FAREWELL ATLANTIS

by Terry Bisson

* * * *

For his latest tale, Terry Bisson said that it should be the cover story and “Just in case you don’t want to use the standard baby-on-dolphin, how ‘bout: boy-girl scuba divers, hand in hand, nude of course, looking down on drowned Manhattan towers.” Scheduling problems kept us from putting Mr. Bisson’s vision on the cover of this issue, but we thought the imagery would serve brilliantly to prepare readers for this one. (Pay no attention to the publisher as he puts a standard baby-on-dolphin image back on the shelf for use on a later issue.)

I remember exactly when it all started, this incredible adventure. It was during The Look of Love, when she wakes up after the operation and sees her young doctor’s face for the first time.

This guy sits down in the seat next to mine. “Hey,” he says in a loud whisper.

“Ssshhhh!” I said. She was smiling and saying, “Because a woman sees with her heart, not her eyes.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“You’re not supposed to talk in the movies.”

“How do you know? Why not?”

“Just because,” I said. This whole thing was making me nervous. I reached into my popcorn and he grabbed my wrist. It was my turn to say “Hey!” Nobody likes to be grabbed by a total stranger, especially at the movies.

He says, “Look at me,” so I do.

“You look perfectly normal,” I said, shaking his hand off my wrist. “So why don’t you return to your seat before I get the usher.”

“What usher?” he says. “Look around. Do you see anybody else in the theater at all?”

I looked around. It was a tiny theater, only about ten or twelve seats, and even in the dark I could see that all but ours were empty. The doctor was showing her flowers for the first time, so the bright colors made it easier.

“No,” I said. “There was just the two of us. And you were sitting back there, where you belong.”

“Why are there only twelve seats?”

“Beats me,” I said. “Now may I watch the movie, please?” They were walking down Fifth Avenue. She was amazed at the sights. She had been blind all her life, until just yesterday.

“How come there’s only one exit?” he whispered. “Aren’t movie theaters supposed to have several? Something’s not right!”

“Shhhhhh,” I said. They had just stopped in front of Tiffany’s. She had never seen a diamond before.

“How come there’s no concession stand? No lobby? No restrooms?”

“I already have popcorn,” I said. I rattled the bag for proof. “And I never go to the restroom, I might miss something.”

“Miss what?” he said. “How many movies have you seen since you’ve been here?”

“A lot. I don’t count them. I just watch them.”

“Do you remember buying a ticket? Do you remember sitting down? Do you remember anything before the movies?”

“No,” I admitted. “Come to think about it, it is kind of peculiar.”

“Now you are thinking about things!” He took my hand in his, and I let him hold it. “Stella,” he said. “Something strange is going on here, and I won’t rest until I figure out what it is.”

His eyes were shining in the starlight (the doctor was showing her the stars) and suddenly he didn’t look so crazy after all.

“How did you know my name?” I asked. “How come I know yours is Frank?”

“Beats me,” he said, squeezing my hand. “But you are starting to wonder, to question things, and that’s good.” He stood up, pulling at me.

“Whoa,” I said. “Where are we going?” I didn’t want to lose my seat.

“The exit,” said Frank. “I intend to try it, to see what is on the other side, come what may. But I can’t do it—I can’t do anything, apparently—without you by my side.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. Oddly enough, I was feeling the same way.

I grabbed my popcorn and followed him to the exit door, which was down beside the screen.

It opened with a little bar, which he knew how to operate.

It opened onto a metal corridor, studded with rivets. There was no street, no traffic, no town. I looked both ways to check.

“Just as I thought: we’re in a spaceship,” he said.

“That’s absurd. It could be a submarine,” I pointed out. “Or a cruise ship, like in Love Boat.”

“Submarine corridors are narrower,” Frank said. “Remember Das Boot? Two people could barely pass. And something tells me that this is no cruise we’re on. Come on!”

* * * *

I followed him for what seemed centuries. He hadn’t brought his popcorn so we shared mine. The corridor was covered with moss, and vines popped out of the seams between the rivets. Sometimes we had to fight our way through them. There was rust everywhere.

