I found a number of significant artifacts about the premises. Enough to satisfy me that the Megalithics have, indeed, had a long history, and may even have declined from prior greatness. Of course I have no absolute way to date any given sherd of pottery, but I believe it is safe to assume that those excavated from deep in the ground are of greater antiquity than those near the surface. I was extremely fortunate in discovering a clay seal in good condition that I suspect is several hundred years old. That is especially gratifying, because of the symbolism of my own seal. As a matter of information, I shall imprint it here. [Imprint of an oval scene, a representation of a pottery sherd, on which is a mazelike pattern.] Note the design on the sherd: it is a precise duplicate of an actual decoration on a sherd I recovered from a cave on the [Syrian] coast. But the linkage between seal and design is more than this. I have reason to believe that this particular pottery design is itself emulative of the pattern on a fabric, perhaps a hanging tapestry. And that, in turn, the design was imprinted on the fabric by a large clay seal. So the complete symbolism on my own seal, of which I am justly proud, is that it completes the circle. It is a seal bearing a representation of a design copied from a tapestry imprinted by a similar seal! I suspect that this was, in fact, the original purpose of seals, and that only later did they evolve into personal signatures. Whatever the truth, I believe my own seal captures a portion of it. Alas, no one else appreciates this meaning, yet it sustains me now. I speculate endlessly: in my collection is a seal recovered from a mound in [Anatolia], that I once toured with a [Hittite] scholar. Our own Cretan origins, according to legend, are there. Certainly there are similar bulls there, and similar plants, and I saw the ruin of an ancient city there that was very like one of our own. Foreigners consider our palaces to be mazes in their complexity—and there in [Anatolia] are maze patterns. Yet in opposition I must say that our legends also speak of a seafaring tradition extending very far back and covering an even wider scope than at present, so that our ancestors could have traveled by ship from much farther ports than [Anatolia]. How dearly would I like to know the answer!
Don pushed away the tablets, and naturally his hands passed through them instead. “I like that man!” he exclaimed. “He’s a real archaeologist!”
Splendid looked thoughtful. HE IS MUCH LIKE YOU, she wrote.
Flattered and embarrassed, Don changed the subject. “I’ve hardly been aware of time! Do you realize we’ve used up two more days? But at the rate this is accelerating, we’ll finish it tomorrow. This is obviously the mission for which I was sent, and it’s the greatest experience of my life. And you are making it possible, you gorgeous creature.”
She smiled, touched her hand to her lips, and put it to his mouth.
Don, fatigued from his strenuous intellectual labors and intoxicated by the combination of Minoan revelation and lack of sleep, was moved. Splendid had kissed him! He had spoken to her with the camaraderie of their intense recent intellectual association, without stuttering, and she had responded. How things had changed! “Watch that,” he told her facetiously. “Old Pi-ja-se-me relaxed with his jealous concubine after a hard stint of business.”
Splendid smiled again and opened her arms invitingly to him.
“God, no!” he exclaimed, shocked now. “You’re—I’m—I was joking. I mean, the phase—”
She drifted up to him and put her arms about him, barely touching. He could feel that fringe contact of flesh through flesh, and it was very like the feather-gentle caress of a real woman. Her face came up to his, and he could not resist meeting her lips. It was like kissing a wisp of fog, yet it had considerable impact on him.
Don backed away, guiltily. “What are you trying to do?”
She only shook her head, still smiling.
Don turned away. What would she be doing, except playing with a man she knew could not touch her? Both because of the phase, and because she was a mermaid. Was that why mermaids had such fascination for men, mythologically? Because, anatomically, they were genuinely unobtainable?
Still, he was tired and he did envy Pi-ja his jealous concubine. Who could say what he might do, given the ability actually to touch a female like Splendid?
When he turned again, she was gone. Nothing exceptional about that; she departed regularly to fetch food and take care of natural calls. However she performed them. She would return, as decorative and helpful as ever. She had left the remaining tablets face down on the deck, so he could not cheat; this remained a business association, with safeguards.
Jealous concubine. That reminded him of Melanie, perhaps unkindly. He had been severely distracted these past few days, but down below his consciousness he had not forgotten her, or Pacifa’s remark about her. Melanie loved him? How would he feel about Melanie in the arms of a virile merman, or even merely alone with one for several days, unchaperoned?
It was time to check in with her. He turned on the radio. “How are you doing, Melanie?” he inquired, not sure her set was even on. It had been off the other times he had tried calling her.
She was waiting for him this time, however, her hand evidently on a figurative detonator. “Why don’t you go make out with your paramour, instead of wasting my time?”
Taken aback because this so baldly reflected the lascivious thoughts he had just entertained, Don could only stutter. “I—I—”
“I, by God, am a human being,” Melanie informed him wrathfully. “A female only to the extent I choose to be.”
She couldn’t know about Splendid’s seeming invitation! The radio had not been on for any dialogue for four days. What had set her off, aside from that tiff with the mermaid?
