Living History

John L. Purdy

Description

Living History’s  protagonists, Mia and Hugh, encounter a space vehicle that crashed in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest in the ninth century C.E. The problem is: they cannot remember this, when they find themselves in 9,000 B.C.E., where their long journey begins. Aimed at a short time before the crash to prevent the ship from crashing, their time travel is an experimental “shot in the dark,” but the experiment fails. 

However, as they struggle to stay alive, they are not without resources: the beings, who come to be called “cousins,” have implanted Nano technology in them to maintain their bodies and minds, but also an ability for to communicate without speech. In Mia, they provide a store of limited information, which includes a database of human languages but also information on the location of six research stations from which generations of cousins have monitored human evolution for millennia with periodic expeditions. 

These stations frame the plot as they learn how to use them while they travel the world interacting with people and cultures through deep time, and come to devise a plan to use their unique situation to prepare for the day when they return to current times to set in motion a series of events to transform radically the course of human history, sending humankind on a quest to recapture its lost kinship with the world that surrounds them. 

The only obstacle to their plan, besides the obvious hazards of such a long lifespan, is a branch species of humanity that has preyed upon humans for all time, and who have grown in numbers to threaten the very existence for all; blending into the human race in its long migration through time, they have become virtually invisible and wield great power. Mia and Hugh must counter the Kapalna’s growing interest in them in a final sprint to today, and a great awakening.

Sujets

• Cultural Heritage
• Literary
• Literature
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 03 août 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977267269
• Langue: English

Extrait

Living History All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2023 John L. Purdy v3.0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
Cover Design and illustrations by Karyn Pressel All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
T ABLE OF C ONTENTS
Facility
Backtrail
Revelations
Time Immemorial
Capital
Machinations
Conversions
The New World
Dedicated to Cynthia, of the astute eye, Carl, of good humor, and Paulina of the sly smile.


From reviews of Purdy’s novel, Of His Bones:

I really enjoyed this book. It explores the respectful relationship between traditional seasonal fishermen and the rugged natural world that they grapple with every day, and the tensions that arise when powerful and corrupt outsiders disrupt their honest way of living. Despite the gravity of the conflict, the author manages to avoid falling into power politics and instead traces a lovely balance of differing people and perspectives. Barnes and Nobel Reviews

Purdy delicately limns the consequences of modern expansion in elegiac and poetic terms. At one point, Clay muses: "Maybe untold tens of thousands of years of humans fishing annual salmon runs here are just that, history, a lost past now that the runs continue to decline. Lost, along with a number of folks like him still willing to cast their dice that the ancient cycle will prevail against the human odds stacked against it." Kirkus Reviews
F ACILITY

