“Yes?” Salustra impatiently looked from one minister to the other.
Hammu was a stocky man, with a round face, dull brown eyes, and a truculent look. He was known as a great physicist. “It is easy to suggest, Majesty, but suggestions do not move the heavens.”
The Empress gave him an imperious look. “What have you done, sir?”
“These clouds are different from any others, Majesty. We have stocked them with all types of water-producing chemicals, without the slightest effect. The mist only seems to get thicker, hanging lower in the atmosphere.” He paused for a moment, and his eyes moved slowly around the table. His face was glum and his shoulders sagged. “The birds have all disappeared from the skies of Lamora, as if they had some foreknowledge of disaster.”
Nothing he said could have more oppressed the minds of the assembled dignitaries, susceptible as they were to the astrologers’ repeated portents of catastrophe.
But Salustra was quick to counteract Hammu’s bombshell. “Bah,” she exclaimed. “They were no doubt driven off by the noxious fumes; this mist reeks of sulfur.”
Her eyes now rested on her supreme councillor, Mahius. “What sayest thou, dear friend, to this gloomy talk?”
Only Mahius dared speak his mind, not only because he was closest to the Empress but because two lifetimes had wearied him and he no longer aspired to the greatest reward a grateful Atlantis could conceive—the rejuvenation chamber. For this reason, too, Salustra, grown cynical with rule, knew she could count on him for an honest opinion. He had nothing to gain or lose.
“What sayest thou?” she repeated, as he remained rapt in thought.
He spoke slowly, with a solemn mien. “Majesty, just as Fribian cannot move the sun, Hammu cannot alter the atmosphere, and Timeus—” his head nodded toward the Minister of Transport “—cannot move the unmovable.”
Her head bridled impatiently. “Then are we to sit around and do nothing, while the people starve and Signar moves in on fossil-fueled vessels and takes over all we have built over the centuries?”
There was the trace of a smile on Mahius’ gray lips. “No, Majesty, but we can learn from the barbarian. We have our network of canals and fleets of smaller barges, some fitted for nuclear energy, others for the sun’s rays. We can fit them overnight with sails and oars, and let them sweep over the waterways in the same way that our ancestors did centuries before. Meanwhile, we could scour the museums for the internal-combustion engines that our forefathers once used, and perhaps find fuel for them in the ground.” He paused, as he saw her frown. “It would be a temporary expedient, Majesty, to move foods, perishable for lack of refrigeration, and to feed an empire, while your ministers apply themselves to this crisis.”
With her knack for instant decisions, the Empress’ head inclined. “Timeus, go to, and have these ships moving before daybreak.”
Timeus had a sailor’s keen eye. Small craft were his hobby. His eyes gleamed at these instructions. “It shall be done, Majesty, Lamora shall not starve. But I will need help.”
He turned to the Minister for National Preservation, who until now had maintained an aloof, somewhat disdainful attitude. “I will need Sabian’s fullest cooperation for the required manpower.”
The Empress’ eyes focused on a short man, with a beefy face, who appeared vastly overdressed for so somber an occasion. “And what say you, Sabian?”
Sabian hesitated. “It will take time, Majesty, to collect so huge a force, considering the breakdown in the rapid-transit and communication systems.”
The Empress’ eyes blazed. “Dolt,” she exploded. “Were these systems functioning would we be here at all, but rather out in the garden listening to the birds, which also are inoperative?”
The Minister for National Preservation visibly blanched before this assault.
“Atlantis can no longer afford you, Sabian. Too long hast thou allowed thy indolent fancies to make thy office that of a figurehead.” Her eyes turned to the Minister for Transport. “Thou, Timeus, art now Minister for National Preservation as well.”
Sabian had turned the color of chalk. The other ministers now avoided his gaze. He stammered a moment. “May I leave, Majesty?”
“None too soon to suit me. Go to, man. Thou canst not even preserve thyself.”
