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"