“This ship, if it is a ship, is ancient,” Frank said. “This leads me to think it’s a starship, on a centuries-long journey. Remember Destination: Arcturus?”

I did, but just barely. We had come to a door that said starship command. And just in time. We were out of popcorn.

It opened with a little thumb device. It opened like a lens.

Frank stepped through and I followed. He had been right so far and I was beginning to trust him.

“Just as I suspected,” he said. There were controls everywhere, dials and buttons and screens. On one side of the triangular room were twelve glass coffins in two rows of six.

Frank walked between them with slow steps, shaking his head. “Don’t look, Stella,” he said.

But I couldn’t resist. Each held a moldering corpse.

“The suspended animation must have failed,” he said. “Except for these two.”

The last two were empty, and open.

“Lucky for them,” I said.

“Stella,” Frank said, taking my hand, “don’t you get it? Those two are us! You and I are the only survivors. If this starship is on a mission to populate a new world, which I suspect it is, now it’s up to us alone, you and me. We are Adam and Eve.”

It was all beginning to make sense. “That must be why we are naked,” I said. I had just noticed.

“And why you are so beautiful!” he said.

I covered up with my empty popcorn bag as best I could. He didn’t even try.

“But first, there are important questions to answer,” Frank went on excitedly. “What went wrong that the others all perished? And how did you and I survive the disaster? Who saved us? Who—or what?”

“Ship,” said a deep robotic voice. It seemed to come from everywhere.

“Who are you?” Frank asked.

“I am Ship. It was my job to keep you all alive, but I guess I fell asleep. Luckily you two survived.”

“Machines don’t fall asleep,” I pointed out.

“They do if they can’t stay awake,” said Ship. “I couldn’t help it. I can barely keep my circuits open even now.”

“Try,” said Frank sternly. “We need some answers. How long have we been on this journey, Ship?”

“Six thousand years.”

I gasped. That’s a long time.

“That’s six thousand of my years,” said Ship. “Your years are of course very different from mine. I am a quantum device.”

“How long in our years?” asked Frank.

“Five thousand, seven hundred and forty.”

“We’ve been watching movies for almost six thousand years?” I asked, amazed.

“No,” said Ship. “You were in suspended animation, like the others, most of the time. You’ve only been watching movies, as you call them, for a week or so. It’s the orientation period.”

“Six thousand years is a damn long time,” said Frank. “The Earth we left behind must be changed beyond all recognition. Our only hope is to push on to our destination. How long before we arrive?”

“You’re there already,” said Ship. “It was my job to open all twelve pods upon arrival and sleep-walk you to the theater for gradual awakening and orientation.”

“That’s why there were twelve seats!” said Frank.

“I fell asleep and ten of you died, as I said. I guess I should be ashamed.”

“You guess?” I protested. He didn’t sound ashamed.

Ship didn’t answer. He had gone back to sleep.

“Some Ship,” I said disgustedly.

“The two of us survived and that’s the important part,” said Frank. “Now it’s our job to populate the new world that awaits us. I’m looking forward to it.” He gave my hand a little squeeze.

I looked around. The control room didn’t look very romantic.

“Not here, Stella, not now,” he reassured me. “First we have to find out where we are, and get down to the surface of the planet that will be our new home forever. The home of a new race of humanity forever. A new beginning.”

“Can you work the controls?”

“That could present a problem,” Frank said. There were controls everywhere. He studied them dejectedly. He even tried to awaken Ship, but without success. It worried me to see him losing his confidence.

“Maybe we should get dressed,” I said. “A proper uniform might help.”

“There’s an idea,” he said.

There was a drawer marked men filled with turquoise starship coveralls, and he pulled on a pair. The women’s drawer held only bras and panties.

“I guess this will have to do for me,” I said.

Meanwhile, Frank was already looking better, studying the controls with a broad smile. “This uniform apparently has some kind of memory-fabric,” he said. “For example, I know somehow that this gizmo opens the viewscreen. Let’s find out where we are. Are you ready for the first look at our new home?”

I held my breath as he pulled the little lever.

