September 24, 2025 • 11 mins
In a distant future, Earth continues its orbit around the Sun, a forgotten speck in the galaxy, irrelevant to its trillions of descendants. Yet, for the few million who remain, life is a tapestry of simplicity and quiet joy. But when interstellar politics demands their departure from Earth, the story unfolds in unexpected ways. Join the legendary Poul Anderson as he delves into the significance of Earth to humanity, focusing on one mans poignant journey. (Summary by Phil Chenevert)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part one of the chapter ends. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information nor to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Phil Schinevert. The chapter ends by Paul Anderson. Part one, No,
(00:23):
said the old man, But you don't realize what it means,
said Joron. You don't know what you're saying. The old
man karmpt of houerdar Gerlog's son and speaker for Solis township,
shook his head till the long gristled locks swirled around
(00:43):
his wide shoulders. I have thought it through, he said.
His voice was deep and slow and implacable. You gave
me five years to think about it, and my answer
is no. Jorn I felt a weariness rise within him.
It had been like this for days, now weeks, and
(01:06):
it was still like trying to knock down a mountain.
You beat on its rocky flanks till your hands were bloody,
and still the mountain stood there, sunlight on its high
snowfields and in the forests that rustled up its slopes,
and it did not really notice you. You were a
thin brief buzz between two long nights, but the mountain
(01:30):
was forever. You haven't thought at all, he said, with
a rudeness born of exhaustion. You only reacted unthinkingly to
a dead symbol. It's not a human reaction, even it's
a verbal reflex. Corp's eyes, meshed in crow feet, were
serene and steady under the thick gray brows. He smiled
(01:53):
a little in his long beard, but made no other reply.
Had he simply let the insult glide off him, or
had he not understood it at all? There was no
real talking to these peasants. Too many millennia lay between,
and you couldn't shout across that gulf, well, said Joron.
(02:14):
The ships will be here tomorrow or the next day,
and it'll take another day or so to get your
people aboard. You'll have that long to decide, but after
that it'll be too late. Think about it. I beg
of you. As for me, I'll be too busy to
argue further. You are a good man, said Carmpt, and
a wise one in your fashion, But you are blind.
(02:38):
There is something dead inside you. He waved one huge
gnarled hand. Look around you, jorn Opholchus, this is earth,
This is the old home of all human kind. You
cannot go off and forget it. Man cannot do so.
(03:00):
It is in him, in his blood and bones, and
bones and soul. He will carry earth within him forever.
Jarran's eyes traveled across the arc of the hand. He
stood on the edge of the town. Beneath him or
its houses, low white, half timbered roofed with thatch or
(03:20):
red tile, Smoke rising from the chimneys. Carved galleries overhung
the narrow, cobbled, crazily twisting streets. He heard the noise
of wheels and wooden clogs, the shouts of children at play.
Beyond that were trees and the incredible ruined walls of
sall city. In front of him, the wooded hills were cleared,
(03:42):
and a gentle landscape of neat fields and orchards rolled
down toward the distant glitter of the sea. Scattered farm buildings,
strousy cattle, winding gravel roads, fence walls of ancient marble
and granite, all dreaming under the sun. He drew a
deep breath. It was pungent in his nostrils. It smelled
(04:07):
of leaf, mold, plowed earth baking in the warmth, summery
trees and gardens, a remote ocean odor of salt and
kelp and fish. He thought that no two planets ever
had quite the same smell, and that none was as
rich as Terra's. This is a fair world, he said slowly.
(04:31):
It is the only one, said Cormt. Man came from
here and to this. In the end he must return,
I wonder, Jarren sighed, Take me, not one atom of
my body was from this soil before I landed. My
people lived on Phocis for ages and changed to meet
(04:53):
its conditions. They would not be happy on Terra. The
atoms are nothing, said Cormped. It is the form which matters,
and that was given to you by Earth. Jorran studied
him for a moment. Cormped was, like most of this
planet's ten million or so people, a dark, stocky folk,
(05:15):
though there were more blond and red haired throwbacks here
than in the rest of the galaxy. He was old,
for a primitive, untreated by medical science. He must be
almost two hundred years old. But his back was straight
and his stride firm. The coarse, jut nosed face held
an odd strength. Joran was nearing his thousandth birthday, but
(05:39):
couldn't help feeling like a child in karmpsed presence. That
didn't make sense. These few dwellers on Terra were a
backward and impoverished race of peasants and hand craftsmen. They
were ignorant and unadventurous. They had been static for more
thousands of years than anyone knew. What could they have
(06:01):
to say to the ancient and mighty civilization which had
almost forgotten their little planet. Krimp looked at the declining sun.
