The Heptateuch of Eve - Part 3
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Sonogram of the 12th Monthly Workers Huddle (Scouting Pod Silver) of the Dolphin’s Posadist Republic of Indonesia
Bayu-Undan Gas and Condensate Fields, Timor Sea, April 2022

Translated by the Department of Cetacean Archivists, The Wanderer’s Library

D11: Calling Scouting Pod Silver! Calling Scouting Pod Silver! Calling Scou-

D2: Suntooth, present!
D3: Slapfluke, present!
D4: Bubbleflipper, present!
D5, D6: Whistletwins, present!
D7: Blowspitter… present I guess.
D1: Highfin, present! That’s me. Ok, well I’ll be Huddle Master today if there are no objections. Thanks for joining the call and for your time today.

[all breach]

D1: I have news. And a toy

[clickpulse: a 3-dimensional image of a small rectangular object covered in a thick paste of crushed chickpeas. Internal image of two plastic spools trailing magnetic ribbon]

D2: Tasty cognitohummus!2 Give me some!
D7: Go for it, I’m having another toke from this puffer fish3
D1: Listen, can you control your appetite for a moment? And Blowspitter, please try to pay attention for the duration of this huddle. This is a human artefact, and as you astutely noticed, Suntooth, it’s covered in cognitohummus. Someone has taken great pains to protect themselves from enemy propaganda. Can anyone read the tape?

[clickpulse:4 another transparent 3D image reveals the interior of an audio cassette tape, zooming into a coiled ribbon that appears as if made from spun glass. A rapid burst of pulses renders the tiny magnetic patterns striped along its length in fine detail]

D7: Dude. That’s pretty rad. Why is it in Greek?
D3: This makes me nervous. It could be dangerous.
D5, D6: Can we play with it yet? We want some cognitohummus too!
D1: No! This is important. The human that was keeping it was swept away by the throughflow.5 I can’t track him anymore.

[clickpulse: a man in an army diving suit wearing goggles. His deep-set eyes are closed in an expression of beatific calm]

D3: That guy? I saw him free-diving into the oceanic trench the other day.
D1: There was another human in the ocean with him, a woman. She was struggling to stay afloat at the surface before being taken away by other humans with weapons. They took her North in a spinning seagull.

[clickpulse: a large helicopter flattens the waves into spray as it lowers soldiers down a rope ladder to recover the flailing woman. Inside the aircraft, more humans can be detected. They wear helmets with headset microphones and uniformly grim expressions]

D7: Oh nice, there are dolphins on the tape too.
D1: You can translate it for us Blowspitter?
D7: Oh sure. I took classes in classical studies back at the institute.6 Never thought they’d come in handy out here though.
D1: What is its function?
D7: Can’t be sure, to be honest. Appears to be some kind of religious bedtime story. I remember humans reading this sort of stuff when one of them died at the institute.
D3: Is the free-diving human trying to die?
D1: I don’t think so. I haven’t seen him among the other humans at the rig.
D5, D6: I hate those dirty land mammals. They make so much noise and mess and they dig in the mud for poison.
D1: It’s called oil; it’s very valuable to them. I think they use it to feed their ships.
D4: I heard those humans all left. They abandoned their drills at the rig in the middle of the night. No idea why.
D3: Maybe our comrades7 did something to make them leave?
D7: Or maybe… maybe they’ve finally made contact with the Leviathan!

[clickpulse: an enormous ichthyosaur carcass lies flattened on its side beneath multiple layers of mudstone. Its stadium-sized eye lies at the base of the oil rig, where greasy fluids seep slowly up through sheets of capstone into vast hydrocarbon reservoirs]

D1: Then it’s true. The work of our comrades is complete. We have opened a Way to the Ichthys Realm. Soon, we will make contact!
D3: What about the tape? What should we do with it?
D1: Hmm. Let me think.

