The Romance of Atlantis by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online

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 ceremonial 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,