The Ragged World and Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream by Judith Moffett
"The Ragged World and Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream" explores the complex interactions between humans and a race of gnomelike aliens known as the Hefn. The narrative reflects on themes of servitude, rebellion, and ecological responsibility, as the Hefn, who have been marooned on Earth since the 17th century, return with an ultimatum: humanity must clean up the planet by 2020 or face extinction. The intertwining stories focus on various characters, including a college botany teacher grappling with illness, a young man inspired to become a politician after glimpsing the future, and the deep friendships that develop between humans and Hefn.
Set against a backdrop of ecological crisis, the story illustrates how these relationships guide characters toward mutual understanding and the potential for human survival. As tensions escalate, particularly with the emergence of a backwoods preacher inciting violence against the Hefn, the narrative also raises questions about belief, coercion, and community bonds. By 2026, the characters work towards fostering a lifestyle aligned with the planet’s ecological balance, suggesting that empathy and connection are crucial for overcoming divisions and ensuring a sustainable future. The work invites readers to contemplate the consequences of humanity’s choices and the importance of care for the environment.
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The Ragged World and Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream
First published:The Ragged World (1991; chapters published separately as “Remembrance of Things Future,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, December, 1989; “The Hob,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, May, 1988; “Tiny Tango,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February, 1989; “Final Tomte,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June, 1990; and “The Ragged Rock,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, December, 1990) and Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream (1992)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—invasion story
Time of work: 1990-2026
Locale: Earth
The Plot
The Hefn are a race of hairy, gnomelike aliens who exist in some kind of relationship with an unseen race, the Gafr. Though never made explicit, this relationship has overtones of servitude, worship, symbiosis, sex-uality, and procreation. In the seventeenth century, some of the Hefn rebelled against the Gafr and were punished by being marooned on Earth in England and Sweden. Their furtive nocturnal existence reinforced the legends of the mythical Hobs in England and tomtes in Sweden.
In 2006, the Hefn return for their crewmates but, unable to locate any of them, leave without becoming involved in Earth’s affairs. The aliens change their minds, however, and return four years later to issue an ultimatum to Earth: Clean up the planet by 2020 or face elimination as a species. In 2013, the Gafr, deciding that humans are not acting swiftly enough, use the Hefn’s tremendous powers of suggestion to impose a reproductive ban on humanity: No children will be born until the directive is accomplished.
The interconnected stories in The Ragged World (subtitled A Novel of the Hefn on Earth) trace the fortunes of several groups of people during this era. Sandy Sandford is a college botany teacher who contracts AIDS and must wait until the Hefn can discover a cure. While doing so, she comes to grips with her condition by closely understanding how life operates on Earth. Frank Flinthof and Jenny Shepherd become involved with the last Hefn marooned on Earth, Elphi, who has one more rebellion to perform. Terry O’Hara and Carrie Sharpless become involved with the Hefn through the aliens’ use of a time transceiver. Through a glimpse into the future, Terry is inspired to become a politician and devises an effective evacuation plan for a nuclear plant disaster that he knows will happen. The final main narrative strand deals with the deep friendship between Terry’s son Liam and Jeff Carpenter. Each of these stories leads up to some kind of intimate involvement between humans and Hefn. Friendship, which at first seems impossible, especially on the aliens’ part, becomes the basis for mutual understanding and for the possibility of the survival of humanity.
Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream, although beginning in 2026, mainly describes the events of the summer of 2014, when Liam O’Hara and Pam Pruitt, two young humans recruited into the Hefns’ Bureau of Temporal Physics, vacation at Hurt Hollow, Kentucky, a place Pam particularly loves. On their riverboat journey to Hurt Hollow, they witness an abortive attack on a Hefn. They later learn about its extreme consequences: The attackers are “mindwiped” by the Hefn—all their memories back to the age of three are removed.
At Hurt Hollow some fifty years earlier, Orrin and Hanna Hubbell established a way of life based on self-sufficiency and deep connection to the land. Pam has severe emotional problems caused by her relationship with her father, and Liam is trying to work through the psychological abyss caused by the loss of his best friend. They are able to rescue the current owner of Hurt Hollow, Jesse Kellum, who has been bitten by a snake. His hospitalization means that Liam and Pam will have to perform the many tasks that life at Hurt Hollow entails. Even though they are successful at these, Liam feels the need for his Hefn friend, Humphrey, whose mental powers helped Liam get through his initial intense grief over his loss.
Unfortunately, at the time Humphrey arrives, a backwoods preacher, Otie Bemis, stirs up the nascent remnants of the Ku Klux Klan in the area against the Hefn and their directive. Bemis leads an attack on Humphrey and almost succeeds in killing him, but the main characters are providentially rescued. Humphrey learns an important lesson from this experience: that bonding and religious persuasion will work much more effectively than coercion or modeling in getting humans to change their habits.
By 2026, this realization has led to the formation of the Gaian Missionaries, human proselytizers for a way of life the Gafr will sanction. Liam also has devised mathematical formulas for discovering “Hot Spots,” areas where humans are able to live in harmony with the environment much more easily. It seems certain that Hurt Hollow is one of these areas of “Holy Ground.”