Asgard
Immediately after the death of Nordenholt, I took over the control of
the Area and instituted the great reorganisation forced upon us by the
new conditions. Almost our last reserves of coal were used up in the
foundries where we built the new atomic engines; but we succeeded in
manufacturing a number of machines sufficient for our purposes; and
once these were complete, we had no further need of the old-fashioned
fuel. The output of nitrogenous materials sprang up by leaps and
bounds; and the danger of starvation was over.
All our miners were sent into the neighbouring areas, where they were
put to work in spreading synthetic nitrogenous manure upon the fields,
after Hope’s colloids had been ploughed into the soil to retain water
in the ground. At last came the harvest, poor in most places, yet
sufficient for our needs. The game was won.
It was after this that we began to send aeroplanes over the world in
search of any other remnants of the human race which had survived. I
was too much occupied with Area affairs to share in these voyages; but
the airmen’s reports made clear enough the extent of the catastrophe
which had befallen the planet. As I expected, the site of London was
covered with a mere heap of charred and shattered ruins cumbering it
to an extent that prevented us from even thinking of rebuilding the
city in the new age. It was not worth while clearing away the debris,
when other sites were open to us for our new centres of population.
The same fate had befallen almost all the great cities, not only in
Britain but also across the Continent. Above the ruins of Paris, the
gaunt fabric of the Eiffel Tower still stood as a witness to men’s
achievements in the past; but it was almost alone. Everything capable
of destruction by fire had gone down in the frenzy of the last days of
the old civilisation.
I have already sketched the effects of the Famine upon the population
of the globe. Our explorers found one or two colonies alive in America;
and at a slightly later date we got in touch with the Japanese Area.
Beyond this, the human race had perished from the face of the earth.
The strangest of all the changes seen by the aerial explorers must have
been in Central Africa and the Amazon Valley. There, where vegetable
life had seemed undisputed sovereign of vast regions, only a blackened
wilderness remained. Fires had raged over great spaces, leaving ashes
behind them; but in general there was hardly a trace of the old-time
forests and swamps. The Sahara stretched southward to the Equator; and
the Kalahari Desert had extended up to the Great Lakes--so quickly had
the soil of these regions degenerated into sand. In past ages, man had
never tapped these vast store-houses of forest and veldt; and Fate
decided that they should go down to destruction still unutilised.
Once the safety-line was passed and we were assured of food sufficient
to maintain our people, other troubles faced us; and I am not sure
that the next ten years was not really our most dangerous period. Had
Nordenholt lived, things would perhaps have been easier for us; but the
difficulties besetting us were implicit in the nature of things and I
question if he could have exorcised them entirely.
We had, on the one side, a mass of manual labourers whose intelligence
unfitted them for anything beyond bodily toil; while on the other hand
we had supplies of physical energy from the atomic engines which
made the employment of human labour supererogatory. Yet to leave the
major part of our population entirely idle was to invite disaster. The
development of the atomic engine had at one blow thrown out of gear the
nicely-adjusted social machinery devised by Nordenholt; and we had to
arrange almost instantly vast alterations in our methods of employment.
It was under the pressure of these conditions that we became builders
of great cities. Nineveh and Thebes were our first sketches; then came
Atlantis, our main power-station which we built on Islay; after that we
erected Lyonnesse and Tara, fairer than the others, for we learned as
we wrought. Then, as I began to grope toward my masterpiece, I planned
Theleme. And, last of all, the spires and towers of Asgard grew into
the sky.
Once the cities had been planned, we employed a further contingent
of labour in constructing huge roads between them, gigantic arteries
which cut across the country like the Roman ways in earlier centuries,
arrow-straight, but broader and better engineered than anything before
constructed.
Our building materials were new. The introduction of atomic energy gave
us electric furnaces on a scale undreamed of before; and we were able
to produce a glassy and resistant substance which can be made in any
tint. It is of this that Asgard is constructed; and I believe that no
weather conditions alone will wear it down.
