channel were getting their water from different sources. As temperatures continued to warm, the resulting separate water flows caused a difference between the water levels of the Great Sea basin and the Channel Sea of four-hundred feet. From that depth difference, they rose equally with the volcano, Nexra, acting as a plug between them.

There could be no doubt that the Great Sea basin had held more water before the last ice-age. The basin looked like a half-filled kettle. Except for one, the five major rivers entered the sea from the west and the north, interrupted at the rim of the basin with high waterfalls on the way down to the Great Sea below and beyond the base of the falls. The walls surrounding the sea measured anywhere from four-hundred to seven-hundred feet high. If the sea basin had been smaller, where all sides of it could have been seen from a single vantage point, it would have been a constantly intimidating sight – perhaps a fatal trap if water from somewhere began to rapidly fill the basin. But the humans, and later, the humex who were to populate the region, would not be able to see all the sea’s palisades from any one place. Whatever fear might have been generated from the limited range of view they did have, would soon blend into the background of their lives.

Nexra – The Final Approach

With the completion of the final leg of the 8,500 mile trail to Nexra, Airam and Ahlu joined one of the smaller wagon trains heading for the capital of empire. They had joined a train where they knew almost none of the members so that they would have the privacy required to discuss and work through the Cavern Dweller Extrication Project. After all, most of the data and other information having to do with the project was restricted to just a few humex leaders because of its perceived sensitivity. About half way through this last segment of the journey to Nexra, they had completed as much of the extrication project as they were able – for the time being. They then settled into the social aspects of trail life. There were two camp respites left on the trail – the first, Green Sea Camp on the shores of one of the smaller lakes on the trail, which was fed by a river that was nearly overflowing its banks with its rapids propelled by unseen mountain snow-melt far to the north. It was this river that produced Airam’s best friend for the rest of her life. The woman had fallen into the river and Ahlu, risking his life, had saved her life in a harrowing rescue.  Their families also became life-long friends.

The second camp respite was named Interlaaken Camp located on the western shores of the Eastern Sea, the last body of water encountered before the Great Sea on which Nexra was being built. Interlaaken would eventually become a permanent outpost for two reasons – more copper was discovered along its shores and it became the center of Nexra’s agricultural breadbasket.

Immediately, as the wagon trains left Interlaaken, the trail stretched out to the west, rising up through the gently elevating mountain valley. They followed a river much of the way to the summit of the trail. From there, the river disappeared underground attached invisibly to the Great Sea. As they reached the summit, three days later, they could see the vast blueness that was the Great Sea which cradled Nexra in its waters. The wagon train moved along the southern rim of the plateau overlooking the shore of the Great Sea and in ten days the island of Nexra came into view. All eyes stayed on Nexra for the rest of the journey. The bourgeoning metropolis could be seen at night from a considerable distance because of the fires of lamps lighting the roads and existing enclaves of the growing city. Finally, in the summer of the eighty-second year since the first descent, Airam and Ahlu had come home to Nexra.

The Cavern Dweller Extrication Project

    While the humex were struggling to reach Nexra, an equally important movement, or lack thereof, was taking place on Xra. For the most part, the Xrans still in orbit had been attending to the problem of the asteroid’s Great Cavern dwellers – they wouldn’t budge, which meant they were not preparing themselves for the next descent to Earth. The cavern dwellers belonged to a cult of religious fanatics, who, for various reasons, did not accept the premise that there was a safe route to Earth. They believed that the first descent group had died. They also believed that Xra was not in danger of eventually vaporizing in Earth’s atmosphere.

The surface dwellers tried to convince the cavern dwellers of the error of their ways by sending priests down to convince the cavern dwellers that the end was near – but to no appreciable avail. There the circle of half-hearted attempts persisted for nearly fifty generations.  

Picking up on a school project concerning the cavern dweller problem, Ahlu had continued to think ever more seriously about this problem. He had discussed the problem with humex leadership, Xran leadership and had written several papers regarding possible solutions. None of the proposed solutions seemed to hit the mark of a realistic answer. For awhile Ahlu gave up his quest for becoming the white-knight until scientists started pinpointing the next departure date of the next moon to be swallowed up by the Earth’s atmosphere - with a fleet of Xran life-boats following it in.

Ahlu finally enlisted Airam, the love of his life and a brilliant anthropologist, to assist him in finding the answers to this important problem. Together they prepared a plan and then supervised its execution. The project resulted in saving nearly all of the cavern dwellers, therefore saving them for the all-important human assimilation project slated for the end of the first century. The act of saving the cavern dwellers from a sure death as Xra eventually plunged into Earth’s atmosphere was a very important benchmark. The rescue would supply the humex with additional pure-humex leaders through the selfless Xran assimilation with the humans allowing this biological combination to expand the human's poor native intelligence thus promoting them to humex status. The increased numbers were crucially necessary to efficiently direct the growing humex civilization toward continued social fairness and evenly distributed prosperity.

