The Flood Gates Open
When I look back now upon my life in Atlantis, my sojourn there seems
to divide itself into two periods, of which the longer and by far
the more tranquil, dates from my union with Aelios. In the new-found
contentment of our marriage--and ours was no exception to the rule--we
seemed to lose track of time; and months and years began gliding by at
a smooth and even pace that was particularly deceptive because there
were no seasons to mark the change and there were no outstanding events
to serve as landmarks.
Perhaps the secret lay in the fact that Aelios and I were both amply
occupied; for in the hours when we were not together, we each had our
own work to keep us busy. Aelios still tutored for several hours a
day, and still led in the dances at public festivals; for in Atlantis
no distinction was made between a married and a single woman, except
in the event of motherhood; and even a mother, while released from her
prescribed duties, was expected to keep alive a broad interest in life,
by performing some optional services.
For my own part, I was no less busy than Aelios, for after I had
completed my “History of the Upper World,” I had again been summoned by
the Committee on Selective Assignments, and had been directed to write
a treatise on “Social Traditions and Institutions in the Upper World,”
wherein I might describe conditions above seas in greater detail than
in my previous book. This task, although far from uncongenial, was
proving both lengthy and laborious, for I tried to cover every modern
country; and the further I proceeded the harder the work became, for
the more I learned of Atlantis the more difficult it appeared to
represent the earth in a light that was not merely pitiable.
I was now quite reconciled to passing my remaining days in Atlantis.
Although Xanocles and his colleagues persisted with their agitation,
the cause of Emergence was dwindling in my mind to an impossible dream;
and, had it not been for the cataclysm which aroused us all to frenzied
action, I might have been content to grow gray and wrinkled in the
Sunken World. For now that Aelios was mine, I found that life was far
richer than ever before; that not only was I steeped in pleasurable
activity amid a delightful environment, but that there was an almost
charmed absence of strain and hurry, and a leisure and serenity that
would once have seemed the attributes only of a Nirvana.
It is true, of course, that I could not escape all the ordinary
physical ills of life. Once, for example, when my awkwardness betrayed
me in an athletic contest and I suffered a broken arm, I was conducted
to a State hospital, where a State physician skilfully treated my
injury; and once when the incessant golden glare began to tell upon
my eyes, I had to visit a State occulist, who relieved the strain by
prescribing a pair of wide-rimmed amber-tinged glasses.
My appearance was changing, moreover, in other ways than the mere
addition of glasses. I was acquiring a long beard, largely owing to
the habit formed during my first days in Atlantis; and my complexion
was taking on a curious greenish tint, due to some peculiar action
of the Atlantean light--an action to which the Atlanteans themselves
had inherited immunity. But I was not alone in my queer pistache
complexion; there were exactly thirty-eight others who could show the
same distinctive pigmentation; and so marked was the coloration that,
as the men sometimes declared, our origin was “written on our skins.”
My fellow members of the Upper World Club meanwhile did not share
my liking for Atlantis. As time went by, in fact, they seemed to
care less and less for their adopted country. With the exception of
Gavison, who had written a brief but popular treatise on “Navigation
on Upper World Waters” and a not less popular “Comparison of Upper and
Lower World Civilizations,” there was not one of my former shipmates
who was adapting himself to life in Atlantis or who was not remiss in
his obligations as a citizen. While they had all acquired at least
a rudimentary knowledge of the language and were all reasonably
successful in performing some prescribed mechanical task for two or
three hours a day, yet none of them had accomplished anything in any
of those artistic or intellectual pursuits which alone were considered
worth while in Atlantis. For how, indeed, could they hope to conform
to the standards of a world that had so little in common with their
own? Apparently the natives did not even expect them to conform, and
tolerated lapses that would have been considered disgraceful in born
Atlanteans; but they themselves appeared to feel that they were somehow
inferior, somehow out of place; and much of their restlessness, and
much of their longing to escape, is to be explained by the desire for a
less ideal but more familiar mode of life.
* * * * *
Considering the eagerness with which my companions would have exchanged
the ease of Atlantis for even the most strenuous labors and hardships
of the earth, it seems ironic that the man ultimately chosen to emerge,
was he whose marriage to an Atlantean had made him more than resigned
to the Sunken World. My sole excuse is that the choice, when it fell
upon me, was made wholly upon the suggestion of others, and occurred
at a time of such acute public peril that the happiness or fate of
individuals was as nothing.