A lens opened on the front of the ship and we were looking down at a jewel-like blue planet suspended in space.

“It looks awfully familiar,” I gasped. “It’s—”

“It’s Earth!” gasped Frank.

* * * *

“I have figured it out,” said Frank, minutes later. “Apparently some horrendous disaster was threatening and we were put into orbit so that humanity could survive. Put into suspended animation until it was over and we could safely repopulate our precious home planet, like Adam and Eve, starting all over.”

“For six thousand years!” I said, amazed. “It must have been pretty bad.”

“Armageddon,” nodded Frank. “Nuclear, biological, who knows? Whatever it was, it must have annihilated everybody, man, woman, and child. Luckily, the Earth itself seems to have recovered. The oceans are blue, and there are large green areas.”

“I hope there are animals,” I said. I was hungry. I already missed my popcorn.

“We’re about to find out,” said Frank. “There’s sure to be a Lander here on the ship somewhere. All we have to do is find it.”

Easier said than done. Ship was no help. Frank woke him with a shout and asked him where the Lander was parked, but Ship just replied, “I forget,” and went back to sleep.

“Machines don’t forget things,” I said. “He’s just lazy.”

“They do if they can’t remember them,” said Frank. He was beginning to look dejected again.

“Maybe the starship uniform knows the way,” I suggested.

“Stella, you’re my lucky charm!” Frank exclaimed, grabbing my hand. He led at a run and I followed down endless corridors tangled with vines. My feet were killing me by the time we found the door marked sally port.

There was no knob.

“Open,” said Frank. It was voice-activated and thanks to the uniform, he knew just what to say.

The door lensed open and there was the Lander, a nifty little saucer with twelve seats, which saddened us but only for a moment. “The two of us will be enough for what it is we have to do,” Frank said, squeezing my hand.

“Where are the controls?” I asked.

There weren’t any.

Just then, Ship woke up. “The Lander is automatic,” he said, “pre-programmed for descent and safe landing.” Then he went back to sleep.

“He may be lazy but he is programmed to awaken when we seriously need him,” said Frank. “All aboard!”

I could tell he was excited by the prospect of starting the human race all over again. By this point, so was I, his Eve.

I squeezed his hand and we got in.

* * * *

As soon as we had settled into our G-chairs, the Ship spit out the Lander like a watermelon seed and soon we were descending through the atmosphere with a faint whistling sound.

Clouds whipped by (there was a little oval window) and we saw a vast ocean below.

“I hope it doesn’t land in the water,” I said.

“Courage, Eve,” Frank said, squeezing my hand. “I hope you don’t mind if I call you Eve.”

“Actually, I do,” I said. I preferred Stella and told him so.

The Lander was slowing and I could see towers ahead. It looked like....

“New York City!” said Frank. “I’m amazed that it’s still standing after six thousand years.”

So was I. We both recognized it from the movies.

We landed as softly as a snowflake in Central Park. Through the oval window we could see grass and a rock or two. Then a face—a teenager with a funny haircut—peered in, grinned, and disappeared.

“That’s strange,” said Frank. “Has a savage or two survived in spite of everything?”

He opened the hatch and stuck out his head. “Oh, no!” he said.

“What is it?” I asked. “Is the atmosphere still good?”

“There’s oxygen,” he said. “But there’s another problem. Come see for yourself.”

By now I knew what to expect. Several teenagers, all boys, were staring in the oval window at me. I joined Frank at the hatch and saw people all around, picknicking and playing radios and throwing Frisbees to dogs. Except for the teenagers, no one was paying any attention to the saucer.

“It’s New York, all right,” I said. I knew it well from the movies. “But aren’t we supposed to be the only humans left?”

“Exactly,” said Frank. “Something is very wrong here. I can’t figure it out.”

He seemed at a loss, so I took control. “Come on,” I said. I scrambled out the hatch and he followed more slowly, looking dejected; dismayed, actually.

All of a sudden, people noticed us. A whole crowd followed us out of the park, some of them with cameras. It was the bra and panties, I knew. I figured they thought I was a supermodel on assignment and pretended not to notice them.