I must go now, he said. There are evening choors
to do. I will be in town to night. If
you should wish to see me, I probably will, said Juron.
(06:21):
There's a lot to do readying the evacuation. You're a
big help. The old man bowed with grave courtesy, turned
and walked off down the road. He wore the common
costume of terran men, as archaic in style, as in
its woven fabric material, hat, jacket, loose trousers, a long
(06:42):
staff in his hand. Contrasting the drab blue of Karp's dress,
Jaron's vivid tunic of shifting rainbow hues was like a flame.
The psychotechnician sighed again, watching him go. He liked the
old fellow. It would be criminal to leave him here alone.
But the law arbade force physical or mental, and the
(07:06):
integrator of Carrazuno wasn't going to care whether or not
one aged man stayed behind. Their job was to get
the race off terror. A lovely world. Jaron's thin mobile features,
pale skinned and large eyed, turned around the horizon. A
fair world we came from. There were more beautiful planets
(07:30):
in the galaxy, swarming myriads, the Indigo world, Ocean of Loa,
jeweled with islands, the heaven dividing mountains of shrined, the
sky of Jareb that seemed to drip light. Oh many
and many, but there was only one Earth. Jaron remembered
(07:51):
his first sight of this world, hanging free in space
to watch it after the Gruelington day run thirty thousand
light years Carrazuno. It was blue as it turned before
his eyes, a burnished turquoise shield blazoned with the living
green and brown of its lands, and the poles were
(08:12):
crowned with a flammering haze of aurora. The belts that
streaked its face and blurred the continents were cloud, wind
and water, and the gray rush of rain like a
benediction from Heaven beyond. The planet hung its moon, a
scarred golden crescent, and he had wondered how many generations
(08:33):
of men had looked up to it, or watched its
light like a broken bridge across moving waters, against the
enormous cold of the sky, utter black out to the
distant coils of the nebula thronging with a million frosty
points of diamond hard blaze that were the stars. Earth
had stood as a sign of haven. Two Jarrin, who
(08:57):
came from galactic center and its uncountable hostless sons, Heaven
was bare. This was the outer fringe, where the stars
thinned away toward hideous immensity. He had shivered a little,
drawn the envelope of air and warmth closer about him
with a convulsive movement. The silence drummed in his head.
(09:20):
Then he streaked for the North Pole rendezvous of his group. Well,
he thought, now we have a pretty routine job. The
first expedition here five years ago prepared the natives for
the fact they'd have to go. Our party simply has
to organize these docile peasants in time for the ships.
(09:41):
But it had meant a lot of hard work, and
he was tired. It would be good to finish the
job and get back home, or would it. He thought
of flying with Zarek, his team mate, from the rendezvous
to this area assigned as theirs. Planes like oceans of grass,
wind rippled, darkened with the herds of wild cattle, whose
(10:04):
hoof beats were a thunder in the earth forests, hundreds
of kilometers of old and mighty trees, rivers piercing them
in a long, steel gleam. Lakes were fish leaped, spilling
sunshine like warm rain, radiance so bright it hurt his eyes.
Cloud shadows swift across the land. It had all been
(10:28):
empty of men, but still there was a vitality here
which was almost frightening to Joran. His own grim world
of moors and crags and spindrift seas was a niggard
beside this. Here, life covered the earth, filled the oceans,
and made the heavens clangorous around him. He wondered if
(10:51):
the driving energy within man, the force which had raised
him to the stars, made him half god and half demon.
If that was the legacy of terror well man had
changed over the thousands of years, natural and controlled adaptation
had fitted him to the worlds he had colonized, and
(11:12):
most of his many races could not now feel at
home here. Jarren thought of his own party, round amber
skinned Chuli from a tropic world, complaining bitterly about the
cold and dryness. Gay young, clothe gangling and bold chested,
sophisticated Tuleuvana, of the flowing, dark hair in the lustrous eyes. No,
(11:36):
to them, Earth was only one more planet out of
thousands they had seen in their long lives. And I
am a sentimental fool. End of Part one.
