Scorched Earth: A Future History of Planet EarthPetrovic, Walter D.
Science
Scorched Earth: A Future History of Planet Earth
Petrovic, Walter D.
Science fiction
Dearborne knew that there was a change in Brook. Never before has he
cringed under the sounds of the ArchBishop's weapons, and the results
of them thereof. Soon, Dearborne cried, too.
Brook eased his embrace on her. He stroked her hair and kissed the
tears from her eyes until she stopped crying.
"It is time, my love." Brook finally said in a low tone. "It's time
for me to tell you about all these things here, with me." He motioned
to her the whole room and what it contained: the shelves of books, the
cabinet, the small statues, the white screen and the musical
instruments beside it, in the corner. "After all our years of
marriage, I will tell you about these things that my father, Smith
Blue, left for me to use, to keep my rule strong in Phoride."
She dried her eyes with a handkerchief that she took from her sleeve.
Brook guided her to every part of the room and explained to her the
uses which every item had during the time of the Twentieth Century,
over a millennia ago. He explained to her that the statues were the
likeness of the rulers during that time. He told her about how these
men's search for wealth and power plunged the whole world into a bloody
conflict that escalated into a cataclysmic holocaust, that almost
wiped-out every living creature from the face of the Earth. He had let
her know of how only a few handfuls of people survived and how they
were able to rebuild the world and civilisation, to what it was now.
He disclosed how these people took the best of both simple living and
great technology, to make a better and more ordered life on Earth. And
he recounted to her how he was descended from a line of knowledgeable
men called "scientists", and how the idea of such men was lost over the
passage of a thousand years, that eventually became thought of as a
royalty. The faction name, "THE BLUE" had become thought of as
nobility and so was its adoption for a surname lineage, to which was
now his.
Dearborne asked questions about many things. Things that even Brook
had long ago asked himself, because he was never able to obtain the
answers after his father died, and there was no one else to ask.
All he could do was speculate and read some of the old texts, that
explained some questions but never in enough detail to warrant full
understanding and satisfaction to his churning curiosity.
Dearborne now understood why Brook kept this room so private, allowing
only the two people closest to him, in his life (she and Boy), to
enter it. She now knew why she thought it necessary, those many
times, to close the cabinets, and drape-over the wall, when Brook fell
asleep and left them in the open. Brook was aware that all this
knowledge would be misused if it were in the hands of someone like the
ArchBishop and his puppet legions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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