* * * * *
As I sit here at my desk, I see outstretched before me the panorama of
Asgard, the concrete embodiment of our Fata Morgana, so far as that
vision could be made real in stone. It is not the City of our dreams,
I admit; yet in its beauty there is a touch of wonder and of mystery
that makes it kin to that builded phantom of our minds. None of our
cities shall ever bear the name of Fata Morgana, which was the mother
of them all. There shall be no profanation of that castle in the air.
Instead we have given to our cities titles which link their material
splendours to the more ancient glories of myth and tradition; Asgard
and Lyonnesse, Tara and Atlantis, Nineveh, Thebes and Theleme.
Rarely, nowadays, do I feel despondent; but when the fit comes over me,
I open the box in which I still keep the papers relating to the time
when I was planning my garden cities. I finger my documents and turn
over my sketches, ever amazed at the gulf which lies between my hopes
of that day and our achievements of the present. Here and there, on the
margin of some modest ground-plan, I find scribbled notes of caution to
myself not to expect such vast projects to be practicable in the near
future. And then, after losing myself in this atmosphere of the past, I
go to the great windows and look down upon Asgard. For once, at least,
in this world, hope has been far outrun by achievement. Splendours of
which I never dreamed have come into being and lie before my eyes as
I gaze. With all this confronting me, my despondency slips away and I
regain sure confidence in the future.
Cities and gardens have I raised in Dreamland. Other cities and other
gardens I have seen spring from the ground of this world in answer to
my call. But of all these, Asgard is nearest to my heart; for it is the
last which I shall create. Other men will surpass me; new wonderlands
will rise in the future: but Asgard is my masterpiece and I shall build
no more.
Ten years have gone by since the last stone was laid in my city; yet
every morning as I come to my windows, I find in it fresh beauties to
delight my eyes. Fronting the sea it stands; and its fore-court is a
vast stretch of silver sand between the horns of the bay. Behind it
the ground rises to a semicircle of low hills set here and there with
groves and fretted with silver waterfalls. Through all the changes of
the year these slopes are green; for snow never drifts upon them nor
do mists gather to hide them from my view. Only the swift cloud-shadows
flitting athwart them bring fresh lights and shades into the picture as
they pass.
Nor do I weary of this greenery. Slowly vegetation is creeping back
upon the face of the world; but still there are vast deserts where no
blade grows: and in my own cities I planned masses of verdure so that
they might be like oases among the barren spaces of the earth.
Between the hills and the sea, the city stands--a vast space of woods
and fields and gardens from among the greenery of which rise here and
there high halls and palaces of rose-tinted stone. Here and there amid
the green lie broad lakes to catch the sun; and great tree-shadowed
pools, like crystal mirrors, stand rippleless among the groves. And
throughout the city there is ever the sound of streams and rivulets
falling from the hills and making music for us with their murmurings as
they pass.
Scattered about this pleasance are the dwellings of my citizens, built
of the rose-coloured stone which breaks the monotony of the verdure;
but the houses are sparse, for our population is small. Asgard is only
for the few who can enjoy its beauties: the many have other cities more
suited to their tastes; and they have no wish to come hither. But those
who dwell with us have full time to fall under its spell; for Asgard is
a city of leisure, though not an idle one.
When darkness falls on Asgard, great soft beacons shine out upon the
hills, throwing a mellow radiance across the valley; and down in the
woods and along the broad ways of the city, the silver lamps are
lighted, till all Asgard gleams in outline beside the sea. In the
expanses of the parks and under the shadow of the woods are sprays
of coloured orbs to guide the passer-by; and from hour to hour these
change their tint, so that there is no sameness in them.
Often I come to my windows in the night and gaze out upon that
far-flung tracery of stars across the valley, rivalling the skies
above, as though ten thousand meteors had fallen from the heavens
and still blazed where they lay upon the earth. And through my
open casement come the faint and perfumed breezes, bringing their
subtropical warmth as they blow across the valley; and I hear, faint
and afar, the sounds of music mingling with the rustling of the trees.
Others may plan; others may build fairer cities in the sun: but I have
given my best; and Asgard almost consoles me for the loss of that Fata
Morgana which I shall never see.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Pronounce Di-ay´-zō-tans´.
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.