And I certainly didn’t.
But neither did she.
Of course you know how the new hybrid district of QualBushy (sometimes also known as HeadQuad) broke all duration records. Approved the morning after by a shocking 97.6 percent of the populace. Not falling to its next reformation for an astonishing 10,139 hours.
Mashup designs became the sine qua non for all reformations. iCity experienced a renaissance of design fecundity and doubled in acreage. Mount Excess was joined by Mount Backup. Partnerships formed, broke up, and reformed among the planners at an astonishing rate.
Except for one pairing that endured.
Grale and Moses.
I give Holly top billing because I’d never hear the end of it at home around the dinner table if I didn’t.
RETURN TO THE 20TH CENTURY
January 1, 1960, and the whole globe was atremble with anticipation. For today marked the start of ceremonies surrounding the official inauguration of the new man-made continent dubbed Helenia.
A truly unique milestone in human progress had been reached. The cunning assembly of millions of hectares of artificial land from great carven sheets of the Himalayas and Rocky Mountains, covered with rich topsoil dredged from the many productive ports and harbours of the whole world, and utilizing the scattered Polynesian isles as seeds around which to accrete, represented the supreme accomplishment of human craft and ingenuity to date. Although the startling and productive twentieth century still had four decades to run, it certainly seemed to most of the citizenry that an apex of engineering, ingenuity and social coordination had been reached, one that would not soon be surpassed, if ever.
But little did anyone suspect that a looming crisis would soon spur mankind on to an even greater feat of construction and ambition, all in the name of sheer self-preservation of their remarkable civilization in the face of a malign and unknown rival!
The capital city of Helenia, Pontoville, was abuzz this temperate day with the arrival of assorted dignitaries from across the harmonious globe. These eminences from all the spheres of culture, politics, industry and religion arrived by several means. By swift undersea rail tube (one such contrivance emanated from San Francisco ((otherwise known as New Nanking)), one from Lima, and one from Manila). By streamlined submersible and surface-plying oceanic vessels. And of course by innumerable aircraft, both immense ships of state, featuring lifting balloons large as a castle and multifarious as a sculpture garden, and individual pinnaces and veloces from nearby territories such as the Sandwich Islands.
So heavily did the distinguished visitors plunge upon Pontoville, thronging the skies over the city of parks and towers and also its broad avenues and long piers, that they could not all be greeted individually by President Philippe Ponto and his first lady Hélène (nee Colobry). Later of course the President and his amiable consort would spend at least a brief interval of conversation with every superior guest, as they circulated at numerous state functions in celebration of the sixth continent’s official birthday. But for the moment on this first day of the festivities, President Ponto had reserved his time for welcoming only the highest among the high. Su Chu Peng, leader of the Oriental Republic; Bismarck III, chancellor of Germany and its North American satellite, New Germania; Kulashekhara II, Emperor of India; and so forth down the list of exclusively great names—with two humble exceptions, the first being the President’s immediate family.
Philippe and Hélène Ponto turned out in person at midday to greet Philippe’s father (and Hélène’s former guardian), Mr. Raphaël Ponto, the supreme industrialist, banker, speculator and visionary, whose titanic career had been an inspiration both to his son and the world at large. Accompanying the elder Ponto was his wife Josephine, herself well-noted for her role as an officeholder representing the Radical Feminist Party. And rounding out the party were Philippe’s sisters, Barbe and Barnabette, along with their spouses and offspring.
Philippe, a handsome moustachioed man barely past his first bloom of youth, clasped his stout father to his bosom, heedless of rumpling his official sash of office or of the impress of his many medals into his own and his father’s chest. They stood upon the high, broad and busy aerial platform where the express from Paris had just docked.
“Father, I cannot believe you have finally made it to this new land whose creation owes everything to your own guidance and exemplary career.”
Mr. Ponto, a stout and convivial iteration of his child, responded with bluff, hearty warmth and self-abnegation. “Well, you know that a few small matters have kept me busy till now, during the year or two of Helenia’s creation. The takeover of Portugal as a second pleasure park along the lines of Italy, for instance. But there was simply no way I would miss the official inauguration of such a monumental achievement. You have much to be proud of this day, my son!”
Philippe made some humble rejoinders of his own, before moving to greet his mother and siblings in similar open-hearted fashion. Meanwhile, Mr. Ponto’s eye falling on Hélène, the elder man turned to his daughter-in-law, who so far had held back from the familial mingling.
“Why, Hélène, you look so distracted! Daydreaming perhaps? A privilege of youth. Still, it is most undiplomatic behaviour on this splendid state occasion. I thought my days of lecturing you were over. But perhaps I shall have to take you once more in hand!”
Hélène, a slim, attractive, blonde woman of average build, did not respond immediately to her father-in-law’s mix of chafing and jollying. Instead, she continued to stand at the ornate cast-iron railing of the platform, gazing up into the sky.
There above the city of Pontoville hung the daytime Moon.
The perpetual orb filled nearly the entire sky.
Some short time ago, Earth scientists had drawn the satellite much closer to its primary, by means of electrical attraction. Precisely speaking, the distance from one globe to another was now just six hundred and seventy-five kilometres, or roughly the gap between Paris and Lyons. Moreover, the rotation and gravitic interactions of the two planets had been locked and stabilized, so that the Moon neither rose nor set any longer, but remained perpetually in the sky over Pontoville, as a tribute to the importance of this new nation.
It was this very orb that seemed now to transfix Hélène. She murmured mysterious words at the blank visage of Selene, words which Mr. Ponto could interpret as he approached his daughter-in-law.
“Alpha, we await your coming. Alpha, we are ready—”
Mr. Ponto laid a hand on Hélène’s shoulder, and the woman started, as if an electrical current had passed through her. She turned her face away from the lunar surface, its most minute details plain as the creases in one’s palm, even by day, and addressed her father-in-law.
“Oh, sir, it is so good to see you! I am glad you have arrived!”
“Now, that is more like the reception I expected, dearest.”
The reunited family consorted pleasantly for a few more minutes, amidst the hurly-burly of additional arrivals, with Hélène and her sisters-in-law exchanging news about the latest fashions of each continent. But their chatter was cut short by Philippe’s exclamation.
“I see it! Jungle Alli’s ship! The famed Smoke Ghost!”
All eyes turned to follow Philippe’s pointing finger. The President of a continent was as excited as a schoolboy. Here came the second party for whom he had deigned a personal reception.
Moving swiftly through the sky like some celestial pirate ship, the Smoke Ghost radiated a louche elan not exhibited by any other craft. Suspended beneath a balloon shaped like a recumbent odalisque of Junoesque proportions, its baroque gondola was scarred by hard travel and not a few bullet impacts. As the craft approached the docking platform, the dashing figure behind the wheel inside the pilothouse could be more and more clearly discerned.