CHAPTER 13
“We came here first of all because Drako wanted to meet you, having heard about your species and being enamored with it,” Albert replied.
“But now that we’re here, there’s something else I want to do. In fact, I feel as if I must do it,” Albert continued, and made sure all of us animals were listening, because this was an important matter to him.
Albert explained to us what was going to happen in Germany—a country that didn’t exist now, in the year negative 15-odd million, but eventually would. He told us about a diabolical man named Adolf Hitworm or something like that.
My human friend told us that terrible things would take place if we didn’t do anything to prevent them from happening. At first, he thought about all of us going back (or forward, depending on your perspective) to that time, which was all the way back (or forward) to our beloved 2525, less about 600 years, and fixing Hitworm’s wagon ourselves. But then he came up with a better plan:
Albert said we were going to warn the people who would eventually live here (when it came to be called Germany) about what was going to happen if they didn’t put a stop to this insane and evil character. Only by doing that would they be able to prevent the horrible things from occurring.
“How are we going to accomplish that?” I asked Albert.
He had come up with this plan: Write a message—a prediction, or a prophecy, you might call it—foretelling certain events that would happen down through the ages. This would prove to those who discovered it that the writer of the message knew what he was talking about (or writing about, to be more precise). Then he would warn them about what would happen if they let this Hitworm guy come into power. They would then—hopefully, anyway—keep that person from gaining power or influence, come dog pound or high water.
“What sort of things are you going to tell them will happen, to convince them that you are a true prophet?” Stripes asked.
“Several things. I will tell them that: Mount Vesuvius will erupt in the year 79; J.S. Bach will be born in Eisenach in 1685; a global conflict will begin in 1756 and last until 1763; there will be a revolution in France in 1789; in 1848 gold will be discovered in California; in 1914 a war that will initially be called ‘The Great War’ will commence; and that a global pandemic will sweep the globe beginning in 1918 and be blamed on the Spaniards,” Albert answered.
Although Tubthumper was convinced that providing this information about things to come would be enough for Albert to prove his claim of knowing what would happen after those events, too, she did wonder about one thing:
“How will you preserve this message so that it will last, still be legible, and be found 15 million years from now (give or take a few centuries), Albert?” she asked.
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