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.The bureaucrat was hesitating at the third landing, wondering which way to go, when a dog-headedman carrying a tray of hands pushed by him.He stepped back in alarm, and the man halted and pulledthe mask from his face."Can I help you, sir?""Ah, I was wondering--" He saw now that the hands were metal, modulars being taken to beflash-cleaned between clients."The Atlantis is down that way.Take the walk straight ahead, turn left, and follow the signs.Youcan't miss it."Bemused, the bureaucrat followed the instructions and came to a long platform with scattered tables.Clusters of surrogates and the occasional lone human lounged against the railing, staring out into theforest.He stared too.The tree had been cut back to open a view of the forest interior.Golden light slanted into thegreenery, whimseys dancing like dust motes within it.Ahead, rising from the earth like a phantom, wasthe landlocked corpse of an ocean vessel.The Atlantis.It was enormous beyond scale.The ship had foundered keel first with its bow upward sometimeduring the last great winter, and the currents had half buried it, so that it seemed frozen in the instant ofgoing under.A million orchid crabs were traversing its barnacled remains, and it was covered withflowers, as impossible a creation as any mnemonic address in the Puzzle Palace.The ghost of a memory tugged at his mind.He had heard of this ship before.Something.The bureaucrat found an empty table, scraped up a chair, and sat.A light breeze ruffled his hair.Leaves rustled as a feathered serpent leaped into the air, a scissor-tailed finch perhaps, or a robin.He feltoddly at peace, put in mind of humanity's gentle, arboreal origins.He wondered why people put so littleeffort into returning home, when it was so easily done.At that moment he glanced down at the table.An outlined crow stared back at him.Before he couldreact, a beaked shadow fell across it.He looked up into the eyes of a crow-headed man.Gregorian! the bureaucrat thought, with a thrill of alarm.Then he remembered the Black Beast thathad haunted Dr.Orphelin and looked about him.Faded drawings of birds and animals were everywhereon the railings and tables.He'd attuned himself to such things, and was now generating his own omens"Welcome to the Haunt's Roost," the waiter said.The bureaucrat pointed to a Flavored Beers sign."Have you got lime? Or maybe orange?"The head lifted disdainfully."That's only line-feed.For the surrogate trade.No real person would drink that crap.""Oh.Uh, well, give me a glass of lager, then.And an explanation for that ship out there."The waiter bowed, left, and returned with a beer and an interactive.The set looked out of place, itsforced orange-and-purple housing a jarring contrast to the restaurant's studied artlessness.He might havebeen back home in an environmental retreat, trees and faraway glint of river reduced to calculated effect.The beer was thin.He turned on the set.A smiling young woman in a brocaded vest appeared on its screen.Her braidswere tipped with small silver bells."Hello," she said."My name is Marivaud Quinet, and I am a typicalcitizen of Miranda during the last great year.I am knowledgeable on and able to discuss matters ofhistorical significance as well as details of daily life.I am not structured to offer advice or pornographicentertainment.This set has been sealed by the Department of Licensing and Inspection, Division ofTechnology Transfer.Product tampering is illegal and may result in prosecution or even unintentionalphysical harm.""Yes, I know." The set would implode if its integrity were breached.He wondered if it would be leftbehind when the restaurant was evacuated, to disappear in a silvery burst of bubbles when salt corrosionfinally ate through its housing."Marivaud, tell me about the Atlantis."Her face grew solemn."That was the final tragedy of our age.We were arrogant, I admit it.We mademistakes.This was the last of them, the one that brought the offplanet powers down on us, to regress ourtechnology back yet another century."The bureaucrat remembered just enough history to know this was oversimplification."What was donewas necessary, Marivaud.There must be limits."She angrily yanked at a braid, setting its tiny bell tinkling."We were not like the stupid cattle who livehere today.We had pride! We accomplished things! We had our own scientists, our own direction.Ourcontribution to Prosperan culture was not small.We were known throughout the Seven Sisters!""I'm sure you were.Tell me about the ship.""The Atlantis was a liner originally.It had to be converted offshore -- it was too deep for any harbor.That fragment you see now is only the prow.The true ship was as big as a city." A montage of antiqueimages of the ship in different configurations, the superstructure rising and falling in great waves."Well,perhaps it only seemed so, for I saw it from so very many viewpoints, in such an overlapping woozymaze of perception.But I get ahead of myself.The first phase was to build a string of transmitters up anddown the Tidewater.They were anchored to the bedrock with carbon-whisker cables and made strongenough to withstand the tides when they rolled across the land." More images, of thick, bulbous-toppedtowers this time."We rigged them with permanently sealed tokamaks, to guarantee their power over thesubmerged half of the great year.It took ten lesser years to.""Marivaud, I haven't the time for all this.Just the sinking, please.""I was at home that day," Marivaud said."I'd built a place just above the fall line -- what would be thePiedmont coast after the tides.I had a light breakfast, toast with fairy jam sprinkled with ground parsleyfrom my garden, and a glass of stout."The image dissolved into the interior of a small cottage.Rain specked the windowpanes, and a fireburned in the hearth.Marivaud hastily wiped a dab of jam from the corner of her mouth."Out at sea, themorning was bright and sunny.I was flashing from person to person, like sunlight itself.I felt so fresh andhappy."The scene switched to the deck of the Atlantis.Green-yellow bodies poured onto the deck.A scoop lifted away.For an instant the bureaucrat didnot recognize the struggling creatures.In winter morph they bore very little resemblance to humans.Theyhad long, eelish tails and two slim appendages that might generously be called arms; their faces werestreamlined, mouths silent gasps of pain.They twisted, bodies shortening, lengthening, shifting from formto form in a desperate attempt to adapt to the air.The image focused on one, and in the agonized turn ofits head the bureaucrat recognized intelligence."They're haunts!"Marivaud faded half in, serene as a madonna at the breakfast table.She nodded."Yes, the little darlings."A woman in hip boots waded in among the haunts.Her gun flashed as she pressed it to the backs ofheads and pulled the trigger.Haunts jerked wildly with each gasp of compressed air."That's the last of them.Over they go."Suddenly the image shifted to the viewpoint of one of the haunts.It flew through the air and explodedinto the water.Clouds of bubbles gushed away and it fled wildly.To either side swam other haunts, wildand beautiful and ecstatic.Back on deck, the crew were assembling a pair of projectors."Let's run out those ghost nets again.Watch that--"There was a knock on the door.Marivaud opened it
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