My unconsciousness induced by weakness was only temporary. When I came
to myself presently, I found myself in what I took at first to be a
light diving suit, but which I divined was to protect me from the cold
of the journey down. The helmet was open and I availed myself of the
opportunity to explore more minutely. The deck, which I judged must
be the top of a gigantic dirigible, extended almost a mile in every
direction, rising and falling gently with the air currents. A number of
electric heating plants in the shape of semaphores distilled a pleasant
atmosphere of about 60 degrees. Near where we were standing a score
of aeroplanes were parked, but of a shape that resembled nothing I
remembered. At first sight they appeared to be large toadstools about
twenty feet over the wing surface, and with light basket attachments
on wheels. While I watched, these cars were constantly rising or
descending, but with a lightness that was extraordinary in its
precision. In fact, at that moment a machine arrived out of the blue,
hung a moment over our heads and settled down among the others with
hardly a foot to spare on either side.
“Try walking about a little,” said Acquilla who was standing at my
side, her helmet in her hand.
I did so and found to my surprise that I experienced little
inconvenience.
“I don’t understand.”
“What, Bogardus?”
“After two hundred and fifty years--it’s amazing!”
“But you have been electrically massaged for weeks.”
She put on her helmet, signified to me to close mine and led me to
a tiny aeroplane, the body of which reminded me of our own taxis.
I sank back in the cushioned seat and examined it carefully with a
little trepidation. In front of us an automaton in shape like a giant
insect had its multiple antennae fixed on the levers. Acquilla turned
a switch. Immediately a low purring sound began above us as we rose
easily in the air, poised a moment and shot off into space.
“Of course we could put on electronized belts and walk,” said Acquilla
relaxing in the seat beside me. “But if you’ve never done it before it
might be distressing.”
“What, you have overcome the force of gravity?” I said astonished. “You
can walk on air?”
“Oh, long ago. Michaelson’s discovery of the disassociation of protons
is over a hundred years old now.”
So many revolutionary ideas had crowded in upon my imagination, that
for the moment I postponed the flood of questions on the tip of my
tongue. Besides, I was too keen for first impressions to wish to have
my attention diverted. I looked up and saw that the floating island
which we had just left was a raft at most only twenty feet in thickness
and consequently, unless supported by some extraordinary new chemical
gas, owed its stability to a new principle. I next examined with care
the aeromat in which we were riding. The first thing that struck me was
that except for the purring sound I had first heard, it was virtually
noiseless. Nor could I discern any signs of a gasoline tank. To my
question, Acquilla pointed to a small box, about a foot square placed
before us which she called the electronoid and which she assured me
contained enough energy to fly twenty thousand miles if necessary.
“Besides which,” she added, “we carry an auxiliary battery from which
we can get any amount of energy from the wireless power stations at
Niagara or Fundy. But that is only in case of emergency,--if we should
run short out at sea.”
“But you are not directing the car so far as I can see.”
“No indeed, I have given the directions to the machinot. There is
nothing to worry about.”
“And you will land where you wish like this?”
“Certainly.”
“But the danger of collision?”
Acquilla looked at me in surprise.
“Why that’s the abc’s of mechanics.” She drew my attention to the
telescopic lenses which were set in either side of the machinot’s head
and which evidently signalled the approach of an impending aeroplane.
“The magnetic field immediately operates and the aeromat veers to the
right until the passing is completed and then returns to its course. In
a highway the machine slows up as it approaches congestion. A collision
is quite impossible, for both machines come to a standstill if forced
too close to each other. It’s warm enough now to take off your helmet.
Besides, the car is automatically heated.”
We were now about two miles above the earth. The aeromat checked its
forward progress and began to descend perpendicularly with an easy
fluttering of its circular wings. I craned forward eagerly, my brain
thrilling at the thought of the immensity of the great city I was now
to witness after two hundred and fifty years. By now New York must have
a population of thirty or forty millions, skyscrapers reaching a mile
into the air, hanging gardens in the skies, with superimposed layers of
activity.
“I should like to fly around Manhattan--as low as possible. Could this
be done?”
“Nothing easier.”