Sabian seemed to dwindle in size as he slunk out of the room.
Hardly waiting for the door to close, Salustra turned to a tall, thin man with a nervous mouth. “And what say you, Matthias?”
The Minister for Communication was ready. “No sooner did reports come in, Majesty, that ships and vehicles of various types had lost power not only to navigate but to communicate than I established a system of couriers by foot and horse for land communication, and semaphores, used long ago by our ancestors, for sea communications. But, alas, we are handicapped at sea by the uncertainty of the sun playing on our mirrors, and by limited visibility. Meanwhile, we still try to penetrate the atmosphere, but our radio signals fall dead. It is as if the mist had laid a blanket on the atmosphere, blocking off all electrical frequencies by which the vibrations of sound, light and movement are carried through the atmosphere.”
Salustra had listened intently. “You do well, Matthias. Others might take a lesson from thy resourcefulness.”
Matthias made a modest inclination of his head. “I do what I can, Majesty, but a bold adversary could slip through our hampered defenses without our knowledge. Our advance-warning system is nonfunctional. Nothing shows on our telesound screens, not even the bouncing waves.”
Grimly Salustra turned to her two Ministers for Science. They blandly expressed hope that the mist would soon dissipate and the sun once more show itself.
Salustra regarded these men of science dryly. “And what would you scientists recommend, that we appeal to the High Priestess Jupia, so that she may intercede with the gods in our behalf?”
The ministers blushed.
Bronko, the science coordinator, was a burly figure with a deep voice. “I will gladly resign if your Majesty thinks another may do better.”
She gave him a friendly smile. “I do not blame any of you for that beyond thy sphere. But what can be done that thou dost not do I shall hold in account. Atlantis is still the last bastion of civilization, and must be preserved.”
The ministers were seeing a side of the Empress that the revelers and libertines of the court had no inkling of.
“All will do the best they can,” said Mahius, sounding the optimistic keynote.
“Go to, then, and show our adversaries that we are not yet ready to play dead.”
As they filed out singly, the Empress motioned for old Mahius to remain.
She sipped slowly from a glass of wine.
“The seven-colored crystal my father bequeathed me,” said she, indicating the jewel around her neck, “has been pressed to keep up to my own energy demands of late.”
Mahius managed a smile, but he minced no words. “Even without Signar,” said he soberly, “Atlantis is in a critical situation.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “We could always go back to fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—even though these primitive carbons take up so much room and pollute the environment.”
“It would mean bringing back the internal-combustion engine on a large scale, and other archaic mechanical devices powered by such fuels.”
She nodded. “Then so be it—give the necessary instructions to Gobi, the Minister for Science. He added naught to the meeting today, and should be glad to prove that he is not as decadent as that precious sister of his, who is known far and wide for the calluses on her back.”
Mahius suddenly felt drained. “Is there any more, Majesty?”
“Yes, I would have you make a tour of the city with me. Now that the land wagons are no longer functioning, we can travel in one of the ceremonial litters, without stirring the attention of the populace.”
In keeping with ancient tradition, despite Atlantis’ technological progress, the cerem
onial litter had been retained, with its guards, as the only means for the reigning monarch to travel through the city, just as ceremonial swords were still maintained by the aristocracy as a symbol of their ancient tradition.
Mahius’ face dropped. “I am an old man, Majesty, and fatigue has settled in my bones.”
She gave him a mocking glance. “Perhaps we should put you back in the rejuvenation chamber.”
Mahius’ face contorted in horror. “Please, not that again, Majesty. Life already has too many memories for my overburdened brain.”
Salustra smiled fondly at her loyal adviser. “I was merely jesting. Go to, and I will find another companion for my tour.”
With a grateful bow, Mahius backed out of the royal presence.
He was no sooner gone than the Empress rang for Creto, the young Prefect of her Palace Guard. He arrived in a few minutes, a burly young man with bulging muscles and a gleam in his eye. He bowed low, then gave his Empress an inquiring glance.
