I am dying to tell you the story of the Winter Fest of 200 and, of course, my involvement in the Great Slide Race. But I think I may be getting ahead of myself. I know some of you might not know much about my homeworld, Harappa. So today I will take a few lines to tell you about the planet we called home and Earth called Smoot-28-4077-3, which is not nearly as romantic.
The name came from the Founder, Marcus Johnson. He apparently was interested in ancient Earth cultures and had been studying them for some time, trying to design a new paradigm for his project of colonizing a new world. We aren’t exactly sure why the Founder chose Harappa other than it was a culture that was lost to history for a long time and also that it’s origins are shrouded in some mystery.
My Harappa is a planet covered mostly in water. There are two main continents on opposite sides of the globe. Humans have colonized a corner of one of the land masses. Much of the planet is not very hospitable. Too hot, most of it. Not so hot to make your blood boil, but uncomfortable. We humans live near the southern pole in a rounded triangle bordered by the White Mountains to the North and the Green Mountains to the East. The ocean lies to the West and South. Running down the center of this triangle is the Great River, fed by the high mountain waters of the White Mountains. From the Green Mountains run the Norton River and the South River which both eventually flow into the Great River near the town of New Junction.
The Great River Plain is where most Harappans lived. Both the great cities, Caelum and Salus were near the bottom to the south, where the Great River ran into the ocean. Along the river were the cities of Sandon, Norton, New Junction and Junction, as well as several other smaller towns and villages. Along the coast were the fishing and algae harvesting villages of Segundo and Mira Mar.
When I figure out how to post pictures, I’ll post a map and some pictures I’ve taken around Harappa.
A Harappan year is 308 days. We have eleven months of twenty-eight days each. Winters are short and we only get snow in the high mountains. Some years we get only a trace of snow in our village.
I grew up in Terramark. Terramark is the main village of the White Mountain Clan. The Terramark Valley is a lovely, flat mountain meadow surrounded by high mountains on three sides. The Terramark creek runs a crooked, lazy path through the meadow. This creek cascades down a rocky gorge and eventually ties into the headwaters of the Great River.
The village lies at the eastern or up hill end of the meadow. The Great Hall where the leading family lives backs up to the Terramark Bluffs which are the toes of the great Terramark Mountain, the highest peak in the White Mountains.
Over the years, many young Harappan men have lost their lives trying to scale the Bluffs. This giant rock slab hangs over the village and most young men want to conquer this rock face. It constantly stares down at us and says, "I dare you!" We've all thought about it, even me. Almost every young man and most of the young women climb up to a spot called the "Lunch Bench" about three hundred meters up the cliff face. Getting there is not as tough as it looks. I did it. Above the "Lunch Bench", the climb becomes too treacherous for all but the most intrepid. Paladin Thain and his friend Cory Sun tried to climb it on a number of occasions, only to be turned back. One time they believed they had found a route to the top but a storm came in and stopped the climb. There are rumors that Dallas Thain successfully climbed the bluffs in the year 48, but no one I know can remember any one making the climb, alive.
North of here is the Black Mountains. That is where the illumaphane is found. The White Mountains, while they seem mighty grand to us are only foothills compared to the Black Mountains. I’m not a scientist but I’ve been told that it’s the heavy gravitational pull of the illumaphane that caused the Black Mountains to be so big and steep. People don’t go there often. Some of the Old Creatures still live there. The strange and dark things that lived all over Harappa before humans got here. Folks avoid the Black Mountains also because of the Harappan Curse. Most doctors and scientists believe the sickness has something to do with the strange mineral.
I got the curse when I was a child, so I guess I am immune to it now, but I still don’t like to go too far up into the strange lands.
That is what we knew of the galaxy before the “Marcus Johnson” landed. Most of us didn’t even know of the continent on the far side of the planet. We knew there was land beyond the Green Mountains that might be turned into a livable place and there were supposedly some folks who had gone off to settle the East River Plain. No one ever heard from them and we thought little about them. We were content to live with the cycles of the Great River. Our galaxy was very small and manageable.
Then the Earthers showed up and everything changed.
Philip Normer
of the White Mountain Clan of Harappa
No comments:
Post a Comment