Part one of the chapter ends. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information nor to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Phil Schinevert. The chapter ends by Paul Anderson. Part one, No,
(00:23):
said the old man, But you don't realize what it means,
said Joron. You don't know what you're saying. The old
man karmpt of houerdar Gerlog's son and speaker for Solis township,
shook his head till the long gristled locks swirled around
(00:43):
his wide shoulders. I have thought it through, he said.
His voice was deep and slow and implacable. You gave
me five years to think about it, and my answer
is no. Jorn I felt a weariness rise within him.
It had been like this for days, now weeks, and
(01:06):
it was still like trying to knock down a mountain.
You beat on its rocky flanks till your hands were bloody,
and still the mountain stood there, sunlight on its high
snowfields and in the forests that rustled up its slopes,
and it did not really notice you. You were a
thin brief buzz between two long nights, but the mountain
(01:30):
was forever. You haven't thought at all, he said, with
a rudeness born of exhaustion. You only reacted unthinkingly to
a dead symbol. It's not a human reaction, even it's
a verbal reflex. Corp's eyes, meshed in crow feet, were
serene and steady under the thick gray brows. He smiled
(01:53):
a little in his long beard, but made no other reply.
Had he simply let the insult glide off him, or
had he not understood it at all? There was no
real talking to these peasants. Too many millennia lay between,
and you couldn't shout across that gulf, well, said Joron.
(02:14):
The ships will be here tomorrow or the next day,
and it'll take another day or so to get your
people aboard. You'll have that long to decide, but after
that it'll be too late. Think about it. I beg
of you. As for me, I'll be too busy to
argue further. You are a good man, said Carmpt, and
a wise one in your fashion, But you are blind.
(02:38):
There is something dead inside you. He waved one huge
gnarled hand. Look around you, jorn Opholchus, this is earth,
This is the old home of all human kind. You
cannot go off and forget it. Man cannot do so.
(03:00):
It is in him, in his blood and bones, and
bones and soul. He will carry earth within him forever.
Jarran's eyes traveled across the arc of the hand. He
stood on the edge of the town. Beneath him or
its houses, low white, half timbered roofed with thatch or
(03:20):
red tile, Smoke rising from the chimneys. Carved galleries overhung
the narrow, cobbled, crazily twisting streets. He heard the noise
of wheels and wooden clogs, the shouts of children at play.
Beyond that were trees and the incredible ruined walls of
sall city. In front of him, the wooded hills were cleared,
(03:42):
and a gentle landscape of neat fields and orchards rolled
down toward the distant glitter of the sea. Scattered farm buildings,
strousy cattle, winding gravel roads, fence walls of ancient marble
and granite, all dreaming under the sun. He drew a
deep breath. It was pungent in his nostrils. It smelled
(04:07):
of leaf, mold, plowed earth baking in the warmth, summery
trees and gardens, a remote ocean odor of salt and
kelp and fish. He thought that no two planets ever
had quite the same smell, and that none was as
rich as Terra's. This is a fair world, he said slowly.
(04:31):
It is the only one, said Cormt. Man came from
here and to this. In the end he must return,
I wonder, Jarren sighed, Take me, not one atom of
my body was from this soil before I landed. My
people lived on Phocis for ages and changed to meet
(04:53):
its conditions. They would not be happy on Terra. The
atoms are nothing, said Cormped. It is the form which matters,
and that was given to you by Earth. Jorran studied
him for a moment. Cormped was, like most of this
planet's ten million or so people, a dark, stocky folk,
(05:15):
though there were more blond and red haired throwbacks here
than in the rest of the galaxy. He was old,
for a primitive, untreated by medical science. He must be
almost two hundred years old. But his back was straight
and his stride firm. The coarse, jut nosed face held
an odd strength. Joran was nearing his thousandth birthday, but
(05:39):
couldn't help feeling like a child in karmpsed presence. That
didn't make sense. These few dwellers on Terra were a
backward and impoverished race of peasants and hand craftsmen. They
were ignorant and unadventurous. They had been static for more
thousands of years than anyone knew. What could they have
(06:01):
to say to the ancient and mighty civilization which had
almost forgotten their little planet. Krimp looked at the declining sun.
