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 Washington, he had been puzzled for years over his country’s mile-long processions and the spectacle of thousands rushing 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 nobler 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-class 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 shivered, but there was something more than the cold dankness of the air to make him shiver.
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 passed 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.