The game was starting as Plat and Spinney took their seats. The little dots were already flashing toward one another. skimming and missing, veering.
A large scoreboard blazoned the progress of the battle in conventional symbology that Plat did not understand. There was confused cheering for either fleet and for particular ships.
High up under a canopy was the Sekjen, the Shah Guido G. of the Lower Ones. Plat could barely see him but he could make out clearly the smaller replica of the game globe that was there for his private use.
Plat was watching the game for the first time. He understood none of the finer points and wondered at the reason for the particular shouts. Yet he understood that the dots were ships and that the streaks of light that licked out from them on frequent occasions represented energy beams which, one hundred miles above, were as real as flaring atoms could make them. Each time a dot streaked, there was a clamor in the audience that died in a great moan as a target dot veered and escaped.
And then there was a general yell and the audience, men and women up to the Sekjen himself clambered to its feet. One of the shining dots had been hit and was going down – spiraling, spiraling. A hundred miles above, a real ship was doing the same; plunging down into the thickening air that would heat and consume its specially designed magnesium alloy shell to harmless powdery ash before it could reach the surface of the Earth.
Plat turned away. “I’m leaving, Spinney.”
Spinney was marking his scorecard and saying, “That’s five ships the Greens have lost this week. We’ve got to have more.” He was on his feet, calling wildly, “Another one!”
The audience was taking up the shout, chanting it.
Plat said, “A man died in that ship.”
“You bet. One of the Green’s hest too. Damn good thing.” “Do you realize that a man died. ”
“They’re only Lower Ones. What’s bothering you?”
Plat made his slow way out among the rows of people. A few looked at him and whispered. Most had eyes for nothing but the game globe. There was perfume all about him and in the distance, occasionally heard amid the shouts, there was a faint wash of gentle music. As hepassed through a main exit, a yell trembled the air behind him.
Plat fought the nausea grimly.
He walked two miles, then stopped.
Steel girders were swaying at the end of diamagnetic beams and the coarse sound of orders yelled in Lower accents filled the air.
There was always building going on upon Atlantis. Two hundred years ago, when Atlantis had been the genuine seat of government, its lines had been straight, its spaces broad. But now it was much more than that. It was the Xanadu pleasure dome that Coleridge spoke of.
The crystal roof had been lifted upward and outward many times in the last two centuries. Each time it had been thickened so that Atlantis might more safely climb higher; more safely withstand the possible blows of meteoric pebbles not yet entirely burnt by the thin wisps of air.
And as Atlantis became more useless and more attractive, more and more of the Higher Ones left their estates and factories in the hands of managers and foremen and took up permanent residence on the Sky-Island. All built larger, higher, more elaborately.
And here was still another structure.
Waves were standing by in stolid, duty-ridden obedience. The name applied to the females – if, Plat thought sourly, they could be called that – was taken from the Early English of the days when Earth was divided into nations. There, too, conversion and degeneration had obtained. The old Waves had done paper work behind the lines. These creatures, still called Waves, were front-line soldiers.
It made sense, Plat knew. Properly trained, women were more single-minded, more fanatic, less given to doubts and remorse than ever men could be.
They always had Waves present at the scene of any building, because the building was done by Lower Ones, and Lower Ones on Atlantis had to he guarded. Just as those on the Surface had to he cowed. In the last fifty years alone, the long-range atomic artillery that studded the underside of Atlantis had been doubled and tripled.
He watched the girder come softly down, two men yelling directions to each other as it settled in place. Soon there would be no further room for new buildings on Atlantis.
The idea that had nudged his unconscious mind earlier in the day gently touched his conscious mind.
Plat’s nostrils flared.
Plat’s nose twitched at the smell of oil and machinery. More than most of the perfume-spoiled Higher Ones, he was used to odors of all sorts. He had been on the Surface and smelled the pungence of its growing fields and the fumes of its cities.
He said to the technician, “I am seriously thinking of building a new house and would like your advice as to the best possible location.”
The technician was amazed and electrified. “Thank you, Higher One. It has become so difficult to arrange the available power.”
“It is why l come to you.”
They talked at length, Plat asked a great many questions and when he returned to crystal level his mind was a maze of speculation. Two days passed in an agony of doubt. Then he remembered the shining dot, spiraling and spiraling, and the young, wondering eyes upon his own as Spinnev said, “They’re only Lower Ones.”
He made up his mind and applied for audience with the Sekjen.
The Sekjen’s drawling voice accentuated the boredom he did not care to hide. He said. “The Plats are of good family, yet you amuse yourself with technicians. I am told you speak to them as equals. I hope that it will not become necessary to remind you that your estates on the Surface require your care.”
That would have meant exile from Atlantis, of course.
Plat said, “It is necessary to watch the technicians, Sire. They are of Lower extraction.”
The Sekjen frowned. “Our Wave Commander has her job she takes care of such matters.”
“She docs her best, I have no doubt, Sire, but I havemade friends with the technicians. They are not safe. Would I have any other reason to soil my hands with them, but the safety of Atlantis.”
The Sekjen listened. First, doubtfully; then, with fear on his soft face. He said, “I shall have them in custody -”
“Softly, Sire,” said Plat. “We cannot do without them meanwhile, since none of us can man the guns and the antigravs. It would be better to give them no opportunity for rebellion. In two weeks the new theater will be dedicated with games and feasting.”
“And what do they intend then?” “I am not yet certain, Sire. But I know enough to recommend that a division of Waves be brought to Atlantis. Secretly, of course, and at the last minute so that it will be too late for the rebels to change any plans they have made. They will have to drop them altogether, and the proper moment, once lost, may never be regained. Thereafter, I will learn more. If necessary, we will train new men. It would be a pity, Sire, to tell anyone of this in advance. If the technicians learn our countermeasures prematurely, matters may go badly.”
The Sekjen, with his jeweled hand to his chin, mused – and believed.
Shah Guido G., thought Philo Plat. In history, you’ll go down as Shah Guido G.
Philo Plat watched the gaiety from a distance. Atlantis’s central squares were crawling black with people. That was good. He himself had managed to get away only with difficulty. And none too soon, since the Wave Division had already cross-hatched the sky with their ships.
They were maneuvering edgily now, adjusting themselves into final position over Atlantis’s huge, raised air field, which was well able to take their ships all at once.
The cruisers were descending now vertically, in parade formation. Plat looked quickly toward the city proper. The populace had grown quieter as they watched the unscheduled demonstration, and it seemed to him that he had never seen so many Higher Ones upon the Sky-Island at one time. For a moment, a last misgiving arose. There was still time for a warning.