Editor

Oh, the dreaded editing process. The writer loves to create an interesting story, colorful characters, and pen a brilliant turn of phrase. The writer sits back in his chair; his hands clasped firmly behind his neck while he admires his work. This is indeed a moment of pure joy for the emerging superstar (should I worry about carpel tunnel at the prospect signing one-million books?).

As usual,  there are stiff wages to be paid for this unholy pride and that is the editing process. Editing can turn a gifted writer, full of self-esteem and reduce him to a pedantic pile of self-doubt – yea, self-loathing. Many a new writer feels this loss of self esteem keenly after having received a “to do to correct” list from a professional editor. To add injury to insult, you just paid this, this person dearly to lovingly assist you. After all, you are the ‘talent.’ But he most likely has, as my son might say, torn you a new one. And the newer the writer, likely, the wider the new one.

Going Down - Phase 1. The writer’s immediate reaction to the editor’s suggestions  – “I just knew I was this bad”. “Why did I think I could write”.”Life is too short”. “I quit”. Then, Phase 2, "What does this guy know"? "Where did I find such a loser"?  "Etc". And the unsuspecting writer hasn’t even gotten to the literary agent yet – and the writer hasn’t even gotten to the publisher yet. Oh, woe is he. Phase 3. He inquires of other writers, and finds that he is in the middle of the pack because the editor utilized less than two gallons of red ink on his literary work. This is an initial C+ in the scheme of things – and he begins pulling himself up by the bootstraps and begins to face the literary world as it is and decides to deal with it.

That’s the normal approach to having your work edited. Sometimes a writer can obtain literary representation who will supply the editing functions as a part of the representation. For new writers especially (and the agents know who you are), this is a very long shot. If you can’t afford a professional editor, you will have to do it yourself. But this is an obvious contradiction in literary duties that should be handled independently from the writer for reasons that should seem all too obvious. But, what to do?

Let me introduce Serenity Software’s “EDITOR.” This computer program will grind through about twenty pages at a time – about six-hundred lines of tender, heart-felt prose. It will alert you to grammatical errors, punctuation, over-use of individual words, and observe that you have constructed a seventy-word sentence, suggesting it should be broken down into three or more sentences, among hundreds of other observations and corrections. The producers of this software caution you that it is programmed to allow only “formal” English to pass through its microscopic sieve. All other forms of English, will be called on to explain themselves.

The program will suggest that you tighten (use less words), polish (use different words) and consider (use alternate phrasing). It will spell-check for you and will alert you that a given word may have more than one meaning. The list of possible observations, suggestions and direct corrections can completely cover the analyzed manuscript. Corrections are generally required, observations alert the writer of a possible error and suggestions pose alternatives to your existing phraseology. The latter two results don't necessarily require corrections. 

As the writer prints out twenty pages and six-hundred lines of prose, his heart sinks as he sees perhaps a thousand iterations with explanations. Overwhelming is the feeling that initially washes over the writer. As a practical matter, in my case, less than a third of the iterations were required to be acted upon, but they all had to be read and decided upon. As an example of the iterations that did not required adjustment was my use of hyphens (as a replacement for a comma or semi-colon). Hyphens have little place in formal English, so as the veritable king of the hyphen, I faced quite a few alerting iterations therefor.

I began this process at about the half-way point in the book – I waited too long. I stopped writing for a month to catch up to myself. It was one of the most humbling exercises I have yet encountered in my long life.  But, as you might expect, it was one of the more instructional. In addition to generating far less iterations on the second half of the book than the first half, I applied the editing program after each twenty or so pages.

Would I opine that the computer program was better than an experience professional editor? No.

The Last Outpost

Not until the humex trained and became adept at military operations and had manufactured enough weapons, did they begin to leave their new and hastily put together Mesa Camp. The mounted hostiles that had attacked them were dead or scattered throughout the region, no longer potent. At first a few well guarded wagon trains were allowed to continue to Prairie Lakes Outpost. The humex leadership finally declared that the passage from Desert Lake Camp to Prairie Lakes Outpost, posed no undue risk of further marauding hostiles.

With endless wagon trains now moving inexorably toward Nexra, many of the humex from those trains decided to make Prairie Lakes Outpost their home. Copper had been discovered above the shores of the five hundred miles of interconnected lakes that were cumulatively referred to as Prairie Lakes. First a shipbuilding industry was developed to transport mined ore to smelters at Prairie Lakes. The shipbuilding engineers took the ideas from the river rafts and sailing hardware, as well as the hull development achieved at Plateau Lake. Two years of basic study and experimentation resulted in deeper and wider hulls, larger sails, more masts and improved sail manipulation hardware – miles of stronger and lighter rope, tackle hardware improvements, gaff-jaws that scaled the masts almost effortlessly, larger booms and so on. But to put the topping on the cake, the highly efficient and ship-stabilizing centerboard was developed. Finally, detailed engineering manuals were prepared to instruct sailors as well as the shipbuilders in the most efficient use of the new sailing apparatus. Sailing had finally moved from an art to a science. The basic foundation of the science was now in place to facilitate continuous ship improvement.