B reath huffs from him in steam clouds, dewdrops that crystalize and fall away. Each step stirs deep, powdered snow into wind, swirling around them like a cold cloak as they crest a rocky ridge, stop to blow, contemplate a next line of ascent. It is growing dark, and the wind shows no sign of abating. He sucks on his frozen mustache, now long and scraggly, a habit he’s acquired during the final day’s climb she says will take them to sanctuary. She hasn’t explained what that means. He hasn’t asked her to.
Looking back the way they came, the fur on his anorak, frozen by moisture in his breath as they climbed, scrapes his cheek above a thick, dark beard as he looks below, where the storm is more intense, and dense, as if it hides an elusive something in its churning snow, dogging their path close behind them, just out of sight, like a stalking ghost. But, as with so many other unfamiliar sensations that have come into his head on their long walk, he doesn’t know what to do with it, so he stuffs it into one of his noisy mind drawers, and walks on.
Storm’s moving up. Maybe we should hunker down, wait it out. When she doesn’t respond, he tries another approach, to break a long silence they’ve walked through for most of the afternoon, evening. "Aren’t you tired, even a little bit cold?" Knowing the answer, but wishing a reaction, contact. She turns to him, cocks her head to the side the way that reminds him of the dog who had taken them as pets, back there, on the north coast where they lived with the people before they began the long journey. When they left that place, the dog had sat rooted, watching them as he tried to entice him to go along. It had cocked its head just like that, perhaps for clarification, or in curiosity of human conduct. The dog stayed where it had been born.
"Why, are you? " Raising her voice, to be heard over the wind. She probes. You’re hungry. He had not mentioned food the whole climb.
How far?
Close now, over there, just below that large, jagged crag on the back of the lower peak, pointing off into the dusk .
He can barely make out its lower contours through the snow and spotty, gray light, although his vision has strengthened and grown more acute on the long walk south and then east, each day bringing more distant objects into focus. The headaches have lessened, too, in severity and frequency. He had attributed the improvements to the warmth of the sun along their route, yet when they began the long climb up a massive mountain range into freezing storms, things began to clear even further.
She starts the climb. We’d better get going. It may be tough to find , although her vision never seems affected by conditions.
When she stops suddenly, looks down the ridge, he follows her gaze into a deep ravine below, almost large enough to call itself a canyon. There, clusters of boulders form a rough semicircle along a streambed carved by water rushing down from a glacier. He catches a scent on the wind. What is it?
She hesitates, as she often does when he asks the obvious. Smoke . He sees dim light then, pocking the clouds below them. More than one fire.
Do you feel them?
They may already be asleep. We’ll stay downwind.
Roger that .
She stares at him, this time in a way he does not much like. Are you going to keep doing that?
What?
Making up nonsense. It’s getting worse each day, and it’s annoying .
Stung. I can’t help it. Things pop into my head and fall out my mouth .
She puts her hand on his shoulder, and the sting swirls away with the powdered snow. This could be good, I guess, but please keep them to yourself.
Rog …
She shakes her head, groans, and continues in the lead along the ridge, holding below its crest to be out of sight from the camp below and avoid their own smells swirling down to it. He catches himself before an impression registers in words, or even takes shape as an emotion, but he thinks he hears her mumble "leave some things behind" out loud, but the wind can play tricks on ears.
When they near the place she pointed out, new words surface, words connected to rocks, but he has no context to understand which is which: basalt, limestone, granite. She leads him to an extended overhang like a forehead’s brow, furrowed and pensive where the contours of the crag match those of larger ones above it rising toward the summit, this one dwarfed and common by comparison. Beyond, disappearing into the distance, the massive mountain stretches into the dark, ominous, indifferent. Rocks becomes Rockies , a whisp. She stoops under the overhang, over its matching doorstep, the opening barely high enough for them to enter without crawling, but a good eight feet wide. Even at that, inside, the wind subsides and he feels the temperature rise.
The cavern is nearly thirty feet deep and forty wide, terminating in a solid rock face, rough and dark. On the floor, signs of old fires, long, partial branches charcoaled and cold. Scattered among the ruins of the fire pit, a few bright bones flash from the ashes. She pulls off her heavy, bear-fur anorak.
No one’s home.
What? This time she does not wait for him to say it again, but moves along the interior wall to the right, her dainty hand sliding along it as a guide. Dropping his pack, he follows. When they come to the far end, the rock curves sharply away, inward from the sidewall … where she disappears.
He stands stone still, trying to ram this into his mental wonders compartment, but it won’t fit, so he turns in circles, searching for something he can’t quite identify. Panic, a crush of being alone. Minutes pass before he starts to search the cave, finding a rat’s nest in the back that catches the kindle quickly, spreads flames to the residue wood of the fire pit, dried by the cold and low humidity. The fire calms him, centers him like an old friend.
To avoid the fear mounting from her abrupt absence, he busies himself with a look around in the growing light, considers the cavern’s shape, as if it were designed to offer a dry, compact space. Even the small fire he builds will be sufficient to drive out the cold. "Some sanctuary." His voice sounds like a frog’s.
Rummaging in his pack, he takes his woven basket outside to fill with snow to melt by the fire, noting that some light escapes the cave despite his attempt to keep the fire small. When he comes back inside, she stands by the fire wearing a knee-length, tan skirt and light jacket. Been shopping? He does not know why he thought that, nor why he feels aroused by the sight of her in strange garments.
She smiles her coy smile, warming him. There are clothes for you, too , turns to go.
The fire, they’ll see it, below, come to investigate.
I don’t feel anyone. We’re probably invisible from this distance. When they get to the intersection of the walls where she disappeared, he has misgivings about what may lay beyond, and these she senses. No one’s here. We’re safe. It’s a soft threshold, serves the function of a door, but it’s like walking through a warm waterfall, without getting wet.
How do you know this? Warm waterfall, why do you say it like that? She doesn’t reply. What if the people below come and find it?
It blocks things, somehow. We must go through together. She takes his hand, and the night disappears, in another cavern, one large enough to taper into the distance. It is full of light and warmth, but the air is musty, and, on one side, a row of structures against one wall, a wall flat, smooth, uniform, as is a contoured ceiling. In front of them, a vast open space blocked into dirt plots of various colors and shapes.
They stand, silent, sca