Chapter 44

As near as Sam could tell from the news broadcasts, the cataclysms in the Caribbean and Sumatra were shocking on a worldwide level. Of course, Henry had phoned, but he had eased off when Sam told him that it was to be seen as an object lesson.

Henry had spoken to someone and the climate guy had seen the disruption pushing northern Europe and eastern North America into unbearable cold, heating the tropics, and disrupting monsoons.

“Right,” Sam said. “But who brought this about? Burning coal and oil and gas. Treating the aquifers as though they were infinitely renewable. And remember the big mining companies destroying sacred places from 30 or 40 thousand years ago! The powers brought fires and flooding. There were locusts and mice in the east. Everyone tut-tutted. Nobody did anything. It would have made the big companies less rich. So our pols and those of India and Europe and America could get fatter! Well, now it’s closer to home. And if they don’t learn real fast and actually do something, there’ll be a lot fewer of us.”

“You’re over doing it.”

“I don’t think so. I looked a few months ago: Silent Spring was 75 years ago. The Gaea guy was around a decade later. People have been warning us for nearly a century.”

“You’ve got a point. But is it all greed?”

“Not quite. There’s an underlying feeling that the world’s resources are infinite and that we can just take and take. Think of it, we talk about ‘terra firma’ and ‘solid ground’ despite the fact that we know about and experience earthquakes and volcanoes.”

“You’re right there.”

And there are just too many people! I read that world population increased from about 1 billion in 1800 to over 7.7 billion today! Better agricultural methods don’t accommodate that! And draining the aquifers doesn’t help. In fact, it makes some things worse. I saw a picture of a sinkhole in the states that swallowed a large ute. Those holes were once full of water that got sucked up. And what’s sucked up in a day or two takes a decade to filter back in. If there’s enough rain.”

“Is there any cure?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m getting off. You’re too depressing.”

Sam watched Tessa go over a Ladybird with Marge and Rob. The first two books in each series had taken over a day each with several repetitions. But now it appeared to be a run-through by Tessa and then a reading by each twin in turn. Tessa alternated which was first. And they were doing a book a day.

“This is dumb!” Rob exclaimed.

“What is?”

“Having big letters and small letters. Who needs them?”

“But we do use them. So you’ve got the learn them,” Tessa responded.

“And you’re both right,” Sam interjected.

“That’s not right, dad.”

“Sorry, son. I’m right and so are both of you.”

“Tell us,” Marge said.

“OK. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks and the Romans wrote in letters like ours, but only in capitals – big letters. Small letters started out from people writing quickly and somewhat carelessly. And a bit over a thousand years ago, the system became something like what we use. Big letters at the beginning of a sentence and to mark people’s names and place names. Most of the languages of Europe, the Americas and Australia have both big and little letters. But Chinese and Arabic and the languages of India don’t.”

“Wow!”

“And there have been writers in America and in France and Germany who only use small letters. One is e.e. cummings.”

“Gosh.”

“So your mum is right: you’ve got to learn them; but you’re right, too: they’re not necessary.”

In the early evening, Sam could see the Milky Way and the bright stars clearly. So he and Tessa sat outside with the twins. Sam pointed out the Dreamtime images and Tessa told a tale or two. But it was early November, so there was a meteor display (Leonid? Taurid? Sam couldn’t recall the names) – and one bright display that extracted “o-o-oh” from the children.

“The people around here used to associate some of those things with other stories. Those meteors with long trails were throwing spears. The ones we call comets were associated with death. One ‘star with trails’ seems to have been a description of a meteor that was seen from the northwestern coast and landed in the ocean, causing a big wave that devastated the coast. [“A tsunami,” Tessa interjected.] There’s a rock painting of a star with tails at ‘Comet Rock’, near Kalumburu, which is klicks from the sea, but covered with sand.”

Both children were asleep.

“Let’s just put them down,” said Tessa.

“Right. Too much ethno-astronomy is boring.”

“I thought it was interesting,” said Lily.