While the new ships were being engineered, yawning berths and railed gantries were being built to accommodate the imminent ship construction. Large smelters were being built to handle the eventual influx of ship-loads of copper ore. Fledgling manufacturing operations began to spring up to assemble a variety of copper (and other) products for the modern humex consumer and to aid modern industrial progress. Prairie Lakes Outpost, then, was destined to be the largest city in the empire by far and required a large and complete cross-section of humex to administer it. Nexra would not catch up to Prairie Lakes Outpost in population or industrial might for nearly one hundred years.

The city became ever more cosmopolitan with the addition of the humex' former enemies, the nomadic peoples, immigrating from the northern steppe. These peoples were the largest single group of non-humex ever to request entry into the new society. Since Airam had been experienced in the cultural assimilation of new incoming human groups for more than ten years, she was appointed to head up the group to welcome and help the nomads assimilate into humex society. The nomads reciprocated by bringing with them colorful dress and music and the two most important contributions to humex civilization to date – the horse and the windmill.

Brin, Lun, Ahlu and Airam, stayed on at Prairie Lakes Outpost until the city was up and running and had sufficient population to administer and manage its explosive growth. Meanwhile the trail to Nexra was nearing completion, although Nexra’s comprehensive city plan was developed by the humex leadership still ensconced in Prairie Lakes. Prairie Lakes was the empire’s last outpost, and for now was its capital city only surrendering that title to Nexra much later. However, Nexra, and the idea of Nexra represented the center of humex spiritual thought, even before a single shovel of Nexra dirt was displaced.

Rescue From Within

A representative party from the gathering wagon trains at the new Mesa Camp assembled, led by Ahlu, to assess the damage from the two mounted hostile attacks. There were no remaining survivors at the site so the party became a burial detail, doing their best to identify remains and assemble the bodies in a mass grave, sending them to meet the Prime with a short prayer.

Ahlu already had the report of survivors that had made it to Prairie Lake Outpost after the battle. He had mixed emotions about the fact that Airam was not among the dead out here on the lonely steppe – she was still alive. The bad news was that, by process of elimination, she must have been one of the ten or so women taken hostage by the hostiles. He was heart-broken and wanted to light out after her right there and then. But his leadership duties called for him to return to Mesa Camp with a full accounting and assessment of what he had found on the battlefield, and, to make sure his original instructions regarding the wagon trains still on the trail were being followed.

 Now, having attended to his leadership duties in camp, he turned his thoughts to Airam and the other hostages. He asked for a group of volunteer commandos to first track down and observe the hostiles in their habitat, then figure out a way to infiltrate the hostiles’ camp and rescue the hostages. Long odds to be sure.

In most history and geography instructionals, as the great northern (Russian) steppe is studied, the term, Mounted Peoples, is used to describe the natives of that area. Probably emanating from China, these peoples were thought to be of Mongolian origin. And though they were nomadic, they traveled in large cohesive groups resulting in one of the Earth’s first organized societies of humans. They eventually became the Sythians, the fierce guardians of the land north of the Black Sea. These peoples further evolved into the Goths of Roman times arriving from the east to sack the capital city in the fifth century of the Christian Era. They were the spine and the gristle of all peoples whom they absorbed including the Germanic tribes skirting the River Danube, Rome’s northern boundry, on the eve of their fateful march on Rome. This, then, was the biological stock of people that Ahlu and his band of commandos were up against. Patience and caution were paramount.

Travelling largely by night and on foot, the thirty-six commandos found the hostiles’ camp in just more than two weeks. The hostiles’ tent city contained an estimated 5,000 men, women and children. The city appeared to be well organized with the public activities at the center and the expansive horse corrals on the periphery. The commandos spent a week studying the camp layout from the foothills just outside the city. They studied the city’s various routines and they especially watched and learned the best they could from observation, horse riding techniques. The horses acquired during their escape would be the humex’ sole source of these new animals for now. The humex would eventually become trading partners with their old enemies, acquiring all their horse requirements peacefully.

Dressed in hostile-like clothing, the commandos infiltrated the city, five at a time, for another week to see if they could locate the hostages. They managed to locate all of the hostages except Airam. They agreed to locate Airam before liberation of the hostages and as many horses as possible was attempted. This would need to take place on the next moonless night and as surreptitiously as possible. The hope was that the commandos, hostages and horses would be far away by the time they were missed. But time was running out. The moonless night was almost upon them.

