As the boat sped over the water, leaving a churning wake behind it, Jack
Odin remembered that first sea-voyage he had made on the seas of Opal. It
was June-time then, and Maya had been with him. Perhaps they had thought
that June would last forever. Perhaps they had thought that all of life
would go by at five miles per hour. Remembering that slow, wonderful
trip--almost like a voyage in a dream--he sighed as he held on to the
skipping boat. They were now going well over sixty.
Gunnar seemed to sense his thoughts. "Wolden has ordered speed and more
speed, my friend," he called over the roar of the motor. "The governors are
all gone from the old machines. The smiths are turning out newer and faster
ones all the time. Sometimes I think even the hands of the clocks are going
faster."
Odin muttered a curse. What he had loved about this world was its leisure.
What he had hated about his own world above was its constantly increasing
speed. Like a squirrel caught in a cage, his world had gone faster and
faster until reality had vanished into a mad blur of turning wheels and
running feet. Oh, well, he thought, a man is like a pup. Contented enough
until life takes him by the scruff of the neck and shakes him up and proves
to him that things change and a pup's world changes and he had better
accustom himself to new standards or be shaken up again.
So they sped on through the low waves while the Tower loomed nearer and
taller before them. Gunnar was guiding with one hand while he talked into
a little square box of gleaming metal.
He turned his head, and the boat careened into a trough that set it to
shaking. "I have contacted Wolden and Ato," he called cheerfully. "They are
meeting us at the dock. Not the old dock--it is still under water. The new
one is farther up the street."
* * * * *
As they neared Orthe-Gard, Gunnar slowed the boat. Looking down into the
murky water, Jack Odin could detect, now and then, the faintly-traced
shadow of a roof or tower. Once as he looked down at a finely-carved
weather-vane, a huge fang-fish rolled between him and his view. A white
belly gleamed through the water, and a serrated mouth opened wide. Its jaws
bent out of proportion by the refraction of the water, it reminded Odin of
the old story of the Monster of Chaos rushing with gaping mouth to swallow
the works of men.
Then they were at the dock, which was scarcely a dock at all but a place
where the waters ended halfway up the sloping streets of the city.
One thing had not changed. To the last the people of Opal refused to take
part in any governmental excitement. A car was there. A driver. Wolden was
there looking much thinner and grayer. Beside him was his son, Ato, inches
taller and perhaps a bit thicker in the shoulders and a bit thinner at the
waist. These were all.
He had nearly broken his neck half a dozen times to get there, but Jack
Odin was glad that the old idea had survived. Being reared so near to
Washington, he had been puzzled for years over his country's mile-long
processions and the spectacle of thousands rushing to watch a parade for
some visiting celebrity or some current politician who would be forgotten
before the next snow.
He and Wolden shook hands. Odin was surprised at the change in him. When
last seen, Wolden had been a man just leaving the prime of life. Too
much of a brain, perhaps. A bit too curious and a bit too fearful of the
affairs of the world. But now the hand was weak--the face was thinner
and grayer, although even nobler than it had been, but the eyes were sad
and pained as though they had seen too much and had dreamed dreams
beyond the comprehension of his fellows. Somehow, Odin found himself
remembering a lecture about Addison, who probably knew as much as anyone
about the hearts of men, but upon being made second-high man in his
government could only stand tongue-struck in the presence of Parliament.
Then there was Ato. The months had changed him too. He stood tall
and lean, and there was a deep line running from each cheekbone down
his face. He looked older, but his eyes were piercing now, while his
father's were somber. Strife and hard work had sweated all the fat from
his bones. He seemed much stronger than when Odin had first met him.
But here was something more than strength. Ato had developed into a
first-class fighting man. Wolden could never have been a fighter.
There was something both terrifying and sad in the comparison. Ato looked
like a man who could calmly send a hundred-thousand to their deaths for
one objective, while Wolden would have theorized and rationalized until
the objective was lost. The old comparison between the impulsive executive
and the liberal arts man who has learned that there are only one or two
positive decisions available in all the world of thinking.
