After a long, long time had passed, the first droplets of water made it to the ground, only to evaporate the instant they touched the steaming crust. And yet that fleeting contact, though it lasted less than a hundredth of a second, marked the most important moment in the history of this planet. Over time, the process that it began would eventually lead to the first standing water and the wholly novel development that was to follow.
Time passed slowly on . . . one hundred years, then one thousand, then one hundred thousand, then one hundred million . . . and the rain grew stronger, more intense, becoming a sizzling torrent. Steam heated to incredible temperatures blasted up from the ground, rending the atmosphere over and over again, until enough time passed and enough water fell to begin to cool the flaming sea of lava, a single degree at a time.
For tens of thousands of years, then hundreds of thousands more, the rain fell without pause, and eventually the sea of flame became a plain of hot mud where water and fire fought ceaselessly. Black ridges of igneous rock rose slowly between the superheated clouds of swirling steam.
Grudgingly the flames undertook their long retreat.
Water began to collect in the lowest reaches, where the land lay sunken after the last gouts of lava had cooled.
Once the porous skin of the cooled cinder-stone had absorbed all the water it could, small fragments in the pores stopped the water, forming a seepage barrier.
Pools emerged where the water collected. The rain continued to beat mercilessly upon the land. Countless tiny seas gradually joined together to form a mighty ocean, while the numerous volcanoes raged on, their violence unfaltering. Brimstone still fell like rain, dark clouds of ash covered the sky, and cascades of lava rushed down the newly formed valleys of the world. Incessant earthquakes and landslides changed the face of the surface daily, all while the rain came down in such a torrent it seemed like it might wash everything back to the void from which it had come.
Then, when the great circulation of energy in the atmosphere had slowed just enough, narrow rents like arrow trails opened in the thinning clouds, and the first ray of the sun fell upon the broken land. This single beam of light, piercing the thick layer of gas that was not quite cloud and not quite smoke, lit the cracked edge of a scorched eruption crater and revealed with a glimmer the surface of the great, steaming ocean within. On every side, volcanoes spewed forth their dark effluvium while the lava streamed down their steep sides.
It was in moments like these that the first rainbows rose above the shattered plains, brightening against the veil of rain that swept between the land and the ashen clouds above.
In the nights that followed, stars appeared through new rents in the clouds, their light faint and wavering in the violent currents that flowed through the atmosphere. For the first time, the planet looked up at the great universe that had birthed it. Perhaps it then heard a voice, calling to it from a distant place. The stars cast their glorious light down upon the broken surface of the world, telling of the calm that was to come. History had just begun for this new, ageless place; there would be many long years of change ahead.
✦ ✦ ✦
The warm pools of rainwater filled with a muck of minerals, developing into a thick primordial soup. Water, a potent solvent, dissolved much of what it fell on and flowed around; as more and more was added to the mix, new things appeared that had never before existed. Organic chemicals compounded together, creating the first proteins.
Still time marched on, silent and steady.
The water falling from the sky and the water pushed up from inside the ground came together in the crevices on the surface, until it covered a full third of the planet’s surface. For the first time, it was possible to distinguish land from water. The water that collected in the depressions stayed there, until its sheer weight pushed against the planet’s mantle, causing the ground beneath it to sink even further. Around the expanding watery regions, the volcanoes continued their furious activity, spewing forth ever more acidic and alkaline substances to dissolve in the water.
The sun reached through the clouds now, streaming a vast amount of energy into the spreading waters. It rained, hard, several times a day, filling the seas and washing the land, water mixing with inorganic material to enrich certain regions within the expanse of the ocean.
The charcoal clouds grew thinner and thinner, scattering over years, until a vivid blue sky domed the land. The towering stacks of vapor dimmed the outlines of the mountains, which rose to lofty peaks along the shores of the sea. These mountains, which formed the high spine of the land, were growing at the rate of several centimeters a day. The constant earthquakes and landslides were an ever-present indicator of growth and change.
Continents emerged, advancing and retreating through the seas that surrounded all. Simple coastlines quickly became more complex, carven with bays and inlets; shallows marked where the eroding slopes filled in the ocean near the shore.