From: "Tony Ellis" <tony.ellis@futurenet.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) 5HC: a timeline with no dates
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 15:46:05 +0000

Every time I re-read ‘A story’ in 5HC, I find myself piecing things
together again from scratch and from the few notes I’ve pencilled in the
margin of my worn paperback. I made this little timeline to give myself
a solid base to work from, and I thought I might as well inflict it on
the rest of you, too. It has no dates, but lots of quotes to show that
I’m not just making all this stuff up.

1. “`We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the roots of
trees.’” Millions of years ago, a native species existed on St. Anne. It
was telepathic, but by our standards mindless. It may have had the power
to change its shape: “’When we came some of you looked like every kind
of beast…’”
2. A human spacecraft from a prehistoric civilisation on Earth splashes
down on St. Anne: “’It is possible that our home was named Atlantis, or
Mu…’”
3. “’The first heard the songs of the second and sent them out again –
greater, greater, greater than before.’” The native species
telepathically receives and amplifies the thoughts of the newcomers.
This has two effects:
a) the humans feel something they have never known before, perhaps the
aboriginal ‘dreaming’ Sandwalker and his people share, and are seduced
by it: “’We had no songs when we came here – that was one of the reasons
we stayed…’”
b) awakening to sentience, the native species is enthralled by the
newcomers: “’We [the humans] so impressed your kind that you became like
us…’” If they are shape changers, they begin to actually look like men.
4. Over time, the human arrivals lose all trace of civilisation, all
memory of earth. The ability to use tools atrophies. They become the
Hill People, and the Marsh Men.
5. The native species becomes the Shadow Children: "mock men". Stoned
out of their tiny telepathic minds on a narcotic plant that makes them
feel like God, they see themselves as the mighty star-crossing humans,
and Sandwalker’s people as the “native animals”. Their communal
telepathy makes this self-perpetuating.
6. On earth, the 20th century comes and goes.
7. The Shadow Children project a telepathic shield, hiding St. Anne and
its sister world from detection by passing spacecraft.
8. Sandwalker’s story takes place. The Shadow Children remove their
shield.
9. A human spacecraft from a future civilisation on Earth splashes down
on St. Anne.

--
Tony Ellis
On-line Editor, PC Format magazine
01225 442244 x2349
http://www.pcformat.co.uk



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