I must go now, he said. There are evening choors
to do. I will be in town to night. If
you should wish to see me, I probably will, said Juron.
(06:21):
There's a lot to do readying the evacuation. You're a
big help. The old man bowed with grave courtesy, turned
and walked off down the road. He wore the common
costume of terran men, as archaic in style, as in
its woven fabric material, hat, jacket, loose trousers, a long
(06:42):
staff in his hand. Contrasting the drab blue of Karp's dress,
Jaron's vivid tunic of shifting rainbow hues was like a flame.
The psychotechnician sighed again, watching him go. He liked the
old fellow. It would be criminal to leave him here alone.
But the law arbade force physical or mental, and the
(07:06):
integrator of Carrazuno wasn't going to care whether or not
one aged man stayed behind. Their job was to get
the race off terror. A lovely world. Jaron's thin mobile features,
pale skinned and large eyed, turned around the horizon. A
fair world we came from. There were more beautiful planets
(07:30):
in the galaxy, swarming myriads, the Indigo world, Ocean of Loa,
jeweled with islands, the heaven dividing mountains of shrined, the
sky of Jareb that seemed to drip light. Oh many
and many, but there was only one Earth. Jaron remembered
(07:51):
his first sight of this world, hanging free in space
to watch it after the Gruelington day run thirty thousand
light years Carrazuno. It was blue as it turned before
his eyes, a burnished turquoise shield blazoned with the living
green and brown of its lands, and the poles were
(08:12):
crowned with a flammering haze of aurora. The belts that
streaked its face and blurred the continents were cloud, wind
and water, and the gray rush of rain like a
benediction from Heaven beyond. The planet hung its moon, a
scarred golden crescent, and he had wondered how many generations
(08:33):
of men had looked up to it, or watched its
light like a broken bridge across moving waters, against the
enormous cold of the sky, utter black out to the
distant coils of the nebula thronging with a million frosty
points of diamond hard blaze that were the stars. Earth
had stood as a sign of haven. Two Jarrin, who
(08:57):
came from galactic center and its uncountable hostless sons, Heaven
was bare. This was the outer fringe, where the stars
thinned away toward hideous immensity. He had shivered a little,
drawn the envelope of air and warmth closer about him
with a convulsive movement. The silence drummed in his head.
(09:20):
Then he streaked for the North Pole rendezvous of his group. Well,
he thought, now we have a pretty routine job. The
first expedition here five years ago prepared the natives for
the fact they'd have to go. Our party simply has
to organize these docile peasants in time for the ships.
(09:41):
But it had meant a lot of hard work, and
he was tired. It would be good to finish the
job and get back home, or would it. He thought
of flying with Zarek, his team mate, from the rendezvous
to this area assigned as theirs. Planes like oceans of grass,
wind rippled, darkened with the herds of wild cattle, whose
(10:04):
hoof beats were a thunder in the earth forests, hundreds
of kilometers of old and mighty trees, rivers piercing them
in a long, steel gleam. Lakes were fish leaped, spilling
sunshine like warm rain, radiance so bright it hurt his eyes.
Cloud shadows swift across the land. It had all been
(10:28):
empty of men, but still there was a vitality here
which was almost frightening to Joran. His own grim world
of moors and crags and spindrift seas was a niggard
beside this. Here, life covered the earth, filled the oceans,
and made the heavens clangorous around him. He wondered if
(10:51):
the driving energy within man, the force which had raised
him to the stars, made him half god and half demon.
If that was the legacy of terror well man had
changed over the thousands of years, natural and controlled adaptation
had fitted him to the worlds he had colonized, and
(11:12):
most of his many races could not now feel at
home here. Jarren thought of his own party, round amber
skinned Chuli from a tropic world, complaining bitterly about the
cold and dryness. Gay young, clothe gangling and bold chested,
sophisticated Tuleuvana, of the flowing, dark hair in the lustrous eyes. No,
(11:36):
to them, Earth was only one more planet out of
thousands they had seen in their long lives. And I
am a sentimental fool. End of Part one.
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