When they finally found Airam, she was being held by the hostiles’ leader in his private tent. Ahlu slipped into the tent and killed the leader, during the rescue of Airam. His death wouldn’t be immediately discovered, but it was still daylight and the discovery of the leader's death seemed imminent. Just as the dead leader was discovered, a contingent of the mounted hostiles came riding in from the north. The hostiles’ arch enemies were in full attack. As the hostile warriors were running for their horses, the commandos and hostages slipped out of the camp with more than fifty horses in the confusion.

Later a humex reconnaissance troop went back to the hostiles’ tent city, now lying in ruins. Their enemy had caught the hostiles by complete surprise. The humex troop returned to Mesa Camp having found but two dozen hostile survivors of the bloody attack. If there were more survivors, they had been scattered to the four corners of the steppe. The humex had been lucky this time, or, was there something to this Prime existence theory, Ahlu wondered rhetorically. He shrugged, but led the prayer of thanks to The Prime nonetheless.

Love Among The Dunes

The story so far is about the geographical mass movement of peoples. The story concentrates on the politics, history, religion, science and administrative aspects of the movement – to demonstrate the importance of the inter-relationship of each of the aspects to the others. Although there are a few characters sprinkled sparingly throughout the chapters, it was the texture of each of the societies, as a whole, I wished to establish, and to demonstrate the complex anthropology of the two races of beings. With the core of each race established, I decided to introduce a few more characters and add a bit of drama to this largely historical adventure. 

Although we have already met Ahlu, his character is expanded as he meets and falls in love with Airam at the Desert Lake Camp. This camp is the next respite after the humex finally begin the continuation of their journey to Nexra from Plateau Lake Outpost after a more than three year hiatus. During their first encounter, Airam and Ahlu learn about each other’s lives including the fact that they were educated and practiced in the same profession of anthropology – Ahlu as a politician and Airam as a cultural assimilationist, readying new incoming humans to participate as fully as possible in humex society. They have a lot of notes to compare and in that process fall in love. Because of their existing duties on their respective wagon trains in transit, they must part until they reach Prairie Lakes Outpost still some months away.

Before reaching Prairie Lakes Outpost, two wagon trains were attacked by mounted hostiles out of the northern steppe. Many humex were killed and a few hostages were taken including Airam. Ahlu organizes a necessary major adjustment in wagon train travel. The adjustments included building a new camp on a mesa overlooking the valley, Mesa Camp, from which the mounted hostiles appeared. The humex began building weapons and began to plan battlefield attack strategies based on stories of the mounted hostiles told by the humex survivors of the two attacks. Wagon trains all the way back to Plateau Lake Outpost had to adjust their schedules by not starting out as scheduled; then, those trains already on the trail were to return to Plateau Lake or move on to Desert Camp. All wagon trains then were halted until the humex could understand their attackers and their attack plans – especially from horseback. This was the first time that the humex had ever seen horses. The humex realized that horses potentially represented a great advancement in humex transportation as compared to the reliable but slow-moving oxen. They just needed to get their hands on enough of the horses.

Ahlu now assembles a group of commandoes to find and rescue the hostages and liberate as many horses as possible. The odds of success are not in the humex favor. But the humex had overcome long odds before. The rescue attempt will be one of the most important chapters of humex history.

Mariners in the Sky

I chose this point in the story to clear up and explain further some loose ends and to sow seeds for coming chapters. For instance, much of the last third of the book takes place on the high seas. Why, the high seas? Well, I’ll discuss that later. Throughout the book there are vignettes regarding rafting and rudimentary wind-sail development. Then, during this current portion of the book, while cooling their heels at Plateau Lake Outpost, the highest table of land on the entire route – some 16,000 feet above the altitude of The Grove - the humex became engaged in recreational boat building. Here, they continued to develop the wind-sail system, but also importantly, made new and impressive strides in creating sleek hulls made for speed, jettisoning the raft-body in favor of a newly conceived hull which was deeper and rounded so as to move through the water much more swiftly than the rafts ever could. Almost the entire population of Plateau Lake fell into one of three categories: (1) master boat maker, (2) speed sailor or (3) avid fan of the sail boat races. The more money that was bet on these races, the sleeker and more efficient these boats became. Many volumes were added to the marine engineering library during this period and would prove most valuable for the larger cargo ships that would be developed for future humex encounters with the great seas and oceans of their new planet.

During this part of the book, we are introduced to young Ahlu as a political anthropologist. He worked first as a student, then a politician and finally as a humex leader in his quest to figure a way to convince the Xran Earth doubters that their only future was outside Xra’s great cavern and then on to Earth. They were rigidly ensconced in this cavern as a religious cult and no amount of cajoling or appealing by the Xran surface dwellers could convince them that Earth was the only answer to their survival. They were important to the growing humex civilization on Earth because of their assimilation value once they reached Earth. The pure-humex population ratio to non pure-humex was rising, thanks to Amda, but much too slowly. Another large assimilation project would be necessary and the cavern dwellers figured prominently in the plan.

