Part 4 (1/2)

What he had hated about his own world above was its constantly increasing speed. Like a squirrel caught in a cage, his world had gone faster and faster until reality had vanished into a mad blur of turning wheels and running feet. Oh, well, he thought, a man is like a pup. Contented enough until life takes him by the scruff of the neck and shakes him up and proves to him that things change and a pup's world changes and he had better accustom himself to new standards or be shaken up again.

So they sped on through the low waves while the Tower loomed nearer and taller before them. Gunnar was guiding with one hand while he talked into a little square box of gleaming metal.

He turned his head, and the boat careened into a trough that set it to shaking. ”I have contacted Wolden and Ato,” he called cheerfully. ”They are meeting us at the dock. Not the old dock--it is still under water. The new one is farther up the street.”

As they neared Orthe-Gard, Gunnar slowed the boat. Looking down into the murky water, Jack Odin could detect, now and then, the faintly-traced shadow of a roof or tower. Once as he looked down at a finely-carved weather-vane, a huge fang-fish rolled between him and his view. A white belly gleamed through the water, and a serrated mouth opened wide. Its jaws bent out of proportion by the refraction of the water, it reminded Odin of the old story of the Monster of Chaos rus.h.i.+ng with gaping mouth to swallow the works of men.

Then they were at the dock, which was scarcely a dock at all but a place where the waters ended halfway up the sloping streets of the city.

One thing had not changed. To the last the people of Opal refused to take part in any governmental excitement. A car was there. A driver. Wolden was there looking much thinner and grayer. Beside him was his son, Ato, inches taller and perhaps a bit thicker in the shoulders and a bit thinner at the waist. These were all.

He had nearly broken his neck half a dozen times to get there, but Jack Odin was glad that the old idea had survived. Being reared so near to Was.h.i.+ngton, he had been puzzled for years over his country's mile-long processions and the spectacle of thousands rus.h.i.+ng to watch a parade for some visiting celebrity or some current politician who would be forgotten before the next snow.

He and Wolden shook hands. Odin was surprised at the change in him. When last seen, Wolden had been a man just leaving the prime of life. Too much of a brain, perhaps. A bit too curious and a bit too fearful of the affairs of the world. But now the hand was weak--the face was thinner and grayer, although even n.o.bler than it had been, but the eyes were sad and pained as though they had seen too much and had dreamed dreams beyond the comprehension of his fellows. Somehow, Odin found himself remembering a lecture about Addison, who probably knew as much as anyone about the hearts of men, but upon being made second-high man in his government could only stand tongue-struck in the presence of Parliament.

Then there was Ato. The months had changed him too. He stood tall and lean, and there was a deep line running from each cheekbone down his face. He looked older, but his eyes were piercing now, while his father's were somber. Strife and hard work had sweated all the fat from his bones. He seemed much stronger than when Odin had first met him.

But here was something more than strength. Ato had developed into a first-cla.s.s fighting man. Wolden could never have been a fighter.

There was something both terrifying and sad in the comparison. Ato looked like a man who could calmly send a hundred-thousand to their deaths for one objective, while Wolden would have theorized and rationalized until the objective was lost. The old comparison between the impulsive executive and the liberal arts man who has learned that there are only one or two positive decisions available in all the world of thinking.

But each in his own way was glad to see Odin, and welcomed him back to the ruins of Opal.

Then, just before the reunion was over, the clouds grew grayer and it began to rain. As they got into the little car, Wolden told Odin that they would have to circle the bay before going to the Tower on a ferry, since the lower stories were still under water. The city had once been beautiful with trees. Now they stood like gaunt skeletons, drowned by the sea water. Here and there a few limbs struggled to put out their leaves. The rain was cold, colder than Odin had ever felt in Opal before. He s.h.i.+vered, but there was something more than the cold dankness of the air to make him s.h.i.+ver.

Then they came to the ferry, and the ferryman was so old and bent that Odin looked twice at him to make sure that he wasn't one-eyed. He wasn't. So the ferry creaked its way out to the Tower--to an improvised landing just below the sixth-story windows. They climbed through the windows into a huge room that seemed to be carved of fairy-foam, and behind them the rain grew heavier and the thunder rolled in the distance and the lightning flashed like witch-fires across the jaded sky.

Three days had pa.s.sed since Gunnar and Odin had returned to Opal.

Doctor Jack Odin stretched out on a huge bed and felt the strength of the ultra-violet light upon the ceiling pour into his shoulders. In the next room, Gunnar was bathing and complaining about the sea water.

Drinking-water in Opal was now at a premium.

Odin had been in the dumps. Now he was feeling better, although memory of the sodden ruins that he had seen in the last three days would never leave him.

”And are you howling, my strong little man?” he called out cheerfully. ”In Korea I once bathed in a mud puddle and enjoyed the bath.”

Gunnar's first few words were unprintable. ”There was a river close to my house where the water ran silver over the stones of the ford. And there Gunnar used to bathe. This is slop, Nors-King. Nothing but slop.”

Odin laughed again. ”You are getting old, Gunnar. Did anyone ever guarantee that ford to you for always?”

Gunnar, dripping water, and with a towel wrapped around his middle, came das.h.i.+ng into the room. He stood there, his arms and shoulders flexed. ”And does Gunnar look too old to fight?” he asked.

Odin blinked. Gunnar's muscular development had always amazed him. The short man stood an inch less than five feet. His chest and shoulders must have measured more than that, his muscles writhed like iron snakes as he moved. His biceps and forearms were those of a smith--which indeed Gunnar had been, for Gunnar had been many things. The huge torso slanted down to narrow waist and hips. Then his short legs propped him up like carved things of oak. Gunnar had once killed a bull with one blow of his fist.

He had once snapped a man's back across those bulging, stubby thighs.

Gunnar disappeared in search of fresh clothing. Odin lay there, thinking of all the things he had seen since returning to Opal.

Although the water level was still high up on the Tower, the lower floors had been made water-tight and had been pumped dry. On his first trip to the Tower, Odin had little chance to survey the rooms. Now he knew something of what Opal had lost. Curtains, paintings, rugs, statues, the finest furniture. All these had been ruined or damaged by the flood. Each room of the Tower had been a work of art. Both Brons and Neeblings had contributed to it, back in the days when they were working shoulder to shoulder.