Chapter seventy six
        The Dawn

Christopher Golde

But the land that rises from the sea
Will be dry and clean and soft and free
Of mankinds dirt and therefore be
The source of mans new dynasty.

Mother Shipton                     -1488-1561

Date:           26th January 2036                                    Location:    New Northern Coastline of Australis Plate

 

              James Morley stood as close to the edge as he dared. Three hundred meters below him waves crashed into the massive rocks that had obviously broken away from the shoreline over recent years. He could still see a few icebergs floating about a kilometre offshore even though ten years ago this would have been summer in central Australia. They were only fifty kilometres from the entrance to the underground city of Australis and in the direction he was looking out to sea, there would once have been hundreds of kilometres of desert until you reached Darwin. That was all gone now. The massive impact of Apophis 2 had shifted the tectonic plates so much that most of Asia and the top of what was Australia had been sucked beneath the waves.

He was a twenty-two-year-old Special Forces officer back when Apophis hit and he remembered the impact as the colossal movement was even felt in the underground city, which had been purpose-built to float in the remaining tectonic plate to avoid the same fate. He was now thirty-two and he had been given the honour to lead the first surface teams out to repopulate the Southern Earth Region of Australis. An honour bestowed upon him because his son who was now ten was the firstborn into the underground city, just one day after the apocalypse. He now had two more children and they would come with him, his wife and a specially selected team of families to set up the first village and begin plotting the new city that would become the capital of the Southern Earth Region of Australis.

 There were only five continents now on the Earth and Jason King had built a plan that was approved by the Union of Nations to call them Southern, Northern, Eastern, Western and Middle Earth. Each would have regions if they were large enough such as Australis and Indies, which were both parts of the new continent created by the joining of what was left of Australia, India and some of the Asian landmasses that had survived. The intention was for Earth to no longer have countries as such, with their own armies, politics, and economies but rather a single Earth armed forces, single Earth economy and one Government still called the Union of Nations. This is how the last ten years had been set up to work and it had seemingly succeeded.

Under Jason King and the council of the Union of Nations, racism seemed to have been wiped out along with crime for profit, pollution, drug abuse and most other communicable vices. It was true, and some did not like it, there had been certain restrictive policies in order for this to succeed but all in all, humanity had taken to it well and they had instituted a completely new learning process for the young which made most of the vices of old Earth completely unattractive. As Jason had always said, with the richness of our world, there is absolutely no reason for starvation or poverty and with the right education, we can teach people how to co-exist. As John Morley remembered, there was no other way, or everyone would have perished.

The new Earth would be built with the wisdom gained from the mistakes of the old Earth and the lessons of the underground cities. Jason King had stipulated that surface cities would be built like their underground counterparts, where everything was completely reusable and renewable, and nothing would be taken from the Earth that could not be returned. If the Earth would not benefit, then it should not be considered or built. There would be no physical currency and people would profit from their contribution. Without a physical currency, there could be no profit crime. There would be free health care, medicine, safe mental and physical stimulation, and education about how to make the most of life, doing away with the need for drugs and other illicit substances, especially since there was no money to buy them. 

He looked back towards the large jet helicopter that had brought them to the edge and he saw his family and his team all standing near it watching him and waiting for his instruction. He had told them to wait for him, as although they had sent scouting teams out, this was the first time to come this close to the edge. The large ice had only melted away a week ago, leaving what he was looking at now. He could also see that in many places on the cliff top, green blades of grass were beginning to pop up through the cracks in the rocks and ice. He bent down and picked a blade from the ground.

              “How resilient you are,” he said to the small green blade in his hand.

They, of course, had grown plants’ in the underground city but this was very different and very special. He could even smell it in the air. He slowly stood back up still looking at the blade and he took in a deep lung full of fresh air. He was alive again. His world was alive again.

For some reason, the thought of his father popped into his head. He believed his father had perished on some Taiwan island when Apophis one had hit. He had been unable to include him on his list to come to the city and at any rate, he had not seen him for months after his parents had divorced. He knew where he had probably been at the time as out of the blue, a week after the event, a postcard had arrived in the city through the army mail dated the day before the first hit and it had a picture of the resort on the front. He was amazed really, as his father had never, ever, written to him before. It had been short and said:

              ‘Thinking of you son and very proud of you. Love Dad,’ and signed formerly, as always, John Morley.