Here we learn the reason for the rigidity of the cavern dwellers resolve. The truth of a scientific miscalculation showed that the remaining three moons would continue in orbit around Xra instead of one-by-one plunging to Earth, protecting the descent vehicles from the worst of the heat from atmospheric entry. The plan had been formulated to put all Xrans safely on Earth in less than a year after the first successful descent. After many Xran generations of recalculating and identifying the initial error in computations, the estimate for the remaining three moons to move into Earth’s atmosphere was now a hundred years – some 30 Xran generations. That mistake was so grevious that many Xrans moved into the great cavern and suspended all belief in scientific pronouncements. 

This was the intellectual log-jam that Ahlu had to confront and break up. In later chapters we follow Ahlu’s elaborate and long term plan, then its execution and conclusion. The plan was long term relative to the Xran life span which had increased from a little over one year to almost three years, thanks to scientific breakthroughs.

Grist for a Sequel

It was at this point that I thought about a sequel or a spinoff of the story. After all, the story promised to explain how, after hundreds of thousands of years of roaming aimlessly over the planet, humans established several wide-ranging civilizations springing up at relatively the same time.  One such civilization was what has been referred to as the Hindu culture found in the Indus River Valley of India. I pose in the book that the intelligent progenitors of this society migrated down to India’s Indus River Valley from the great Tibetan plateau - between five and six thousand years ago – the original leader, Ndu.

Plateau Lakes Outpost was now the new Western terminus of humex society. It was located about fifty miles north of the headwaters lake that was the mother of the four thousand mile river that the humex had been following for over twenty-five years. Runoff snow melt had been feeding this lake for uncounted thousands of years. The snow melt also fed the reservoir that the humex had constructed to quench the thirst and provide fresh water for the agricultural fields of the new outpost. Plateau Lake outpost was situated on the banks of a lake also fed by this snowmelt. However when the snow melt reached the lake, it turned quickly into saline. The great plateau was sprinkled with many such lakes whose water was equally undrinkable. Something in the hardpan that made up most of the plateau caused these lakes to be impotable.

The humex soon realized that the water from Plateau Lake and the other lakes caused hallucinations in those that ingested the poisonous liquid. A law was quickly put on the humex rule books that this water was not to be drunk. For non-pure humex, the hallucinations were random and physically detrimental. But for the few pure-humex who drank these waters, their memories of Xra came flowing back, although the memories could be dangerous to the humex. The dreams would add a significant variant in an otherwise tight humex ship already under-managed. There were twenty or so humex who had refused to stop drinking the waters and dream strange but compelling dreams. The humex leaders felt they had only two alternatives to deal with this unlawful behavior – either execute the abusers, or expel them from the humex society right there and right then. After long and heated discussions, both parties agreed to the exile of the twenty.

Ndu was the leader of this group. The humex supplied the exiles with food and water, oxen and wagons, and other supplies.  In exchange, Ndu and his tribe could never have contact again with the humex. Ndu left traveling south toward the long high range of mountains that had been the constant companion of the wagoneers. There he would find a valley in which to settle down with his flock and practice his new religion while he and his people lived out their lives in peace and hallucination. The group would eventually name their society after their first leader. Thus was born the culture of Hindu.

A sequel to this book contemplates following this culture as it rises to society status – then to civilization status, as the group makes its way down the mountains into the lush Indus Valley of today’s India.

Headwater

By the time Amda had worked his spiritual magic on his flock, both Gateway Camp and Plateau Lake Outpost (650 miles farther) had been planned and the basic infrastructure of each completed. Before Amda’s effective evangelism had taken root, humex leaders expected only a mere trickle of wagoneers to continue the journey toward Nexra. The infrastructure (roads, a central meeting building, food warehouses, and water facilities) had been completed. The need now to quickly complete the secondary service structures for an initially unexpectedly large throng of humex travelers flowing into these respites was upon them. Accordingly, the first vocational call for new wagoneers required builders and service entrepreneurs. For Gateway Camp, construction of temporary facilities to handle the incoming wagons for three months at a time was first on the agenda. Giant pens for the wagoneers’ animals, both draft and food animals needed to adjoin the residential areas. These facilities needed to be configured so that wagoneers could arrive, rest and leave – all in a three month period – and in coordinated harmony. Other service facilities required of this particular stop (the terminus of 850 miles of rugged mountain terrain) were saloons and brothels, schools and churches, and repair and maintenance facilities.

The river that the humex had been following for 4,000 miles and over twenty-five years had ended. Its headwater was a large pond that collected snow melt from the towering mountains that served as vigilant guardians over the southern edge of the great plateau. Between Gateway Camp and Plateau Lake Outpost (which was actually fifty miles north of the headwater), the river had not been navigable, much of it running below ground, so wagons continued to be the transportation method by default.

