"Besides, I've got a lake up there in which we can indulge in a little atavism to the fish stage of evolution."
"Good enough," Arcot agreed, grinning broadly. "And we'll need that lake, too. Here in the city it's only eighty-five because the aircars are soaking up heat for their molecular drive, but out in the country it'll be in the nineties."
"To the mountains, then! Let's pack up!"
II
The many books and papers they had collected were hastily put into the briefcases, and the four men took the elevator to the landing area on the roof.
"We'll take my car," Morey said. "The rest of you can just leave yours here. They'll be safe for a few days."
They all piled in as Morey slid into the driver's seat and turned on the power.
They rose slowly, looking below them at the traffic of the great city. New York had long since abandoned her rivers as trade routes; they had been covered solidly by steel decks which were used as public landing fields and ground car routes. Around them loomed titanic structures of glistening colored tile. The sunlight reflected brilliantly from them, and the contrasting colors of the buildings seemed to blend together into a great, multicolored painting.
The darting planes, the traffic of commerce down between the great buildings, and the pleasure cars above, combined to give a series of changing, darting shadows that wove a flickering pattern over the city. The long lines of ships coming in from Chicago, London, Buenos Aires and San Francisco, and the constant flow from across the Pole—from Russia, India, and China, were like mighty black serpents that wound their way into the city.