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woman. When she apprehended his agents, he only laughed appreciatively. For his part, he caught a few of her spies and returned them to Atlantis with splendid gifts for the Empress. Salustra responded almost in kind. When the next Althrustrian spy was apprehended, she sent his head to Signar in a golden casket. The energy crisis was not so easily disposed of. With necessity the mother of invention, Atlantis over the centuries had harnessed the energy flow of the sun and the sea to become the greatest power on earth. Technologically, it was supreme. Its industries, homes, shops, vehicles, all had drawn on this apparently limitless reservoir of nature to maintain a complex system of production, transportation and communication.
    But while this technology developed until Atlantis clearly dominated its neighbors, there was not a commensurate development in cultural and philosophical values. Indeed, the very abundance of energy, contributing to a leisure-time society that emphasized luxuries and creature comforts, served to hasten the decay of a society that knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.
    Salustra was right in her estimate of her own people. Soft, indolent and self-indulgent, rotting at the core, they were ripe for a takeover by any adversary with sufficient cunning to perceive their internal corruption and the driving ambition to capitalize on this weakness.
    The mysterious mist over the land, together with the power breakdown and ancient prophecies of destruction, had created a climate of confusion. Had it not been for drastic measures taken by Salustra and her ministers, the country would have been in chaos. Before meeting again with her National Assembly of Nobles and Commoners, Salustra had promptly summoned her Ministers for Transport, Communication, Atmosphere, Science, Solar Energy and National Preservation in secret session to meet Atlantis’ most serious crisis since the old struggle for survival with the giant dinosaurs.
    The Cabinet members had been as bewildered as the general populace, but Salustra, renewing her own flagging energies from the energizing jeweled amulet around her neck, had announced that they had no time for debate, as the country would soon be at a standstill, with food supplies spoiling in the fields or not getting produced or distributed.
    She told Timeus, the Minister for Transport: “I give you twelve hours to restore the movement of goods and supplies on our roads and waterways.” When Timeus, a lean man with a dark brow, opened his mouth to protest, the Empress held up a hand. “Don’t tell me, Timeus,” she said mockingly, “that you have already come up with a solution. Fine, we shall see evidence of it in the morning.”
    The ministers, convened in her private chambers, were looking most profound.
    She gave them a steadfast look. “I need no ministers to tell me what can’t be done, only what can be done.”
    “You, Fribian—” she pointed to the Minister for Solar Energy “—tell me why our crystal receptors and our radiating transmitters are neither receiving nor sending energy through the atmosphere.”
    Fribian, a strikingly young-looking man, stood up promptly and began to talk with the directness of youth. “We relate it to the mist, Majesty. Hours after the mist descended, we began to get word of stoppages in all solar-driven ships, aircraft, land wagons, which could not even send messages of their predicament. Our telesound and distant-pictures apparatus stopped simultaneously, as did all facilities depending on the transmission of electricity through the atmosphere.”
    Salustra nodded thoughtfully. “And what have you done, Fribian?”
    The minister waved his hands expressively. “Short of moving the sun, I can only suggest.”
    “And what have you suggested?”
    Fribian motioned curtly to Hammu, the Minister for Atmosphere, sitting opposite him, doodling with a pencil. “I discussed with Minister Hammu the possibility of dissolving the