Plateau Lake Outpost had the same initial problems as Gateway Camp, that is, beyond the already constructed primary infrastructure, secondary infrastructure needed to be completed quickly – only in much greater proportions since this was to be a permanent humex city. Rather than hold back the humex' urgent migration desire that Amda had fostered, the humex leadership felt that the moderate discomfort that the humex wagoneers would feel with the temporary lack of completed facilities was less important than the grand plan of reaching Nexra. And besides, a bit of discomfort would be helpful to promote the urgency to complete the journey to Nexra. It would be over two years before the trail would be completed to Prairie Lake Outpost, some 1,500 miles west. Humex leaders felt that after two years the wagoneers would be anxious to get back on the trail. They were now nearly half way to the “Promised Land” and would enjoy a far easier trail to negotiate than the first half of this journey.

Other than the typical movie activity connected with the great wagon train journeys of the American West in the 1800’s, including gun fights, Indian attacks, love stories and clouds and clouds of dust, the humex wagon trains had much in common with their future brothers and sisters.  Each train was required to be of a minimum or maximum length. Each train created a set of by-laws and elected a captain and other officers as the size of the wagon train deemed necessary. Each train was required to have a doctor or two. Animal tenders, supply masters and cooks were recruited.  Individual wagon dimensions were required to be within set guidelines to aid and abet maneuverability. Much of the wagon train lore written about in the novel, “Extinction Shrugged” was garnered from research on the American wagon trains.

Second Coming

Fifty years earlier, Amda had headed a leadership council that had formulated the multi-generation expeditionary plan to Nexra with the help of the orbiting Xrans.  He exhorted his fellow humex that this expedition was of the utmost importance if a strong empire was to be formed. Nexra had all the attributes necessary to help the new empire thrive – location, climate, security and relatively easy access not only to the rest of the planet, but to the remaining three estimated future Xran landing sites. 

Amda made the supreme sacrifice not to join the expedition, over the objection of his fellow citizens, because, as he put it, this was a young person’s journey.  The next best humex asset to intelligence for this journey was youth and strength. As his emissaries, he sent his grandchildren to head the voyage, Lun and Brin – and surreptitiously, a vault filled with unassimilated Xrans. The Xrans would aid communication with the remaining orbiters, and, divided from their breathern, located in the original Xran Earth Colony below The Grove, would be doubly available for later human assimilation in case of an emergency. 

As he was sending his grandchildren on the expedition, he imparted the little known secret of their roots – Xra. He told them of the descent of the Xrans to Earth, the Xran colony below their feet and the assimilation with the humans. Finally, he revealed the method to communicate with the Xrans in the vault and therefore with the Xrans in orbit. They were now among the leaders of the humex and their responsibilities were enormous – that was to keep the expedition plan on track at all costs – including their lives.

In the year of the census, twenty-five years later, Amda decided, at the age of 94, to return with Lun and Brin to get a first hand look at the progress and the readniness of the humex to push on toward Nexra. Though the plan contemplated a certain need to settle in outposts along the way, what he found was a population mired in complacency with no appearance of the urgency necessary to complete the journey to Nexra.  Even the humex leadership had settled in. It was true that the mountain trail had been a continuing effort, and Gateway Camp at the northern base of the fourteen hundred mile mountain range had been basically assembled. But this trail building activity, because of its remoteness and its many years in progress, had all but disappeared from the urban humex consciousness. The humex were settled and content with no immediate intentions to pick up stakes and hit the difficult trail again. Amda would have his hands full in his attempt to light the fire of the urgency that was Nexra. 

Lun and Brin had arranged for Amda to talk before a group of top humex outpost leaders. He  began by revealing, for the first time to such a group, the original Xran plan fashioned from orbit – a plan fashioned over hundreds of Xran generations. He told them of the mapping of their trail from orbit. He talked about the decision to establish Nexra as the rendezvous point for all the Xrans as they achieved their planned descents to Earth. It was a gamble to reveal even these small historical tidbits, but Amda needed the group to rise quickly to his call for this imperative migration. For many in the audience, this was the first time they had heard of Xra in this way. To most of them, Xra was simply a bright point of light orbiting the earth periodically, not the ancient home of their ancestors. The detail of the assimilation project stunned the crowd of the pure humex leadership. They were transfixed with these revelations, and, they were strongly cautioned that this history was not for general publication. Amda had them right where he wanted them.

The next descent from orbit was calculated to come in about twenty-five years and the plan called for Nexra to be established and secure from both known and unknown hazards by that time.  So, Amda concluded, time was of the essence – the survival of the humex could very well depended on an established Nexra. Here, Amda had been melodramatic in order to drive his point home, but a considerable inertia was necessary to overcome the current lack of faith in the purpose of the original journey plan. Amda suggested, to the point of insistence, that the next city outpost be built at the recently discovered lake on the High Plateau - a site much farther fron Canyon Valley than had been planned. A small respite (but not a permanent outpost) could be established at the mountain descent point at Gateway Camp, but the people must promptly move on to Plateau Lake Outpost.