What else but jealousy! Hell had no fury. Yet it was baseless, because Splendid simply was not obtainable, and he understood that on both the intellectual and emotional levels. What good was the most impressive body known—and Splendid had that—when it might as well have been an untouchable hologram? Melanie, in contrast, was real for him, and not merely physically. He had to reassure her about that.
“Melanie, you don’t un-understand—” he started lamely.
“I am quite certain that you have conscious control over the specifically male aspect of your life—sexual intercourse—but I am much less certain that you have much conscious awareness of your internal myths concerning sexual roles.”
She certainly wasn’t tongue-tied! But what was this about having sex? She knew the phase made that impossible. “I d-don’t know what you’re t-talking about,” he said, nevertheless feeling guilty. Suppose it had been possible? What would he have gotten into—bad choice of words—then?
“You mean you haven’t tried the balloons yet? How considerate of you.” Her tone was cutting.
“B-balloons?”
“Oh, you’re impossible!” She clicked off.
Don shook his head. She was furious, all right. But what was responsible? This seemed like more than mere irritation because of his necessary association with another woman.
Then he began to see. The balloons were about the only way the phase world could interact with the real world, since they were half-phased. Gas trapped in the balloons made them rigid in both frameworks. If they were put on the fingers like gloves, they would make it possible to handle something, and to feel it fairly firmly. Even human flesh. A balloon was a lot like a condom.
In his naivete he had never thought of this in connection with Splendid. Obviously Melanie had. Maybe she did have grounds for jealousy.
Yet that could not be the whole of it. Even if Melanie assumed that he, as a man, would take whatever offered—why should she think that Splendid would offer? The mermaid had a community of her own kind. Her interest here was archaeological, and it was genuine, as was his.
Don had a question for Splendid when she returned: “What did you tell Melanie, that made her so mad?”
The mermaid shook her head negatively. She wasn’t telling.
“Uh-uh,” Don said. “Y-you tell me, or I’ll s-stop translating!” It wa
s a bluff, for he knew nothing could keep him away from the tablets after he’d had a few hours of sleep. But it was important to unravel this personal matter too.
Splendid elected to yield to the threat, though he doubted that she took it seriously. She took up her slate. ONLY WHAT SHE ASKED.
“Then what did she ask?”
There was just a hint of that blush. HOW WE DO IT.
Um, yes. How did mermaids reproduce, etc.? There simply seemed to be no apparatus in the nether section of her body. “And what did you t-tell her?”
THAT I WOULD SHOW YOU.
Brother! Every day of his radio silence must have been new evidence to Melanie that Splendid was, well, showing. And that he was using the balloons in a new way.
“I—I wish you would apologize to her. She’s furious!”
Now Splendid looked stubborn, with a heightening of the blush. I HAVE NOT YET SHOWN.
“You don’t need to show!” he yelled. “Melanie’s jealous because she thinks—never mind. Just tell her what we’ve really been doing. She refuses to believe me.”
SHE WOULD NOT BELIEVE ME EITHER.
Probably true. But it was necessary to make the effort. “Look, Splendid, this—she—I—it’s important.”
The mermaid cocked her head, evidently catching on. YOU LOVE HER?
“I—I—yes, I guess I do.”
SHE KNOWS WE CANNOT TOUCH?
“There might be a way.”
She nodded. I WILL TELL HER.
Don felt a wash of relief. “Thank you! I—” He gave up trying to express himself, and turned on the radio.
It was no use. Melanie’s radio remained off. It might remain that way for some time.
He sighed. She would just have to stay mad for as long as it took. At worst, until they got together again, and communication between them could not be cut off.
Right now he had to sleep.
Our two vessels never returned. By spring we were assured the story was accurate, and we had a fair notion what had occurred. I have seen volcanic action upon occasion, and know how devastating such blasts from the deep earth can be. I also know that the fumeroles and hot springs that made our islet warm and fertile had to stem from similar forces. It was surely a volcanic eruption near or at [Thera], and the fire and stone from it, and the waves it made in the sea, and the dust and gases of its murderous exhalations, that ravaged our world and brought our very civilization to its knees.
But that is the lesser of two mysteries. The greater is not how, but why. Surely our priests were well aware of the propensities of the mighty Bull of the Earth, and surely they propitiated it regularly and generously. Every sacrifice, every spectacle of bull-leaping, every intoned prayer—all these tokens, and indeed our cultural outlook, have been dedicated to the pacification of that shuddering Power. Had we been remiss in our worship, then might such retribution have been justified. But I am certain that we were not; the rites were maintained faithfully right up until the moment of the holocaust. Why, then, did the monster turn on us?
I have no answer. I must instead face the reality, as Admiral Su-ri-mo and I faced it then. What should we do with our treasures, so laboriously acquired? They became meaningless when our homeland ended. Our king was dead, our homes destroyed. The barbarians who had seized titular power in our misfortune were not worthy of our allegiance. We should not, could not, go home. But neither could we endure another winter in a pagan city. It was necessary to get our men away from such influences, lest we lose our identity along with our culture and our wealth.
After much consideration we plotted course for [Africa]. Because many of our men on all three ships had become corrupted by the life among the Megalithics, and were almost openly rebellious, we were forced to voyage far out to sea, planning to make landfall only in the direst emergency. For this reason we loaded our holds with a tremendous volume of supplies, though we had to sacrifice the goods for which we had already traded. What use were ores and pigments, now?