              Strange that he would think of that now, but then this was not a normal day. He walked back towards his waiting family and team still carrying the blade of grass. When he got there he walked up to his oldest son and put his arm around his shoulders looking at all the others waiting expectantly.

              “Everybody, welcome to new Earth,” he said, with a big smile on his face. Everyone cheered and applauded even the chopper pilots who were standing dutifully by the doors of the aircraft.

              “We are not actually at the location for the new city,” he continued, “it is further down the coast about twenty kilometres away from where a large river enters the ocean. I will give you about ten minutes to take a look from the cliff top at the new Ocean of Asia as it has been named and then we will all get back in and move to the location for the city and begin setting up our base. Don’t go too close to the cliff edge as we do not know how stable it is and keep your children by their hand for now.”

              “Ok, ten minutes and back to the chopper,” he ended with a wave of his hand. The enthusiastic team member’s and families all headed off towards where he had come from. His eldest son looked up at him.

              “Can I go, dad,” he pleaded.

              “Go with your mother and keep close to her. Hold Jamie’s hand.”

The boy scampered off after his mother and brother and sister. Jamie was the youngest who was four and he quickly rounded up his hand and they all walked off towards the cliff.

James Morley turned back towards where the two pilots still stood and walked over to them.

              “You have it all mapped out where we are to set up,” he asked?

              “Yes sir,” came the reply from the tallest one.

              “We have to be careful of Polar Bears evidently when we get to the location. They tell me somehow they have managed to migrate from North to South over the last ten years when the ice-covered the whole planet and along with most of the Polar Circle species, they have flourished. We even have a rather large penguin colony where we are building the city.”

              “What do we do if we encounter a bear,” asked the same pilot.

              “If we have any trouble with them we have specialist team members that know how to deal with them but definitely, the order is not to kill any wildlife.”

Jason King had been very specific about the killing of wild animals and it was totally forbidden unless human life was threatened and specialists were not on hand. He was determined that new earth animal life would be harvested only when necessary and under scientifically supported humane methods.

After about thirty minutes, the families that had gone off to see the cliff had returned and James Morley began getting them back aboard the craft. The flight to the site for the new city did not take more than twenty minutes and as they approached they could see all of the materials that had been dropped for them in a large uneven circle atop a raised section of earth about three hundred meters in diameter. The chopper landed perfectly about twenty meters from the five-forty foot containers that made up the bulk of the drop. As they landed and then alighted the craft, John gave them a quick talk on what they were to achieve on the first day before dark and a bit of a safety spiel about some of the dangers they could expect. Everyone had completed six months of training leading up to this day, so all of it was a repeat but James Morley left nothing to chance.

As everyone headed off to start work on setting up the base camp, James walked with the commander of the craft to the highest point of the small mountain they were atop. Once there, they could see all of the surrounding territories. There was not much growth and most of the terrain were boulders coming out of red clay. A river sat off from them about a kilometre and that could be seen meandering off into the distance to a sea that was about ten kilometres from them. He knew that the river was freshwater and most of what they could see was a floodplain. He knew that before the apocalypse, the ocean he could see in the distance had been a park called Kakadu and the river had been there before but had not run into an ocean for thousands of kilometres.

“Had you ever travelled to this area before the event,” he asked the pilot?

“Only when we were working on setting up the underground city,” he replied, “it looks nothing like then,” he added.

“We will keep the main town centre up high here for now until they bring the heavy machinery and build the dam upstream to control the floods that will come in about six months,” James said pointing to the river and its upstream area.

“If it’s okay we will head back to base soon Jim,” replied the pilot as he nodded in agreement, “we need to do four more trips today with supplies.”

Yes of course,” James replied, “we will be fine now. All of these people, even the kids, are well trained in looking after themselves.”

As they walked back towards the aircraft the pilot made a comment that surprised John.