Because the next leg of the trail beyond Plateau Lake Outpost was more than two years from completion, the bottleneck expected at Plateau Lake Outpost would be uncomfortable for most humex who would probably be living out of their wagons for an extended period. This worked into the plan. The central problem was to get the humex to move from their current place of great comfort and not to feel that comfort again until they reached Nexra.

While his audience listened in rapt attention, Amda voiced his concerns regarding the decidedly low percentage ratio of pure-humex to the total population. There would need to be a rule requiring pure-humex to attend a protracted period of counseling and obtain a license to marry outside the pure-humex group. It would not be impossible to take a non-pure-humex spouse in marriage, but it would be difficult. It would be of primary importance to raise the existing percentage. The audience saw the merit of the argument and agreed, although a barely perceptible grumble rose from those in the room with established inter-intellectual relationships. Amda was relieved that religion would not have to be brought to bear on this proposition - at least at this time.

With a spirituality of purpose, the leadership council, to a person, became a devoted follower of this newly proposed enhanced urgency now attached tightly to the plan. They held town council meetings to start preparing the humex of Canyon Valley Outpost to begin moving. Many Canyon Valley Outpost leaders were assigned to Two Rivers Outpost, then to The Grove to instruct the leadership in each city to ready their people for the journey. All humex from age sixteen to thirty-five were required to make the journey. Few exceptions for various types of hardship were made. The cities’ remaining balances of inhabitants were free to emigrate as well. The important consideration now, was to leave each outpost with enough of a diverse population to remain in a functioning state. This was accomplished by continuing to recruit nomadic human groups, who, it was now known, could eventually become an achieving and sufficiently intelligent addition to the new civilization.

This part of the story was inspired by Isaac Azimov's Foundation trilogy, in that a long term plan for civilization had to be continually revisited with a variety of stimuli to keep the plan in focus and on the original track.  This part was meant to highlight man's propensity toward short term planning, leaving the long term to fate or to heroic leaders. "But heroes often fail" - from Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind"

Census

On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first Xran descent from orbit a census was taken. The empire, such as it was, included the population centers of The Grove, Two Rivers Outpost and Canyon Valley Outpost. The majority of the population could be found in one or the other of these humex cities, but there were also citizens on any number of wagon trains between Two Rivers and Canyon Valley conducting commerce mainly, and, otherwise traveling to visit friends and relatives. The same applied to the river rafters between The Grove and Two Rivers. Finally to complete the census, a tally was made of the trail constructors and the forward planners working to chart and construct the endless trail to Nexra.

The census was broken down into (1) location (total, 80,000) and (2) intelligence factors. Intelligence factors were subtitled (a) Pure humex (2,000), which was to say, citizens undiluted by non-pure humex blood. These included biologically assimilated humex and children of pure humex parents. (b) Para-humex (9,000). These were children of cross humex/human births who showed that they inherited more intelligence from the humex parent. (c) Pre-humex (27,000). These were also children of cross humex/human births who demonstrated less intelligence from their humex parent. And finally (d) the census categorized immigrant humans (42,000) who were or in the process of becoming culturally assimilated into humex society. Aside from the need to identify and specially train the most intelligent pure-humex as leaders, the other categories also had specific and complete training up to each citizen's capacity. This effort by humex institutions continued throughout the life of the citizen. As a result, the society as a whole was happy and productive. This social compact resulted in virtually no crime, and, societal efforts that would have been spent on corrective and incarceritive measures were directed to training its citizens to their highest and best use – to be the best they could be.

During the census, Brin and Lun who had been on the first expeditionary force twenty-five years before were returning to The Grove for the first time since then. They were going back to visit their grandfather, Amda, the first of the humans to be biologically assimilated so many years before. He had been the leader of The Grove for many years but had recently retired from an active leadership role and assumed an elder statesman role. He had been ill for some time and his grandchildren were coming back to look in on him – perhaps for the last time. Amda, though, made a full recovery while his grandchildren were with him, and decided to join them on the way back up river to see the progress that had been made in twenty-five years. He was anxious to see what preparations had been made to continue, with all the necessary due urgency, the journey to Nexra. He would be disappointed with the complacency he would find as well as the alarmingly small percentage of total population that the pure humex represented. As the 'father of this society,' he set out to effect radical changes in the attitude of the settlers - both civic and marital.

The Story – Where Were We?