But each in his own way was glad to see Odin, and welcomed him back to the
ruins of Opal.
Then, just before the reunion was over, the clouds grew grayer and it began
to rain. As they got into the little car, Wolden told Odin that they would
have to circle the bay before going to the Tower on a ferry, since the
lower stories were still under water. The city had once been beautiful with
trees. Now they stood like gaunt skeletons, drowned by the sea water. Here
and there a few limbs struggled to put out their leaves. The rain was cold,
colder than Odin had ever felt in Opal before. He shivered, but there was
something more than the cold dankness of the air to make him shiver.
Then they came to the ferry, and the ferryman was so old and bent that Odin
looked twice at him to make sure that he wasn't one-eyed. He wasn't. So the
ferry creaked its way out to the Tower--to an improvised landing just
below the sixth-story windows. They climbed through the windows into a
huge room that seemed to be carved of fairy-foam, and behind them the rain
grew heavier and the thunder rolled in the distance and the lightning
flashed like witch-fires across the jaded sky.
* * * * *
Three days had passed since Gunnar and Odin had returned to Opal.
Doctor Jack Odin stretched out on a huge bed and felt the strength of
the ultra-violet light upon the ceiling pour into his shoulders. In
the next room, Gunnar was bathing and complaining about the sea water.
Drinking-water in Opal was now at a premium.
Odin had been in the dumps. Now he was feeling better, although memory of
the sodden ruins that he had seen in the last three days would never leave
him.
"And are you howling, my strong little man?" he called out cheerfully. "In
Korea I once bathed in a mud puddle and enjoyed the bath."
Gunnar's first few words were unprintable. "There was a river close to my
house where the water ran silver over the stones of the ford. And there
Gunnar used to bathe. This is slop, Nors-King. Nothing but slop."
Odin laughed again. "You are getting old, Gunnar. Did anyone ever guarantee
that ford to you for always?"
Gunnar, dripping water, and with a towel wrapped around his middle, came
dashing into the room. He stood there, his arms and shoulders flexed. "And
does Gunnar look too old to fight?" he asked.
Odin blinked. Gunnar's muscular development had always amazed him. The
short man stood an inch less than five feet. His chest and shoulders must
have measured more than that, his muscles writhed like iron snakes as he
moved. His biceps and forearms were those of a smith--which indeed Gunnar
had been, for Gunnar had been many things. The huge torso slanted down to
narrow waist and hips. Then his short legs propped him up like carved
things of oak. Gunnar had once killed a bull with one blow of his fist.
He had once snapped a man's back across those bulging, stubby thighs.
* * * * *
Gunnar disappeared in search of fresh clothing. Odin lay there, thinking
of all the things he had seen since returning to Opal.
Although the water level was still high up on the Tower, the lower floors
had been made water-tight and had been pumped dry. On his first trip to the
Tower, Odin had little chance to survey the rooms. Now he knew something of
what Opal had lost. Curtains, paintings, rugs, statues, the finest
furniture. All these had been ruined or damaged by the flood. Each room of
the Tower had been a work of art. Both Brons and Neeblings had contributed
to it, back in the days when they were working shoulder to shoulder.
In spite of his thoughts for Maya, he could not help thinking that the
Brons had brought this on themselves. When they tried to put the Neeblings
in second place, that was when the bell had sounded. Even so, why had this
splendor been reduced to ruin? Oh, there were jewels that could be
salvaged. And statues. But the Tower was a work of art from top to bottom.
The finest lace. China as thin as paper. Paintings. These were gone. One
might as well salvage Mona Lisa's eyes and swear that they were the
original. Higher up, where the water had not reached, the machines had been
stored along with other treasures. But Opal's best had been water-logged.