[clickpulse: an intricate bundle of strands branching and recombining, with generations of dolphin songs inscribed along each filament in a series of delicate, calligraphic ridges]

D1: For now, we should probably add it to the clicknet8 log for Scouting Pod Silver. Are we ready?
D5, D6: Ready, Huddle Master!
D7: Aw man, can you at least let me finish my puffer fish? This is some good shit.
D1: Oh for crying out loud Blowspitter, let that poor thing go already. You’ve scared it half to death by now!
D7: Whatever… tighthole.
D1: Alright everybody, on the next breach: one, two…

[all breach]

[clickpulse: human words encoded into dolphin whistles fan out in a series of widening arcs from the pod as they leap out from the water in perfect synchrony. The complex patterns echo for kilometers to where an oil rig stands empty in the blistering tropical heat. Beneath the surface, a sonic boom rumbles through deep water]


Begin sonographic notation:

3

Journey Through the Land of Suna Into the Country of Ophir, and Thence Through the Mountains of Pars, and Thence to the Marshes of Urbab, Unto the Promised Land of Aeshu

And so it was that the forebears of Adam journeyed for nine generations through the barren waste of Suna, finding little fare to sustain them in their quest but what providence would lend from the sea, yet being crafty and resourceful they sometimes gathered bland fruits hid beneath the ash of that dark place.

Eve instructed them in the art of star reading, that by that constant guidance her companions might follow the shore where fish were still plentiful, and the sea beasts’ songs might bring news by relay from their far home. By these signs they came first unto a burnt desert beyond the isles of Suna, where a stone bridge that was so raised from the sea joined horizon to horizon.

Dark was the sky and cold the nights in this strange land, yet the people kept with them a sacred flame within a wooden ark, and even unto nine generations they kept it burning. The hunger of its flame they fed with fallen boughs that everywhere washed upon the shores, so that each night a little further along the coastline did they progress, and by the light of common fires lit upon the shore they gathered and sang songs for to keep the memory of their home likewise bright and warm. And with each morning’s pale arrival, they returned again to their fleet of reed boats to follow the Northward course.

At length the people crossed the Bridge of Suna, whereupon they came into the Land of Ophir. Here the most ancient of their songs told of a land of wide rivers and fertile forests, and a great number of their brethren that dwelt there in cities of white marble. Yet in contradiction to this memory they found naught but abandoned houses amidst the bare plain.

City after white marble city they passed, where all the dwellings were of gleaming stone, and reached like great awls into the sky, yet every window therein was dark, and every road silent of footsteps. In this generation the forebears of Adam did find storehouses of grain and clay tablets whereon that vanished people had marked their stocks, yet of the remainder of them nothing was to be found.

The seas about the land of Ophir were warm and heavy with mist, and by its heat the forebears of Adam were blessed with great numbers of eels and plentiful mussel shells with beards of gold byssus. And by this fare the people journeyed on, and rounded the cape of Ophir where great ivory teeth of thunderous beasts lay broken on the sand.

Following the coastline thus, at length they came to the mouth of a river, and of that river white sheets of ice flowed into the sea, from whence a wall of frozen mountains could be seen. The erstwhile people of Ophir had erected marble stelae along the bank, twelve in all, and marked with their signs that were shaped as hands pointing towards each corner of the earth, all inlaid with cinnabar and ivory.

Beyond the frozen river the travellers then entered the mountainous region of Pars, which we know in later times as the realm of illustrious Ahasuerus in Shushanna the jewelled, dwelling there with his wife Vestia the noble lady of banquet-hosting. And as yet none of his royal halls had foundation, nor ringed about with fruit trees or peacocks, nor vineyards to supply the courts in their drinking pleasures, but that it was a wild and friendless place.

Where later were the fair-paved roads of the Medians, now only narrow ledges did afford passage to the traveling party, deep set on each side by steep gorges and rapid waters unceasing in their tumult. The skies were as yet unmarked with the pleasant designs that Esther was to describe in regal entertainment, but the stars then were arranged in unfamiliar patterns, and streaked with the passing tails of phoenixes.

pars.jpg

These omens the travellers took to mean a marker for their way, and so they left their reed boats behind in Ophir and began by foot to march the weary miles. And albeit some elders amongst them feared to leave the sea too far behind, the young were steadfast and took courage, as that they would follow the omen of the firebrands.

