The Worlds of the Sheaf

Escape - Part 7

     "Which the Director would never agree to," pointed out Karem. "Such a dangerous summoning is only authorised during times of crisis."

     "Indeed," said the nome, scowling at the interruption, "which is why we cannot pin it down closer than a few centuries. Both civilisations collapsed sixteen thousand years ago, give or take a few hundred years, but that could still mean that one collapsed nearly a thousand years before the other."

     Thomas was shaking his head, though. "No, it's too much of a coincidence. What, a few centuries over sixteen thousand years? I'd lay money the same event destroyed them both, at the same time. Some catastrophe so terrible that it destroyed civilisations in two separate universes. Maybe it was the creation of the portal that caused it. The opening of transdimensional gateways are often accompanied by enormous releases of energy, aren't they?"

     "I think we're entering the realm of pure speculation now," said the nome, however.

     "Maybe not," said Tassley. "Look, both civilisations had the ability to cross wide stretches of empty space, didn't they? They could both have reached the portal, if it had existed back then, but you told me you hadn't found a single Citybuilder artifact on Fechlon, except those the Masters took there, and not a single Ringbuilder artifact on Veglia, indicating that the two civilisations almost certainly never came in contact with each other."

     "The Portal could still have been created thousands of years later, though," pointed out Karem. "Long, long after both civilisations collapsed."

     Thomas was thinking, however. "How old is the Rossem meteorite?" he asked. "We now know that the Shipbuilder civilisation lies on the other side of the portal..."

     "It's difficult to date Rossemian magic," said the nome thoughtfully. "We can't pin it down better than fifteen to twenty thousand years, and its true age may be a little outside that range. All we can say for certain is that the portal definitely existed fifteen thousand years ago, but for how long before that, we can't say."

     "So we haven't really got anything!" cried Thomas in exasperation. "Just a lot of coincidences and possibilities."

     Edward nodded. "If we had a third fallen civilisation which we could date to sixteen thousand years ago, that would make your theory a lot stronger. We'll have to wait until the Jules Verne's explored a few more planets."

     "Maybe not," said Thomas, however, a look of dawning excitement on his face. "Maybe there's a fallen civilisation a lot closer to home. Right here on Tharia, in fact."

     The others stared at him. It was well known among the educated classes that other races had occupied their world long before the coming of humanity, but they had all been dated to be far older than the period they were interested in. The most recent, the G'Toff civilisation, was over two million years old, and after their disappearance the world was thought to have been empty until the coming of humanity, whose oldest archaeological find was two thousand years younger.

     "What do you mean?" asked Tassley therefore. "What civilisation are you talking about?"

     Thomas explained about the ancient artifacts discovered by the young rak Gannlow three thousand years before. He said nothing about his acquired memories of Tak, not wanting to open that particular can of worms right now, but instead said he'd read about it in an old document.

     "They contained images of a mighty civilisation similar to the Citybuilders and the Ringbuilders," he said. "A human civilisation. I think humanity has been on this world a lot longer than anyone suspects, and that, long, long ago, our ancestors had a civilisation based on natural philosophy rather than magic. If we could find some trace of that civilisation, if we could find some artifacts and date them, I'd lay big money that it fell sixteen thousand years ago."