While Two Rivers Outpost continued to grow and prosper as a permanent settlement, mountain road construction continued. After nine years, spanning five-hundred miles, the outpost of Canyon Valley was established. It too grew and prospered and trade among it, Two Rivers and The Grove expanded. Agriculturally, each of the humex settlements enjoyed differing altitudes and climates and therefore a unique variety of fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices (with their medical as well as culinary applications). Wagon and raft manufacturing burgeoned with population growth. Commerce thrived as commercial administrative techniques gained more sophistication. With more human bands joining the humex society, more diverse populations required increasingly more complex cultural assimilation methods in an effort to keep the new society humming as seamlessly as possible.  And because the next segment of mountain trail would take fourteen years covering eight-hundred fifty miles, the primary goal of this society – Nexra – was becoming a distant memory as families settled into permanent routines amid the comforts that constant improvements in ancient technology produced .

Somewhere beyond Canyon Valley Outpost, a second major river was discovered. It ran parallel to the humex river for hundreds of miles before it disappeared off to the west just as it had appeared suddenly from the south. In the past, there had been many encounters with human tribes wandering into humex settlements from the wilderness. They brought with them their cultures and their nuanced living techniques and gadgets and many were useful to the humex. But the encounter with the peoples of the second river turned out to be the most propitious immigration project for the fledgling humex and would be considered so for hundreds of years. These people had discovered copper and basic smelting techniques. The far more intelligent humex brought these people into their society and exponentially expanded smelting methods and uses for the new copper discovery. Initially, the most helpful products resulting from the process brought to the market by the new profession of metallurgy were fasteners of all types – nails, hinges, and L-brackets. Other utilitarian inventions were the bronze wheel surface covering, cooking utensils and farm implements. Well down on the list was the production of an occasional weapon which slowly but surely began replacing stone weapons and tools. The humex, in more than seventy-five years, had never had occasion to move into a defense mentality. They had been fortunate.

With the continued expansion of commercialism, came the need for a recognized and guaranteed medium of exchange. So far, barter had been at the heart of all commercial transactions. Few private barter transactions took place because they were complicated and long winded, that is to say, there were many unrelated parties to the original transaction that had to be satisfied before the transaction could be completed. With the advent of copper, money was invented to replace the barter system. A central bank was established and barter items were exchanged for money. Commercial transactions became easier and much more efficient, and, private transactions blossomed. And because of the humex social philosophy, the tide of the expanding economy lifted all boats - meaning prosperity was shared by all members of society. Money was one of the great advances, along with copper, that propelled the humex society far forward.

Who’ll Start the Rain?

I was pretty comfortable with where I was going with my novel, so I began to wonder how to go about getting it published. I purchased a couple of self-help books on the subject of publishing - and it was grim reading indeed. It appeared that the odds against finding a publisher directly appeared to be 10,000 to 1. The better news, but not appreciably better, was for the budding writer to locate and engage literary agency representation. These agents were in business to screen out all but the “sure things’ – to wit - the previously published author and other hopefuls in the top percentile of currently popular genre submissions. Agents, then, culled and redirected writer’s works from the desks of beleaguered publishers, channeling them to the desks of beleaguered agencies. It was here that I learned that literally thousands of ‘submissions’ (a term for an introductory letter, accompanied by a short synopsis of the writer's story, with perhaps, depending on the agency, a chapter or two from the story) were received every month by literary agents, generally located in New York City. Thousands!!! What in the name of all that is holy had I taken on?

I decided to re-read the first thirty chapters of my novel to see if I thought I may be wasting my time considering my new-found statistics. No, this was a good story – I genuinely liked it. The real unasked question was - what was the breadth of the demographic of which I was a part? I certainly knew my book wasn’t anywhere near the mainstream of popular genres, but just how far out of that mainstream was yet to be determined. This book will eventually sell because it is well-researched and well written (says I). After all, as I used to tell my son (who now refuses to take any advice from me whatsoever), study hard, it isn’t who you know, it’s what you know. I actually believed that as part of my country bumpkinesque philosophy. I was about to enter the sphere of the publishing world where both philosophies resided.

My self-help publishing books suggested that I attend conventions of like-story writers and engage in writing workshops. While I was sure this would be helpful to a point, the prospect of this ‘extra’ activity did not appeal to me. After all, I wasn’t interested in becoming a professional writer, nor did the costs associated with these activities appeal to me. Could I have used the writing help of a writers’ workshop or the exposure attending a convention might have gotten me? The answer was yes, but I wasn’t convinced of its ultimate importance. My current and perhaps only book was an interesting exercise for me. I was not about to make it a ‘federal case,’ and besides, isn’t that what agents were for – to polish up the prose and do the necessary marketing? I thought so. I was already somewhat overwhelmed at what I had taken on, but I loved the story and the associated research. So no matter what would happen commercially, I was engaged fully and happily. At this point, I estimated that I would have more than nine months of writing and research ahead of me, so I would begin to assemble a data base of appropriate literary agents. There was plenty of time for this activity since literary agents for fictional novels will not even entertain a submission unless your book is complete.

In future blogs, I will get more into the weeds of publishing – editing, identifying appropriate agents for a given work, and, the exercise of the submission. Still later I will discuss the world of self-publishing.