I craned out of the window eagerly and immediately recognized the
familiar configuration of the landscape, Long Island and the thin
tongue of Manhattan. We descended rapidly and my perplexity increased.
Instead of the towering skyline of lower Broadway, I seemed to
distinguish the spreading green of wooded lawns.
“But New York?”
“There is New York.”
“But the buildings, the skyscrapers, the millions.”
“Skyscrapers? What a funny name.”
I looked at Acquilla in blank stupor.
“Then New York is gone too?”
She reflected a moment.
“You are talking of things that happened a long while ago. I keep
forgetting that you lived in the age of materialism. New York, of
course, was completely destroyed for the first time in 1984 and
resettled only a hundred years ago.”
“Wait.” I grasped her arm excitedly and gazed out. We were now perhaps
two hundred feet above what was old Staten Island.--Before me the
island of Manhattan rose distinctly, at least one hundred and fifty
feet above water level.
“But it’s, it’s Gibraltar,” I gasped.
“What seems so changed to you, Bogardus?”
I continued to gaze at the great promontory with its villas and parks,
its terraced descents to the water and but for the fact that from above
I had unmistakably recognized the topography, I should have refused the
evidence of my own eyes. Acquilla repeated the question.
“Changed? Everything. Not only has a city of ten million inhabitants
disappeared--buildings that rose a thousand feet into the air--but
something has happened to the ground itself. The New York that I knew
was a low flat island. What has happened? A volcanic disturbance?”
“Oh, I see, that’s what puzzles you, Bogardus,” said Acquilla, smiling.
“Of course the New York you see is built on the ruins of two other
civilizations. The immense buildings you speak of are buried in these
artificial heights. It’s like Rome, you know, that was built and
rebuilt on the ruins of former cities. New York, of course, has been
twice destroyed. Once in 1984, at the period of the European conquest
and again in 2080, when it was voluntarily levelled under the first
years of the Matriarchal era.” She gave a quick glance, noting probably
the rising excitement in my eyes and fearing too great a strain on my
dizzy imagination, said, “Enough for the moment, Bogardus. You will
have to accustom yourself to many things. Close your eyes now and don’t
ask any more questions.”
Her arm drew my head to her shoulder. Her warm lips closed my eyelids.
Intoxicated, I yielded again to her superior strength. Indeed my head
was in such a state of turbulent anarchy that I began to be afraid for
my reason.
“There, poor dear. I’ve been terribly thoughtless in tiring you like
this. Relax now and I’ll promise to take better care of you in the
future.”
When I opened my eyes again we had come to rest in front of a long
Georgian villa of some colored material in the midst of a charming
English park.
“Home at last. You must have fallen asleep, Bogardus.”
Acquilla’s arms slipped under me and raising me tenderly from the
car, set me down on the steps where a dozen lengthy dogs of a variety
unfamiliar to me immediately fawned at my side. Acquilla leaned over
and pulled a series of levers. The car immediately moved off lightly to
a hangar in the elms about a half a mile down the lawn.
“Can you walk? A little weak? Take my arm. An electric bath will set
you up.” She glanced backwards over the green vista and then at the
clear sky, “We’re down just before the rain.”
“Why there isn’t a cloud in the sky,” I could not help exclaiming.
“Look.”
I followed the direction of her hand and perceived some ten miles
distant a score of gigantic pylons, which I calculated must be at least
three to four thousand feet in height, about whose soaring tops light
lavender clouds were piling up, until presently the whole sky was
veiled in a purplish mist through which long electric streamers were
playing.
“What, you are enabled to generate rain by electricity?” I cried
suddenly enlightened.
“Oh, we have been able to control the weather for over fifty years,”
Acquilla announced in a matter-of-fact way. “We do all our raining at
night of course. Every day is just like what you have witnessed.”
“I can understand your bringing on a rain storm. Even in my day we had
developed that principle. But how are you able to prevent storms?”
“By applying the reverse of the principle, of course. These great
pylons with their enormous dynamos are likewise great condensers. In
the daytime they absorb the moisture in the air and at night they
release it. But it is starting to rain already,” she continued, putting
her arm about my waist. “Let’s go in.”