For the hour was to come--and to come with startling suddenness--when
a fateful writing was to glare from the walls of Atlantis. I had been
in the Sunken World seven full years when the menace burst forth, and
I was not there seven days after it appeared.... But in the interval
I was a witness to scenes of such havoc, such horror, confusion and
despair as I had never seen before and fervently hope I shall never see
again.
It torments me now to recall that all that terror and all that
irremediable loss might have been avoided, had we but heeded the advice
of Peliades, Peliades who insisted that the crack in the wall had not
been adequately repaired....
But let me not anticipate. I must describe as dispassionately as I
can those overwhelming events which descended like lightning to blast
Atlantean life, and which are so disturbing even in memory that my
pen trembles and my startled mind takes fresh alarm. Merely to try to
record those distracting days and nights is to be obsessed as by an
old madness; I can feel a paralyzing dread spreading once more through
all my nerves; I can feel my brain grow numb, my eyes grow strained
and distended, my arteries throb with delirious haste. And all the
while confused visions come swarming across my mind--visions of roaring
vigils by lamplit walls of glass, visions of huddled faces, weeping or
praying or with terror-stricken eyes, visions of thundering waters,
panicky flights, submerged temples and inundated plains; and it all
seems like some nightmare I dreamt long ago, yet more vivid than any
nightmare, for there are sobs and lamentations that echo even now in
my memory, and pleading lips that shall never stir again, and agonized
eyes that peer at me like phantoms which will not be exorcised.
Long before, in moments of aimless fancy, I had sought to picture to
myself the end of the world; to imagine the consternation and horror of
an earth maddened by dread of impending doom. But I had never thought
that I myself would be the spectator of a crumbling universe....
As in the case of the crack in the wall years before, the danger
appeared with devastating suddenness. One moment, all was tranquil;
the next moment, the Sunken World was in a frenzy. I remember that one
afternoon Aelios and I had gone to the Agripides Theatre to witness
a performance of some sort (its precise nature has slipped from my
mind); and it was at the close of the first act that the warning came.
From the unexplained absence of the chorus that usually sang during
intermissions, I might have suspected that something was wrong; but
actually I was without misgivings until suddenly a great burnished,
silvery horn--the horn of the Autophone!--was lifted quietly on the
stage.
At this unexpected sight, a stab of alarm darted through me; Aelios
seized my hand and held it as if for reassurance; the audience sat
rigid and tense, like persons who behold a ghost. For an instant we
heard no sound, except for the quick breathing of our neighbors; then
the strained silence was broken by an uncanny hollow voice that issued
sonorously as if from nowhere.
“A great misfortune has befallen,” announced the unseen, in tones
that sounded almost sepulchral. “The crack in the glass wall has
re-appeared, but this time it is of more serious proportions than
before.”
The voice faltered for an instant and halted, while murmurs of dismay,
terror and unbelief shuddered through the audience.
And in a more deliberate and even graver manner the speaker continued:
“Late last evening our navigators observed that the Salty River was
higher than usual; and an investigating party sent out today by the
High Chief Adviser has discovered that the wall has actually given
way at one point, and that the water is pouring in through a fissure
several feet across. There is as yet no cause for despair, for the
surplus water, while highly inconvenient, can be disposed of by the
reserve capacity of our intra-atomic pumps, which are equipped for
all ordinary emergencies and can discharge fifty per cent more than
their usual delivery. But there is danger that the break will expand
before repairs can be made; and for this reason the High Chief Adviser
requests that you try to meet the situation courageously, and freely
enlist your brains and your services till the peril is overcome.”
* * * * *
It would be impossible to convey any idea of the commotion which these
words created. The people did indeed follow the High Chief Adviser’s
advice to be courageous, for there was no more than a hint of that
panic which one might have expected. But there could be no further
thought of the performance in the theatre. After an instant’s chill
silence, the audience arose with one accord; and men’s faces were
blanched and women could be heard muttering in fear as the crowd began
pushing toward the exits. In their excitement, the people had forgotten
their usual courtesy; and Aelios and I were shoved and jostled in a way
that reminded me of the New York subways. It was all I could do not to
lose track of her amid the mob; yet both of us were anxious not to be
separated, particularly since the speechless eagerness of the throng,
the sighs of women, the rapid breathing of men and our own fast-beating
hearts, all served to fill us with grim forebodings.