She smiled appreciatively for a moment, then her voice became crisp and businesslike.
“Summon a litter,” she said, “and we will make an inspection of the city and its slumbering plants.”
Creto looked up in surprise. “But it is late, Majesty, it will be dawn in a few hours.”
She gave the splendidly muscled soldier a disarming smile. “And is the mighty Creto afraid of footpads? Fear not, the litter-bearers will protect thee.”
Creto blushed to the roots of his wavy blond hair. “Thou knowest, Majesty, I would gladly give my life for thee.”
“Better save it for me, my protector. Thou servest me better alive.”
Salustra had the normal layman’s curiosity about the ponderous power-producing machines, which seemed so intricate and all-powerful and yet were now powerless, sleeping giants. She had always mistrusted these machines, incongruously so much more powerful than their masters. She had long contended that the mind of man should be able to do directly whatever an extension of his mind could do.
“What an inanimate object can do,” she insisted, “certainly the mind that conceived it can do.”
She thought of all this as she began her tour of inspection. With the faithful Creto, she was borne but a short distance to one of the many waterways that formed a network of canals from one edge of the city to the other, and which fed into a great mile-wide moat of seawater that surrounded the city. Her barge, the first to be refitted with sails, floated her small party through the heavy night to a major water-pumping station at the harbor front. There, normally, the ocean water was forced through corrosion-proof conduits, creating the electrical energy for desalinization plants that freshened the sea-water and filtered out its riches, at the same time collecting valuable elements from human-waste materials and churning the dross far out to sea.
The barge slowly entered the great moat, where it was suddenly carried along by a swiftly swirling current, formed by huge jetties thrust deep into the open sea.
The pumping station, one of many girdling the moat, appeared to be quiet, though oddly, despite the power breakdown, some lights shone bleakly through ground-floor windows.
Salustra was immediately recognized by guards, and the manager of the works promptly summoned. He was a sleepy-eyed man, with a bushy red moustache and eyebrows that contrasted oddly with his bald pate.
Salustra sized him up immediately as one of the small army of efficient civil servants which managed to keep her decaying empire outwardly intact.
“I have come,” she announced, “to observe for myself. How dost thou have lights with the city in darkness?”
Minotaur, the manager, bowed low. “We have our own generator, for just such emergencies, as thou, Majesty, in thy Palace and the government chambers.”
She pointed vaguely out a window. “I see the waves churning as before, taking energy from the tides, so why do not thy pumps churn with all this power?”
“Our pumps are powered, Majesty, by solar energy, from the vast solar center which circles the mountain, and for a reason we do not yet understand this energy flow has stopped.”
“Is it not madness to rely on but one energy source when the sea sits ready to do our bidding, a sea that no cloud can obscure?”
Minotaur hesitated, flustered under the Empress’ stern gaze.
“Speak, man, this is no time for protocol. Why doth not the ocean move thy pumps?”
“Thy pardon, Majesty. We can normally generate enough sea power for a hundred and one household uses. This alternate program was intended to become operational when the sun hid behind the clouds for three days or more, and the solar supply dwindled.” He shrugged unhappily. “With the sun obscured, tidal energy is being produced, as we can tell by our gauges, but it dissipates before our transformers can convert it to energy. It is a mystery.”
“So how doth thy generator work?” The Empress glanced pointedly at the overhead lamp.
Minotaur was happy for an opportunity to have something explainable to discuss. “This functions on a limited range, Majesty, on a closed-circuit system, independent of atmospheric vibrations, but—” he frowned “—even so, we find the impulse weaker than usual, with some units losing power after a few hours.”
Moved by the man’s sincerity, Salustra laid a hand on his shoulder. “It is men like you, Minotaur, who make me feel that my efforts are worthwhile.”
Minotaur blushed and bobbed his head. “This visit, Majesty, is reward enough for whatever service I perform.”