And the trip that Odin had made with Wolden into the tunnel. That was the
most heart-breaking of all. The Brons and the Neeblings had saved the
treasures from the warring civilizations of the world above. The statues
could be preserved. Some of the machines might possibly be restored. But
the paintings, the art, and the books. All gone. Wolden especially mourned
a Navajo sand-painting, which he compared to Goya. Not a trace was left of
it.
Wolden had taken him into the tunnel, just as he had once before. It was
dripping now, and the sound of the pumps throbbed through the ruins like
the struggling heart of a wounded thing. Their little car moved slowly
down the old tracks. Occasionally it had to stop, where some disintegrating
pile of treasures had spilled out. One sack of diamonds had broken. Wolden
stopped and kicked the stones away. An ancient Ford, with its back seat
piled high with rotting and sprouting sacks of prize-winning oat seed, was
both heart-breaking and ludicrous.
The Brons and the Neeblings had been the true antiquarians of the world.
And they had taken centuries to gather their collection. A dinosaur
skeleton stared at them. The salvaged carved prow of a galleon leaned
against a gaping whale's jaw. A model of the first atomic pile supported a
score of leaning spears, but the feathers and artwork on those spears were
now stains and shreds. An English flag, delicately embroidered, drooped
beside the dripping tatters of the Confederacy. A Roman eagle was lifted
high beside the crudely beautiful banner of the Choctaws--on which Odin
could barely make out the three arrows and the unstrung bow.
* * * * *
Chinese vases, thin as egg shells, most of them broken, lay in a tumbled
pile beside ancient cradles and spinning wheels.
A Neanderthal skull was staring hungrily at a twelve foot skeleton of a
giant bird. And a restoration of a tiny little equus was looking up like
an inquisitive mouse at a huge ruined painting by Rosa Bonheur.
Thousands upon thousands of relics of the world above--some taken from the
jetsam of the sea and others taken by exploring parties from Opal during
those long glad years when the inner-world was as comfortable as Eden and
almost as happy. Gems by the millions, gold and silver coins, trappings
inlaid with diamonds, furs, silks, bone instruments and ivory carvings. A
Stradivarius was warping apart, and a Gutenberg was swollen to twice its
size, its moldy pages curling away from the parent-book. The books had
fared worse. Great stacks of leather-covered libraries were turning into
moldy, starchy mounds. Papyrus and lambskin scrolls were falling apart.
Once, when they stopped for Wolden to thrust some moldy folds of Hindu
thread-of-gold weaving from their path, Odin stopped and picked up the
cover of a book. It was soggy and faded. But he could make out the title:
"Poems by a Bostonian."
So they had gone on, but slower now than on their first journey into the
tunnel which led to the floor of the Gulf. An odor of dankness and decay
hung over everything. The air was cold and damp. And everywhere were the
footprints and handprints of Death who had spared this galley for so long,
but who had come back with his flashing scythe to claim his own. The
stinking carcass of a hammer head shark, washed in by the flood, lay
sprawled across the sodden sarcophagus of an Egyptian princess.
And a gloomy sickness fell upon Jack Odin there in the tunnel as he thought
of all the splendor that had died here, and the ages and ages of sweat and
blood that had gone into these treasures. A thousand, thousand treasures
were trying to whisper their stories to him, but the dripping water was
drowning them out. Thousands of men, some slaves and some kings, were
trying to tell him what the jewels and books, and swords and cradles had
meant to them--but the drip-drip-drip of the water choked the echoes of
their voices. The darkness that was ever crowding in seemed to be filled
with the shadows of beautiful women in fine laces, with flashing jewels
about their throats, and pendants brushing their half-covered breasts. They
were trying to smile out of the dark, but a cold fog was creeping from the
walls of the tunnel, settling about the shadows, and driving them back,
farther and farther into all pervading nothingness.
* * * * *
Seeing his misery, Gunnar had clutched Odin's arm. "These were things of
the past, Nors-King, and the things of the past belong to the old dragon.