Once out of the great theatre, the people were driven as by a common
instinct toward the river. All seemed fearful of even a second’s delay,
as though our haste might repair the fractured wall!--and in a long,
swiftly moving column, constantly augmented as we advanced, we followed
the winding avenue that curved toward the waterfront. None of us spoke
more than an occasional word; even Aelios was silent, but she clutched
my arm with unwonted firmness, and looked up at me with eyes wherein
apprehension alternated with a reassuring courage.
But there was no prop for courage in the sight that greeted us at the
river bank. The stream, which previously had flowed five or six feet
beneath the docks, was now not more than eight or ten inches below the
level.
In speechless dismay we watched that broad, greenish-gray torrent
go swishing and gurgling past. But what was there that we could do?
Nothing--except to stand and gape helplessly at that swift-flowing,
swollen stream. Indeed, we seemed worse than merely helpless, for
as I stood there with Aelios amid that horror-faced crowd, I became
conscious--as during that other crisis years before--that I was
arousing a singular repulsion. My neighbors were edging away from me
visibly; some were pointing toward me, or uttering half-suppressed
oaths; I thought I heard some one ruefully mumbling something about
“That foreigner” and something else about “The cause of all our
troubles.”
I would quickly have withdrawn with Aelios from that hostile throng,
had I not chanced to observe a slim, gray form approaching from far
upstream. With the speed of the swiftest racing craft it drew near, and
in a few minutes was recognizable as an intra-atomic boat, akin to the
one I had boarded years before. Much to my relief, it came to a rapid
halt, drew up at the dock, and let down its gangplank. And as the crowd
forced its way on to the docks, Aelios and I was not slow in finding
seats for ourselves for what was sure to prove an extremely exciting
trip.
And exciting it was--far more exciting than we could have desired. We
had been under way only a few minutes when the aspect of the river
began to change disquietingly. Except for the current, it lost the
character of a river entirely, and took on the appearance of a long
lake! On both sides the water spread in a smooth-flowing sheet two or
three miles broad; and above the surface in places stared dumps and
dusters of vegetation, with here and there a miniature island; while
several temples and colonnades stood with marble bases buried in the
water, like the palaces of some aquatic goddess.
But if this overflow was alarming, the full extent of the disaster was
not evident until we approached the glass wall itself. This time it
did not require any searchlight to reveal the nature of the injury;
our ears might have told us if our eyes had not--but our eyes had
sufficient to report. As we strode along the little, clay path toward
the wall, we became aware of a broad, gleaming, greenish expanse
between--a sheet of water where all had been dry land! And into that
sheet of water, with a continuous thunder equal to that of the floods
from the river valve, a long, white torrent spurted in a gracefully
curving jet, shooting outward hundreds of yards from the glass bulwark,
and descending with a splashing as of some gigantic fountain. It
was impossible to estimate the volume, except to say that it was
enormous; nor could we see the nature or extent of the leak, since the
intervening water forbade our close approach. But we observed how the
overflow worked its way circuitously into the Salty River in a sort of
channel of its own choosing; and occasional swift-moving lights, which
even from our distance we could see flashing from beyond the glass,
showed us that the repair ships were busy trying to seal up the crack.
But from the beginning we knew how hopeless were their efforts--with
their midget vessels and midget tools they were like ants trying to
stem the flood of a Niagara. And the utter helplessness of their
plight--and of ours--became tragically apparent when suddenly a great
elongated, gray mass came flying in with the torrents from the sea, and
fell with a splash and a clatter in a battered heap projecting above
the waters--a rescuing submarine that had been hurled in through the
gap in the wall!
* * * * *
[Illustration: Almost before I realized that the ultimate moment had
come, I found myself assisting Aelios up the half-submerged gangplank
and on to the deck of the grim, low-lying, shadowy ship ... we mounted
to the deck, cast a last glance at the darkness that hid the marble
temples of Atlantis, and waved for the last time to the dim watching
figures.]
* * * * *