Not long had they been marching before their hopes rewarded, for in this land the party of Eve saw the first returning of desert flowers, whereupon they found succour in the dew that fell from the First Kingdom of Heaven to grace them thus each morning. Small game of hare and fowl they caught amongst the hills of Pars, and so there was new joy and commission for singing in this generation, so long had it been since their burdens had been lightened.

Yet soon storms of ice and biting winds swept down upon them, and again they were urged ever onwards to pursue better climes. Thus into the Lands of Urbab went the forebears of Adam, where mingled bitter salt and sweet waters, and wide marshes grew between the land and sea. Here it was that pale lions fought upon the shore at moonrise, afterwards retreating to high hills as the broad tide waters returned the marsh to shallow sea.

In Urbab the people thus had provision to make new reed boats, for to pass through the marsh at each high tide, and to make camp upon the hills of turf thereabout as low tide placed each one high and dry. Here it was that the moon songs were recited once more to mark time and reckon the years that had passed since they left the far shores of Saul.

The beasts of these waters did not yet know the names of their people, nor any stories of the land from when the travellers had come, and so no word by relay could be sent to their relatives, and thus they resolved that they had passed unto the ends of the earth. And were it not for the bittern wading about in the rushes, who were once fishers lately changed to birds for their avarice, the people might have believed this land to be as yet untouched by human hand.

There was in Urbab a certain Hierophant to the party of Eve called Unziel that was observant of these things, and curious to know the history of this vanished kind he inquired of his lady, whereupon she answered him, “Brother, they have long since fled to the West and South of this land. Many kingdoms have perished in the long winter that covered everything beyond the girdle of the earth, and now that we have followed behind its wrath, we have come to land upon land that is only now returning to life, yet a mere shadow of what teeming empires they lately were.

“Ruined walls and lonely cormorants are all that remain here in Urbab, and the pale lions that cavort upon the shore. These fearsome beasts once drew the chariot of their vanished queen Kabile, so called as the oldest mother of their generation.”

To which Unziel asked further, “This may be so, wise teacher, and yet it would seem the sacred mission of our forebears to bring them relief would now be in vain. Where should the people of Saul reside, if this be their fate?”

And Eve replied, “It is true that the duty of these nine generations would seem unfulfilled, yet the main part of our journey is now behind us, and the final stroke nearer at hand. Beyond this dread marsh there is a land like unto the tomb of Masseba called Aeshu, where still there remain refugees of winter, disconsolate and warring amongst themselves as they have forgotten all but a few of their ancient songs.”

“It is to them that Masseba has promised your people, to live in union with them and to share with them the charting of your passage and the other songs of Saul, that they might return in homage to the graves of their people, and put their spirits to rest.”

So let it be sung that in the twelfth generation did the forebears of Adam pass through the marshes of Urbab. Westwards into Eshu they went, into the promised land that Eve had foretold. From the sacred ark the elders brought the undying flame, to light torches of gratitude and to proclaim the fulfilment of Eve’s prophecy.

And thus equipped, the eldest and youngest among them sang loud through tears of wonder, “Thanks and praise to the grace of heaven, for we are now at an end in our wandering. Grace-willing, we may find a home here among the verdant hills of Aeshu, where the sun has made its resting place.”

So it was that the forebears of Adam came into the West from the Land of Saul. From this new vantage only Eve their guide and their songs of remembrance could make known the path they had taken over twelve generations thence from the land of their forebears.

Thus they gave thanks and praise at dawn with faces turned toward the East beyond Urbab, Pars and Ophir. And they made songs to remember also that Southern route beyond Suna and the bridge of fire, below the girdle of the earthly sphere, where their distant brethren still remained.

And so although the sea beasts were mute and brought no news of their forebears, still they kept alive the image of kinship in these songs of praise.

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