Let us not complain if he has taken them at last. We have things to do and
we cannot do them if we are sick at heart. Did I tell you that four of my
children died in the flood?" The voice of the broad-shouldered dwarf
sounded husky and far away.
"No, Gunnar. You never told me. Indeed, old friend, I am sorry. Very
sorry. And ashamed that I sit here mourning the past and forgetting your
troubles."
"Yes. They died. My Freida and the other three are coming here. And we will
eat at the same table again--and I will tell them that their grand-sire and
their great-grand-sires were men among men. And that Gunnar himself has
often sat high at the councils. Then we will go out to find Grim Hagen--and
Freida and the three will go back to rebuild the farm. For that is the way
of things--and as long as there are strong ones left to rebuild, Loki
cannot altogether destroy us."
The car moved slowly forward. The dismal fog grew heavier. Until at last
they came to the place where the Old Ship had stood.
Now there was a new ship taking form within its huge cradles. Lights were
everywhere. The red lights of the forge. The blue lights of the welding
torches, the white light of the workbenches. The yellow lights that
surrounded the high scaffolds went up and up to the top of the hour-glass
figure.
"This is our second," Wolden explained. "Our first was much smaller.
We had been working on a smaller model long before Grim Hagen got
ambitious. Some of our scientists have already gone into space. We are
in touch with them. They went quietly and noiselessly. There was no need
for all the destruction and havoc that Grim Hagen worked. But this model
is larger even than the Old Ship, and all the improvements that we once
dreamed of are here. You see, Odin," Wolden continued, "the Old Ship
was ours for centuries. We of Orthe-Gard have exploring minds. We went
over the ship thousands of times. We knew where every bolt and pin was
located. We improved it. In the beginning, when it brought our ancestors
here, it must have been comparatively slow. But during the past forty
years we learned much from your scientists about space. Einstein was
the only thinker in a century gone mad from bickering. About ten years
ago we perfected what I call The Fourth Drive. It would take days to
explain it, but it can throw a ship into Trans-Einsteinian Space. We had
equipped the Old Ship with the new invention. Our experimental ship was
so equipped. And this newer, larger one will also have The Fourth Drive.
But we have made a few improvements at the last."
* * * * *
It was all too deep for Odin. And there was so much to see that he did not
ask any questions.
Workers and smiths were everywhere. They crawled over the scaffolding like
ants. They hammered and pounded at the framework. They were bent over the
furnaces and the anvils. The presses and the shapers were pounding away.
Never before had Jack Odin seen so much activity in Opal.
"We are wrecking our buildings for this ship," Wolden mourned. "Given time,
my experiments would have made worlds and space unnecessary. But it has
been voted that we go after Maya and punish Grim Hagen, even though we
drive to the edge of space. So be it. We are now building in weeks what it
would once have taken years to do. Those on our experimental ship who have
already gone out into space, they have helped us immensely. Daily they
report the results of their tests to us. The good points--the bad ones--the
improvements. Oh, when this is finished it will be a greater ship than we
ever dreamed of. I did dream of such a ship when I was young. But now I
find that I do not want it. Even so, I will go out among the stars. Wolden
was never a coward, nor his fathers before him."
"So be it," Odin answered and he leaned his head back and looked high up at
the scaffolding where the welders' torches flashed like stars. "So be it,
Wolden. But I would have gone anyway."
And Gunnar spoke: "I would have gone beside you. My sword is thirsty."
High up on the hour-glass shape a bit of magnesium caught fire and burned
brilliantly for a second, its sparks flashing out and down. A worker, who
was no more than a shadow, smothered the flame.
The sparks drifted downward like lost suns seeking a course that they could
find no more. They sparkled and burned. Then they winked out, and there was
nothing left upon the scaffolding but lancing flames and scurrying shadows.
All about them now, the smiths were beating out old chanteys on the ancient
anvils and the newer, clashing machines.