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This is first two chapters of Hammer of Jens, a crossover of science fiction and family saga novel of 163,000 words filled with political intrigue, conspiracies and revenge, all set against the backdrop of a world in the midst of change due to global warming and sea rise.

A family is the main character of Hammer of Jens, and like a true character it grows over the nine hundred year future-history: a faltering child, a rebellious adolescent, an ambitious adult, a prolific progenitor and finally, a benevolent sage.

Most chapters also contain a vignette dealing with the effects of sea rise, large and small, on individuals, families, regions and nations to illustrate the effects of global warming.  These range from the lighthearted, a race from Tallahassee to Savannah through the Florida Straits; to the exploitive, a tour company with exclusive rights for guided tours of abandoned world seaside cities; to the extreme, India using nuclear missiles to stop an invasion by millions of Bangladeshi peasants.

HAMMER OF JENS

2161 C.E.

0.92 Meter Sea Rise above 2000 C.E. Norm

 His First Decision

 Whitby Olsen watched the monitor as he thumbed through the public cameras positioned throughout the Settlement.  At this time of the day, the people would normally be moving about, settling their business, buying groceries and generally preparing to go home for the evening.  But no one was moving about; everywhere he looked people were gathered in small groups, talking.  Whitby knew what they were saying, what they were thinking, “What is he going to do? He’s only 19; it’s five decades too soon!”

He clasped his hands together behind his head and leaned back, barely stopping himself from joining his tumbling chair.  Then sitting down beside it he started to adjust the spring tension: anything to do other than what he knew he must do.

There was a knock at the door and Whitby called out, “Come in.”

Gunther came in and halted, “Father?”

Whitby popped his head up from behind the desk, “Yes.”

Gunther stuttered a bit, “The…the Cousins on site are waiting in the conference room and those not here are connected by televid.”

Whitby , still sitting on the floor, asked, “Why?”

“We thought you would like to consult with the Grand Counsel about what tack the Family would follow now.”

Whitby smiled for the first time in hours.  He settled down in a more relaxed position on the floor with his legs crossed in front of him, his eyes barely visible over the desk.  “Gunther, this was Father Peter’s chair; it’s mine now.  He liked a loose feel, a soft feel; I like things a bit stiff, more solid.  I think I’m the only one who could adjust the spring to my liking.”

Gunther bowed his head slightly, “Sorry I presumed.”

“Gunther,” Whitby was still on the floor, “Never apologize for taking the initiative.  I can’t be everywhere at the same time; that’s your job.”

When he heard the door close, Whitby lay back on the floor and turning on to his side, he stared at the overturned chair.  He talked to it, “What are you trying to tell me?”  He took a couple more turns on the spring and returned the chair and himself to the upright position.  Then sitting down, he tested the ‘lean back’.  As if he had found the answer to a challenging puzzle, he smiled as he looked around the room; it was all clear to him now.  The large desk with built-in computer linkage able to reach every Family member in any spot in the world was not what this office was about.  And the three walls that were all glass providing a panoramic view of the Atlantic off the Florida Coast was not what the office was about.  The grand table for planning sessions wasn’t it either; even the hand woven carpet that depicted the map of Norway was just a trick to awe visitors.

The office was nothing more than a portal to what was above, up the hidden stairway; only a select few other than the Fathers and Mothers knew of its existence.

He keyed a code in his computer but didn’t key ‘enter’.  Then he walked to one panel on the fourth wall of dark oak and stroked a small knot, the real ‘enter-key’ for that code; a panel slid back exposing the stairway.  He paused and looked back at the desk and chair, “To sit in that chair I need to know how those before me sat in it.”  He started up and the panel closed.

The room at the head of the stairs was made of nothing but old dark oak from the Family’s Great Hall in Norway .  Bookcases completely surrounded the plain table with a chair on one side and a stool opposite.  The light level was high enough to read the spines of the hand bound leather books; another light highlighted the table where an inkwell sat with a collection of nibs on one side and a stack of parchment on the other.

Whitby was the 26^th Leader of the Olsen Family, the Father.  As he looked at the hand written journals written by the Fathers and Mothers that came before him, he noted that the bookcases were less than half full.  “What will the Leaders do when the shelves are full?  Microfilm?  I think not!”

Although any member of the Family could read edited versions of the journals on the televid, only the Fathers and Mothers were allowed to read them directly.  Even those slated to become the Leader could not; they were only allowed to sit on the stool and be read to by the Father or Mother.  Whitby walked around to the beginning of the journals, and for the first time he touched a journal other than his own.  He pulled out the first, its spine branded, “958 AD.”

958 C.E.

 Origins

 In 958, Jens Gudmundsen stood on the wall walk of the monastery, watching his men urging the monks to carry everything to the long boats.  At a sound behind him, Jens whirled and crouched, his short sword and round shield at the ready.  There was nothing but a slightly open door in the shadows.

He slowly pushed through the door and crept forward as his eyes adjusted to the dim light.  The sound was clearer now, scratchy, unfamiliar.  Then he saw at a small bench and table against a thin window, a diminutive figure hunched over a parchment.  Jens came forward and raised his sword.  The figure said without looking up, “Please, let me finish this.”

The surprise of hearing his native tongue staid the blow long enough for Jens to identify the figure as a tonsured monk.  “And why should I wait to end your miserable life?  You heard the call for everyone to come outside when we arrived. And you have deserted your people and your native land to be here.”

“I need to write what has happened here today.”  The monk turned and quavered slightly at the sight of the scarred face of Jens.

