Ignoring them, Titus trudged on to the pumps and set them for maximum drain-off.
The Simalean ballerina did a series of rapid turns and watched the spray and the pattern of ripples that issued from her darting feet.
"Exquisite!" she exuberated. "I shall have to speak with the maître de ballet about a nymphal sequence!"
"Come on, Pop." One of the tumblers confronted Titus. "What's the gimmick? Why are they keeping us loafing around here?"
"Why?" roared a dramatist, allowing his voice full rein in the acoustic inadequacy of the cellar. "I'll tell you: It's a capitalist scheme to abduct the top talent of the glorious workers' federation!"
Hands clamped over his ears, Titus finally made it to the hypertransmitter. He jiggled its dials, beat on the cabinet, lifted a foot from the water and gave it a couple of kicks broadside.
No results. It was obviously shorted out from the flood. And none of the Pullman crafts was equipped with long-range communications gear.
Titus waded from the cellar, plodded through the house, leaving pools of syrupy water in his wake, and stalked onto the veranda.
The scene was no less hectic than it had been. There were two orchestras now. And they were waging a war of decibels to determine whether the "East Cluster Blastoff March" or the "West Cluster Anthem" should prevail over McWorther's World.
Two debating teams were holding forth on the comparative benefits of proletarian solidarity and the free enterprise system. Beyond the caladium bed, Edna, who seemed to have finally succumbed to frustrated abandon, had struck a face-to-the-sun and wind-in-her-hair posture for a portraitist who was drowning futility in artistic endeavor.