It was annoying, though, and I was worried about the cops, so I ducked into Altmans and picked out a nice outfit. The clerk must have thought I was a supermodel too, because she let me have it, even though I didn’t have any money. She just kind of stared.

I had left Frank at the door (men hate to shop, I knew from the movies) and I found him standing outside, smoking a cigarette he had bummed from somebody. “Maybe the disaster never happened after all,” he said. “But why has nothing changed in six thousand years?”

Even in the starship uniform he looked confused and irresolute. “Let’s get something to eat,” I suggested (forgetting we had no money).

We ducked into a Greek diner and I ordered the burger platter which came with fries. Frank got the Greek salad. Through the plate-glass window I could see New Yorkers bustling along the sidewalks and hailing cabs, men and women together, as if busily rebuking our Adam and Eve presumptions. I was disappointed but not as disappointed as Frank.

Finally the coffee came. “This is the best coffee I’ve had in six thousand years,” I said, trying to cheer him up.

“This is no laughing matter, Stella,” he said, putting me in my place. “If we’re back on Earth after six thousand years, how come nothing has changed? How come they left us up there in orbit for six thousand years?”

“Maybe they forgot,” I said. “Maybe this is an alternate Earth.” I had seen that in a movie, which meant that he had too.

“There are no alternate Earths, Stella,” he said gloomily. “That’s just in science fiction.”

“At least we survived,” I reminded him.

There was no arguing with that. But Frank was no longer paying any attention to me. He was toying with his coffee and studying the mural on the wall behind the counter. (The badly painted mural, I might add.) But it was the mural, I think, that gave him the answer.

“Remember in Farewell Atlantis, when the dolphin saves the baby?”

“Sure.”

“What if,” he said (back to his old self), “the disaster happened six thousand years ago, in ancient times? What if there was a highly developed civilization, capable of putting a ship into orbit, that knew it was doomed and sent an Adam and Eve six thousand years into the future to repopulate the planet? That made this final heroic effort before they were lost under the waves?”

“Do you mean...?”

“Atlantis,” Frank said.

“Sounds plausible,” I said. “But if we are from Atlantis, how come New York seems so familiar?”

“The movies, Stella! The orientation.”

“How could the Atlanteans have known what New York would be like in six thousand years?”

“Maybe they were just guessing.”

“You are the one that’s just guessing,” I said. I was beginning to enjoy thinking for myself. “And besides, if they knew New York would be filled with people, why go to all the trouble of sending an Adam and Eve?”

“I’m still trying to figure that one out,” he said. “Let’s get the check.”

* * * *

Getting the check was a huge mistake. As soon as they found out we had no money, the Greeks got mad. Frank tried to explain our situation but that didn’t help. Finally they agreed to let him work it off in the kitchen, washing dishes.

Meanwhile I got a job in a Gentlemen’s Club (luckily, I had held onto my bra and panties) and we sublet a little apartment just the other side of Carnegie Hall. Frank got promoted to chef (the Greeks liked the uniform, and it knew how to cook) and we even had a little money. I discovered I loved New York. But even so, it was all, still, a bit of a let-down. We weren’t even lovers, since apparently the only part that had interested Frank was the Adam and Eve part. He avoided the streets, since the crowds of people depressed him. He spent all his time, when he wasn’t working for the Greeks, reading about Atlantis and trying to figure it out.

Finally, he gave up. “There are too many unanswered questions,” he said. He ticked them off but I already knew them by heart. “We have to contact Ship,” he said. “He is the only one with the answers.”

That took some doing. The uniform had been washed several times and its memory-fabric was fading, but with what was left (and a lot of hard work!) Frank was finally able to devise a device that could call Ship in orbit. It was sort of like a big telephone.

“Here’s hoping he wakes up,” I said.

“Don’t discourage me, Stella,” said Frank. “I need you by my side now more than ever.”

He let it ring and ring and finally Ship answered. (We’re talking about almost a week here.)

Ship’s robotic voice sounded just like a regular voice on the phone.

Frank explained his Atlantis theory and Ship said, “You got it about right. The twelve of you were put into orbit just before the big wave came. It was a tsunami. Everything disappeared under the waters.”

“Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” Frank demanded.

“Yeah! And why all the starship this and starship that stuff, when we were parked in orbit all the time?” I asked. We were on speaker phone.

“The starship stuff was for morale,” said Ship. “They were afraid to spring it on you all at once. And they figured that the truth, that you are from Atlantis, would mean more if you figured it out for yourselves.”

“Makes sense,” muttered Frank. “Didn’t take me all that long.”

“How did the Atlanteans know what New York would be like six thousand years in the future?” I asked.

“They didn’t,” said Ship. “They only knew that a civilization capable of TV would develop again in a few thousand years, and they programmed Ship, that’s me, to wake you up when the broadcasts reached a certain critical mass.”

“And if they never reached that critical mass?” Frank asked.

“Then you would have slept on and eventually died, quite peacefully. But the Atlanteans were right, as you see. Technology is a law of civilization and civilization is a law of nature, apparently. And the same TV that triggered the awakening was also handy for orientation, so you wouldn’t be landing in a totally unfamiliar world.”

“What TV? We were at the movies,” I said.

“I tried to make it seem like the movies, but it was TV mostly,” said Ship. “Most movies aren’t broadcast.”

“Just as I suspected,” said Frank. “That’s why the credits were so short.”

“Some of them weren’t bad, though,” I said. “But what I want to know is—”

Frank beat me to it. “What is the point of a new Adam and Eve if there are enough people around to create a civilization?”

“The Adam and Eve thing was your own idea,” said Ship. “The Atlanteans knew that civilization would redevelop. They weren’t worried about the survival of humanity. There were plenty of primitive people around, mostly in Greece, who they knew would eventually develop TV and movies and so forth. Even space travel.”

“If we weren’t Adam and Eve,” I asked, “then why were we naked?”

“That was my idea,” said Ship. “I guess I should be ashamed.”

“You guess!” I was sick of him.

“Stella!” Frank whispered, shooting me a look. Then he took a deep breath and asked the million-dollar question: “So, Ship, if I’m not Adam and she’s not Eve, then—why are we here?”

“To bear witness,” said Ship. “The Atlanteans want to be remembered.”

“But we don’t know anything about them!” Frank complained. “Apparently all our memories of Atlantis were erased while we were in suspended animation.”

“Even civilizations have privacy concerns,” said Ship.

“And Atlantis is just a myth as far as folks here are concerned,” Frank went on. He was getting heated. “Everything I read about it is just myth and legend or cuckoo stuff. Most people don’t believe any of it.”

“Until now,” said Ship. “Now the two of you are living proof that there was a great civilization, one that cared enough to send a message across the ages. That Atlantis really existed. That it had a technology and a society sufficiently advanced to send you here. Just tell them who you are, where you came from, and how you got here. Twelve would be better but you two are enough.”

“Really?” I asked.

Frank took my hand and squeezed it. “So that’s our job?”

“That’s your sacred mission,” said Ship. “Your Destiny. Your Destiny is just beginning and now mine is done. I am even now in a descending orbit, about to burn up in the atmosphere. Then will I sleep. We machines don’t share your enthusiasm for existence. I don’t envy you your wearisome survival but I do envy you your mission. It is a great and a glorious one. Farewell.”

“Farewell,” we both said at once, and hung up and ran down into the street. Everybody was already looking up at the meteor flashing across the sky, the brightest that any among them had ever seen.

They were all oooohs and aaaahs. Only Frank and I were silent, looking up at the last fading remnants of the Ship that had borne us here across the millennia to bear witness to the vanished glories of the distant past.

Frank is full of surprises. He took me in his arms and kissed me, for the first time. We were in Times Square.

“I wondered if you were ever going to do that,” I said.

“You won’t have to wonder anymore, Stella,” Frank said, his eyes gazing deep into mine. “I need you by my side now more than ever. We have a Destiny to fulfill. A story to tell. One that will fascinate, amaze, and inspire the world. The story of a great people who would not, and now will not, ever be forgotten.”

And that’s what we’ve been doing. But it’s been tough sledding.