36 - The Floating Bodies

“The meteor must have hit those temporal farming machines.”

A fitting end, the Observer had thought. Justice that the architect of the, if not disaster, then inability to notice or manage the catastrophe, to meet an end in it.

It made sense then that she’d been in the air, dropping out of some sort of time distortion. He and Impecca still hadn’t cracked the code of the technology, but all those machines being targeted by the meteor could have caused some interesting temporal shifting. He and Impecca resolved to keep a closer watch on the area for more droppers.

A few months later, and the same thing happened. By this time, the sea had covered a good portion of old, Old Old Jardinian. The Observer and Impecca hurried out to find the severe crash landing of Geniva, not far from where they had found the Dean. Regrettably, New Money in Old Jardinian would not return for a final season.

As the seas rose to over the spot where larger Old Jardinian had been, and even the remaining high terraces of Laudishan, more and more Old Jardinians fell. Pieces of masonry and bits of buildings, and objects from Old Jardinian life fell too.

Impecca and the Observer were able to rescue one, then two, and soon had a small colony of rescues living in the old Alovian station. They ventured out on makeshift boats to rescue the ones who had the good fortune to land in the shallow, encroaching seas that were reclaiming the city. They weaved around the remains of walls and towers, the collapsed domes creating small lagoons, surfaces unmarked by wave and debris.

As the years went on, and they made better use of Alovian technology and foundries, their boat constructions got better. They were able to rescue the Jards that were steadily dropping into the seas that were now lapping at the base of the waterfall. Their splashdown coordinates were measured and noted. As time went on, the falling Jards seemed to be traveling farther from where they had been in the destruction of Old Jardinian.

Impecca and The Observer had become wardens of the rocks, rescuing those who came later, always dusty, but never aged from the moment the meteor struck. Together with the growing band of survivors, they endeavored to make sure all the lessons and knowledge of the past were not lost, and that of the Alovians was understood and relearned if possible. There was relearning to be done of course, few knew anything about the various technologies that the false industrialists hadn’t bothered to understand themselves.

Impecca led the efforts to study, and understand the Alovian technology, particularly the mammoth dwelling in which she and the survivors now resided. The Observer led efforts to organize the populace into action, regarding the retrieval of falling Jards. The rescued Jards were often quite shocked when they met their friends from before the catastrophe, now years older. Tyton and Impecca held out hope that their brief friendship with the brave Archie and Au would continue. He and Impecca kept a lookout for them long after the Jards stopped falling, or at least stopped falling close enough to the refuge that the retrieval teams could get to them.

Impecca had worked to allow the children of the colony the ability to interface with it as she could, and they led the efforts to understand everything in Alovian Station. They also endeavored to keep the knowledge and story of the schism as they now understood it alive, even after the Observer and Impecca passed on. Someday, maybe, it would be there for other people who had been cut off during the great schism, if any still existed independently beyond the old borders of Greater Jard.

A library was compiled, and backed up thoroughly, with all the stories and lessons the Jards could glean from their own experiences, and the technology and methods available to them by way of the Alovians. The colony flourished for centuries, even milenia, an island in the ocean brimming with knowledge.

The status today, indeed, who can say? There are whispers, echoing through the annals of history. An island, waiting to be re-discovered. Perhaps, a great intellectual bounty awaits.