The Forgotten Enemy

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"The Forgotten Enemy" is a short story written by Arthur C. Clarke and published in 1949. This story details the life of a survivor of global cooling living in London, which due to climate change has turned into a lifeless frozen city.

The short story details some events twenty years after London (and the whole of Britain) was evacuated due to climate change causing the climate of Britain to change from temperate to Arctic-like. The cause of this catastrophic climate change is called "The Dust" - an astronomic cloud the Sun System is moving through, that blocks out much of the Sun rays.

The main character of the short story is one of the last remaining humans in Britain, Professor Millward, who lives in an unnamed university in London, guarding what he sees as mankind's greatest treasures: books. It is not specified whether he is a genuine Professor or if he merely took the moniker because he lived in the university.

At the beginning of the story, the Professor is woken in the night by a loud noise, described as "thunder". He begins to wonder whether Man is returning to Britain, and if the noise is technology at work removing ice and snow from Britain to make it habitable. The next morning he sets out to an electronics store, where in the past he used to patiently scan the radio frequencies for signs of human life. He does this, and detects no transmissions. On his way back to the University, he is chased by a polar bear and seeks shelter in an Underground station. He makes it back to the university shaken but unharmed. Over the next few months, he watches the wildlife, such as wolves and deer from the university roof and concludes that they are moving south, away from the approaching Men. He dreams of rescue by the men, and hears more thunder-like noises which seem to be getting closer. He attributes them to "Atomic bombs, burning and blasting away the snow". Eventually he climbs up to the roof and sees with the aid of binoculars that the cause of the noises was a glacier, moving relentlessly towards London.