“Why?  No one will be here, and that parchment you are scratching on will not survive the fire.”

The monk seemed to gather a bit of strength and courage, “It may survive and someday someone may find it.”

“What good would that do, you will still be dead.”

The monk actually smiled, “And that is why I must finish this: to tell whoever comes next what has happened here.”  The monk moved a bit too quickly as he got up from his bench, and Jens flicked the sword slightly nicking the monk’s neck.  “This is not the first time I have shed my blood on a scramæsax.”

“It will not be the last.”

“I was just getting a book to show you.”

Jens pulled back the sword, “Be careful, little man.”

The young monk smiled again as he laid an ancient tome on the table so the light would fall upon its pages.  “See.  This was written by Brother Joshua over a hundred years ago.”  He grinned pridefully and turned to the book, translating: We have traveled four days up river and found by God’s Mercy a sheltered ledge with fresh water flowing from a stone, a sign from Moses.  There is an abundance of river stone for building.  A copse lies to the south and east for timbers.  The southern slopes of the hill are gentle and the very soil is pregnant with the promise of grains for our bread and grapes for our wine.  We thank thee Oh Lord for this our new house of worship.

The monk looked up to see Jens in a more relaxed stance.

Jens, scratching his chin, asked, “And this was put down a hundred years ago?”

“Yes, one hundred and seven to be exact.”

“I have heard of such.  South of our fjord, five days sail, there is a big village.  It is said that there are those who could see the meanings of these scratches.”

“Yes, there are many who can read…and write.”  The monk was beginning to show a bit more nervousness than before.

“If you could scratch…”

“Write…”

“…write for me, would those who come after see the meaning?  For hundreds of years?

“Yes.”

Jens approached life as he did fighting, no hesitation, “Take what you can carry; you’ve but minutes before we sail homeward.”

Jens saw the monk turn white as a shadow fell over the door.  Jens turned to the figure holding a fire brand, “Let it stand.  Those who come afterward should know of this place and of these men.”  Jens motioned to the monk as he went through the door.

The monk stumbled after Jens, not wanting to be far from his savior among these vicious men.  He watched as his brothers were forced to their knees; he could not bear to witness what was to come next and averted his eyes.

Jens yelled at the three Norsemen surrounding the eleven monks, “Only kill those who resisted.  Let the men of peace be.”  With that, Jens boarded the ship that had been pulled up on the river sands.

Soon the long-ship was away from the shore, and the little monk watched as the life he had known disappeared with the current.  He strained to burn into his mind the familiar sights as the sea welcomed the long ship to its waves.

For years afterward, Jens and the monk would sit before the fire each night with the monk writing down the stories Jens told him of his own life and what he knew of his father, grandfather, and other ancestors going four generations back.  There were other stories written down, legends and myths of Gods, and battles long lost to all but a few with long memories.  Parchment and ink became required items from the raids across the seas.

Jens Gudmundsen died in 973, and his son Koll Jenssen kept the monk, although he seldom wanted anything written down.  The monk became the favorite entertainment as he read the sagas of Jens.  As years passed Koll’s son, Hauk, would sometimes tell the monk of his own experiences on the raids or trading excursions.  Then in 1002 with the death of Koll, the role of the monk returned to that of a recorder as he inscribed the history of the small village as seen by Hauk Kollsen.

The monk’s life had been relatively easy as a favorite of the village leader, but even that span must end someday, and on a warm summer’s day in 1014 the monk wrote his last.  Hauk named his next son for the monk, Lars Hauksen.

Literacy came to a few in the village in 1154, and once again the old sagas from the leather chest were the preferred entertainment around the great meeting hall.  In 1178, another writer began to add to the history, but that ended with his death in 1193.  Over the centuries an occasional historian was born into the hereditary line of village leaders, but in 1626 Jens Olsen began his journal in earnest and then passed the task to his eldest, telling him that the sword of Jens Gudmundsen was merely rust, but the ink on parchment was still there to read, to take meaning from.   From that year forward the journals became the responsibility for each new generation of Olsen leaders.

The hereditary head of the village slowly became known as Father or Mother Olsen, and after several generations many wondered how many Fathers and Mothers had gone before.  No one knew with certainty; the only record was in the journals themselves.  Years passed with many efforts to draft a family tree that was complete, but no one could agree until Iwona, Mother Olsen, suggested that the count should reflect those who had shown a concern for the future by writing their own journal or having one written for them.

In 1804, Iwona Olsen was proclaimed the 14^th leader of the Olsen Family.  An ivory tusk, half a meter long, was carved with the names of the Fathers and Mothers spiraling around it.  When it was presented to Mother Iwona, she ran her fingers over the carved names and then thinking of the first Father, Jens Gudmundsen, she grasped the larger end and brought the flat of it down hard against the trestle table like a gavel; she proclaimed loudly, “By the Hammer of Jens, let it be known!”

***************

And so the first two chapters end.  What follows is a future history that starts in 2055 when a fisherman in Norway trips on his dock because the higher seas have caused a higher step than what he had expected.  This simple accident starts Jens Olsen on a course for his extended family that will end 900 years later when their efforts to "provide a home for their descendants" comes full circle to aid the combined Scandinavian people in protecting themselves from a chaotic world full of warlords, disease and anarchy.

With luck, one day you maybe able to read the rest of the 160,000 words.

Let me know what you think and don't worry, I have a thick hide.  Woody

since posting on September 12, 2006