The People of Forrs

Science Fiction Nature & Ecology Dying EarthFrom the Ashes Please Note: As of 2009: New Paperback cover. The number of pages in the new editions may vary due to single spacing which keeps the publishing costs minimalized; but, the content is the same as the first printing except for a few corrections. The world is changing. Large numbers of people seem to be missing,and when the government attempts to find out why, they come acrossa plan by a group, led by a number of scientists and tradesmen, thathas formed its own country—and plans to defect to a new planetnamed Forrs. But while the group departs and begins a new existenceon the planet, Earth is riddled with disasters. Volcanoes, rising tides,and melting polar ice caps leave the planet on the brink of destruction. Everyone is welcomed to Forrs with open arms. But isthe new beginning all it seems? ThePeople of Forrs by Byron R. Bowen The People of Forrs Ranger missions continued the rescue at the home planet after the President and his staffs had evacuated. Prior to the evolution of the new continent, the lofty crags had consistently been covered with snow. The barren surface on the mountain peaks looked conspicuous without snowcaps. The poles had shifted shortly after the evacuation, and the mountain ranges of the northern hemisphere occupied the temperate zone near the equator. Raging torrents of runoff water ran tumbling from the slopes, stripping the rocky peaks of vegetation. The rescue ships scanned the terrain. The sensors could detect fire in the murky atmosphere, and sometimes where there was fire there were people. The crew aboard a C10 rescue ship had located a small fire on a high, barren, mountain ridge. The instruments tracked the thin, vaporous stream of smoke. The C10 targeted video cameras and searched the area for signs of life. At a high elevation, on a large, barren rock that protruded above a sea of cascading water dotted with debris which had floated up from deep caverns and crevasses flooded by the deluge of of run-off water, a lone figure sat warming hands and feet by the fire's flame. He wore sackcloth peculiar to some of the other survivors previously rescued in that mountain region. The rescue crew observed the lone figure as they let the ship gently settle near the camp. The man on the rock walked around the surface of a boulder and studied the descending craft in the sky. He drew an odd-looking handgun from a gun belt and held it in readiness at his side. Dan set the ship at a distance from the man just a few feet in the air above the rock surface. The lower door of the craft opened. Dan stepped out onto the rock and walked slowly across the distance toward®∂ the survivor. "Hi, stranger. I am from ranger missions. My name is Dan. That is my ship. Who are you?" Dan had learned a few words of the dialect of the people in that in that region during other pickups. He did not expect more than the usual hand signs, stilted words and gestures natural to conversation between people who spoke other dialects. "I am Pey," the man answered softly in Dan's own language.