“Do you think any humans survived the apocalypse and then the ice age,” he asked?

James Morley stopped walking and looked at the pilot who he knew was a veteran military man and one of the most senior pilots on the planet.

“Josh, you did countless missions across the earth after the event and even went and visited two other underground cities. Do you really think anyone could have survived that?”

The pilot stood for a minute looking out across the landscape that was mostly red soil and rock but also had patches of remaining ice and a little bit of green from time to time dotted here and there.

“Life is durable Jim, and I don’t mean only the grass that’s starting to come back. If anyone did survive somehow, they are not going to be too friendly you would think to the people who left them behind to die.”

Just as he finished saying that, there was a sharp scream that came from the direction of the containers. Both James and Josh forgot immediately about the conversation and ran towards them full pace. James could see a group of people walking very quickly and almost running towards the chopper from the containers and fifty meters behind them were two large white bears. At least the bears weren’t running he observed, in fact, they seemed to be walking very slowly and craning their heads in the direction of the humans as if not really sure what they should do.

Josh and James slowed their run to a fast walk and John could see the pilot unharnessing his sidearm.

“No killing unless we really have too,” said James.

“I know the protocol,” said the pilot, as he held the weapon in front of his body with both hands and continued to walk towards the bears.

James watched the bears as they walked and noticed they were only walking at a slow pace towards the people that were actually walking faster towards the chopper. The bears soon came to notice the two new humans approaching them as well and stopped. They sniffed the air and seemed to look at each other. John could safely assume he thought, that they had never seen humans and neither had at least a generation of their ancestors. They were probably more curious than anything else at the sight of these strange creatures and probably had only hunted animals much smaller than themselves.

As they got to about fifty meters from the two now stationary bears and they could see the other humans were at the aircraft, the two of them began to slow to a stop and Josh lowered his gun. They were almost stopped when James saw something that made his heart jump into his chest. Behind the bears emerging from between two of the large containers was Jamie his youngest son.

“Oh my god,” said James, “that’s my son.”

He knew that at this time the two bears had not seen his son, so he immediately decided to walk faster towards the bears and yell at them to keep their attention towards him. That worked for the first ten meters but then a woman’s voice came from behind the child and he saw his wife emerge running towards their son. This got the attention of one of the bears and it turned towards the child. James’s heart was in his mouth as he tried to call out to the bear and to his wife at the same time.

He got to about twenty meters from one bear, which was still looking at him and not moving, and he could see the other bear was now about ten meters from his son, who had now been joined by his wife. He continued to yell but the other bear seemed oblivious to him and was more intent on reaching his family. He now knew if he had a gun he would use it, but he did not. He took his eyes off the unfolding catastrophe to look back toward the pilot and saw him standing about ten meters back lifting his weapon into a line of sight.

He knew that it was way too dangerous to shoot now, as the bear was just too close to his wife and child and he hoped Josh understood that as well. He looked back towards them and as he did he stopped dead. He was now only ten meters from the first bear who was still stationary and watching him, and he was an additional twenty or so meters from the second bear who had arrived at his terrified wife. He could not, however, say terrified son, as his son was actually touching the bear and seemed like he was stroking the side of its head. The bear just sniffed them and realizing they offered no threat, went back to the other bear, who it seemed was his or her younger one and they both walked off together in the direction of the ocean.

“Well I’ll be,” said James Morley to himself as he watched them depart and then ran over to his wife and son, grabbing them in a hug.

“Your both okay,” he asked looking them up and down?

“Of course Papa,” laughed Jamie. His wife not so relaxed and wiped a tear away trying to smile while rubbing her sons head.

James held them both and again looked towards the now far off bears. Jason had taught them all that the world would be different now, perhaps even cleansed of man’s centuries of bad behaviour. He had said that animals may even accept us back as part of nature if enough generations had passed among them.

“He was right,” he said softly to himself.

His wife looked at him confused.

“Who was right,” she asked?

“Jason King, Jason was right,” he said smiling, “we have been given a second chance to become a real part of this world we live in, even the animals may accept us now.”