FICTION
Tellus 89, Prologue
Author: Øivind H.Solheim. Published by Det Norske Samlaget, Oslo, 1982
Dedication
To all the silent strugglers under Leonid, Ronald and many others.
“Since we cannot afford under any circumstances to let a holocaust occur, we are forced in this one case to become the historians of the future — to chronicle and commit to memory an event that we have never experienced and must never experience.” Jonathan Schell
From a point of view farther than far out there is nothing to see. Nothing but a fog of light in the endless space.
Closer stars appear, small flashing points in the dark. Some are on the verge of extinction, others are growing. Trembling, shivering points of light in the bottomless darkness.
Even a little closer: a star stands out; a sphere of gases and fire, up to 30 million degrees.
Around this circle planets, nine in number. A regularly rotating system, through billions of years.
At the far end there is a great cold. Deep inside great heat. In the Inner Zone, at a distance from the center of 8 1/4 light minutes, a medium-sized planet hovers, rotating regularly in a fixed orbit around Stella Vitae.
Night alternates with day, winter with summer, autumn with spring.
In the Inner Zone, the planet Tellus rotates, receiving energy, heat, light from Stella Vitae, the Sun of Life.
This is how it has been, the Observer thinks, this is how it was for a thousand million years.
He approaches, stops at the moon, this planet’s only, faithful dwarf.
He sees. A magnificent blue-white-brown ball. A perfectly harmonious shape, covered with dramatic patterns.
He is getting closer. It is dark, the night covers most of the sphere. But he sees traces of life. In the dark he sees shining points. Pinhole heads, huge cities where it breathes, where millions of people live.
The observer smiles. The day dawns, the light triumphs.
Now he goes down. To millennial civilizations, to man-made works, works of art, the sum of over a hundred million years.
He is a guest at Tellus. Towards the end of the 20th century, modern era. Guest at Man, Homo instrumentalis or The Warrior, The Superman of Nature.
Øivind H. Solheim is a novel author and a nature photographer from Norway who loves writing fiction, essays, and articles helping others understand life, other humans, and themselves. He has published six novels, two non-fiction books, and a poetry book.
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