Yet even to me, the sheer volume of wine and grain seemed excessive. I tried to caution Su-ri-mo, but he assured me that [Africa] was farther distant than I realized, and that we needed a good margin in case of delays. We would be traveling shorthanded, for we could not hope to recruit enough oarsmen to fill the seats of the defectors. But with good winds it would not matter as much. One sail is worth all the oarsmen, when the wind is right.
Thus I bowed to his judgment, for he was much experienced on the sea and the responsibility was his. Certainly I had little cause for misgiving on this score, since too much food is far less burdensome than too little.
For a month we journeyed south, impeded by adverse winds and contrary currents. It seemed that our store of misfortune had not yet been expended. Discipline among the men, never good since the disaster, became ragged, for they sought surcease from the toil of rowing through still seas and wished to return to the pleasures of the city. Also, they did not like such a long period out of sight of any land. But the Admiral held firm, and after several troublemakers had been quartered the noise subsided somewhat. I was glad that harsh measures had not been required. We remained far out to sea, however, for fear of mutiny should the men catch sight of land and know their bearings.
Still, I knew that navigation entirely by sunstone was precarious, and I feared the Admiral himself lacked precise knowledge of our whereabouts. Yet he seemed assured, even confident. First I supposed this was a false front, so as not to show weakness before the crew; then I suspected that he was deluded. But in no wise did he play the role of delusion, apart from this foolhardy westward drifting. I am a fair judge of men, necessarily, and I knew the Admiral well. Gradually it came upon me that he had a destination—and that it was not [Africa]. I braced him one day when I caught him privately during a routine inspection of my ship.
“Admiral, I must know the truth if I am to function effecively,” I said with some asperity.
He attempted to evade. “Do you doubt my bearings?”
“Not at all, except as they pertain to [Africa]. Our homeland is gone; what use are secrets now?”
He understood my reference. “Yes,” he said slowly. “There is no proper home for us in [Africa]. It is the far port we voyage to.”
“It is forbidden!” I cried, shocked by this bald confirmation of my dark suspicion.
He was unmoved. “As you have so eloquently pointed out: what are secrets, what are prohibitions, when we have no one to answer to? It is for us to carry the news, and to make a new life for ourselves. Surely we can not do so among the savage Greeks or land-hugging Canaanites.”
“[Atlantis]!” I breathed, uttering the forbidden name.
“Atlantis!” Don repeated, as amazed and excited as ancient Pi-ja-se-me had been. The fabulous continent introduced to historic mythology by Plato, who had it from Solon, who had it from an Egyptian priest. The story had been that Atlantis, a rich and powerful and happy island continent, had suddenly sunk in a day and a night. It had been most generally supposed by scholars that Atlantis had in fact been Minoan Crete, ravaged by the phenomenal eruption of Thera in the fifteenth century B.C. The ignorant had spun grandiose stories of a continent in the Atlantic Ocean, for which no justification was offered. Of course Plato had said that Atlantis perished nine thousand years before his time, and was ten times the size of any ruins found at Thera, but this was readily explained by postulating an error in translation of one decimal place. That brought the capital city of Atlantis right down to the size of the settlement on Thera—Pi-ja’s home city—and the time lapse to nine hundred years, which was a close match to the geological record of the eruption. Thus Don had hardly concerned himself with the legend of Atlantis, knowing it to be extrapolation from a clerical error. True, Plato had placed it beyond the Pillars of Hercules. But that was standard practice for the Greeks, who were too familiar with the Aegean to accept such mysteries there.
Now it seemed that the Atlantis legend predated Thera. Don went over the symbol on the tablet
again and again, trying to discover whether he had misinterpreted, but it stood firm as the best guess. If the concept were not Atlantis, it was similar. To Pi-ja, as with the later Plato, Atlantis was a tremendous island across the great ocean.
Yet who would know the source of the legend better than the Minoans, the foremost seafaring people of the ancient world? If they had had a legend of Atlantis, that land must have existed!
Actually the eruption of Thera had not ended Minoan civilization. They had suffered terribly, but soon enough had reasserted themselves and driven off the marauding Greeks and gone on to greater heights. Their power had not faded until they depleted the natural resources of their island, and had to shift their bases elsewhere. But the eruption had been remembered. Thera had been something like four times as great an explosion as the later Krakatoa. Surely the gods had never spoken with greater authority than that! So the Cretan captain, far distant, had misjudged the situation, understandably. Many others had done the same.
Abruptly a new conjecture opened like a fragrant flower. It had not been Atlantis that sank, but Thera—the major European contact. The Minoans had kept the secret, and only their limited reports at their home base had leaked out. So the legend had funneled through that blasted aperture and emerged distorted, for the Greeks and Egyptians had not known the whole truth. Their contact with the news and goods of Atlantis had been shut off, so they assumed that it was dead. All the civilized world had accepted that.
Atlantis still existed—and now Don knew where it was.
CHAPTER 14
ATLANTIS