She turned to the hovering Creto with a wave of her hand. “Now for the desalinization plant which is nearest us. Without fresh water,” said she, “how long can we survive?”
“There is always the rainfall, Majesty, collecting in the mountain streams.”
“Polluted, my dear Creto, with these insufferable fumes that smell of the sulfur that grows on gravestones.”
The de-salting plant was a miracle of subterranean pipes, tubes and chambers, all intricately interwoven, so that minerals such as sodium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, cobalt, nickel, manganese were successively drained off from the churning seawater at different temperatures. Volatile elements such as chlorine, fluorine and iodine were distilled into massive chambers, and there refined for commercial use. Meanwhile, the freshened water, reinforced with certain beneficial minerals such as calcium, was drawn into great pipes and pumped into reservoirs throughout the city.
As at the pumping area, all activity had come to a halt. The foreman was in a nervous state, perspiring from the heat accumulating underground since the power failure.
The Empress felt faint with the heat. “How dost thou stand this temperature?” she asked.
The foreman was of the same stripe as Minotaur, loyal to his monarch and well trained for his particular task. He replied apologetically. “Our air-cooling machines require more power than the emergency generators can produce, and so we must stand this heat, Majesty, until we return to normal.”
“And when will that be, Fresto?” she asked, picking up his name from a desk plate.
Fresto shrugged unhappily. “None can say, Majesty. The Minister for Science was here earlier and asked that very question.”
Salustra’s face was incredulous. “The minister asked thee? Then indeed we are in trouble.”
Fresto looked at her blankly.
“And what say you to the waste-disposal system? Shall we strangle in our own offal?”
The foreman shook his head. “No, Majesty, the ocean tides, funneled in and out of the moat, still carry off the wastes, which flow by gravitation to the moat itself, are treated chemically in our purifying plants and the residue expunged. The great Lazar created this system with great foresight.”
She looked at him sharply for an implied rebuke.
His face was noncommittal.
“Go to, Fresto,” she said. “I interfere with thy work.”
She looked at Creto with a sigh.
“It is almost dawn, Majesty,” he said.
; “How dost thou know in this devilish mist?” she said wearily.
She threw a cape over her shoulders as they stepped into the barge, and shivered. “If only I knew what to do.”
Creto gave her his strong arm. “That is what thy ministers are for, Majesty.”
“But the people will blame me, as honest Fresto did.”
“I heard naught of blame,” Creto staunchly replied.
“Oh, yes, why wasn’t the daughter of Lazar equally vigilant?”
“But how couldst thou know the evil the gods would contrive?”
Salustra smiled mirthlessly. “My subjects, used to having things done for them, care not for excuses.”
She reached out and touched Creto’s cheek. “One more stop, dear protector, and we call it a night.”
There was a flickering light in the solar-energy center, the most accessible of a chain of stations which spiraled laterally up the mountain so as to capture the arching sun at all times.
Guards posted at the entrance quickly stood aside on recognizing the Empress. The director came forward holding a candle in his hand. “If we had only had some inkling—” he began.
Salustra cut him off. “You would have had a larger candle, forsooth.”
The manager had the intelligence to blush. “We do find ourselves in unaccustomed straits, Majesty.”
She looked around a darkened chamber, toward an outside balcony. There, in the approaching dawn, she could see a series of giant rubylike crystals slanted toward the sky. “And what is being done to remove these straits?”
The manager, Zeno, was a product of the civil-servant system, like the others Salustra had encountered. He made no attempt to dissemble. “The Minister for Science just left, Majesty, and we are under his direct orders.”
“And the orders?”
“That we remain on duty through the crisis.”
“You may be here a long time, Zeno.”
He bowed. “My staff and I stand ready to do what we can.”
“That is very well, but meanwhile thou providest a spectacle of a solar-energy center without sufficient light to move around in. What has happened to thy independent generators, man, so thou canst at least see thy own shadow?”
The Romance of Atlantis Page 4