great decision to make. I had been commanded never to use the Creative Fiat without permission of the Masters. The Masters were mortal. What if they were drowned in the sea, when Atlantis sank beneath the waves? They would be, I knew, if I so willed. Could they, then, prevent my use of the Creative Fiat, which after all was merely the Whole of the principle of the Televisor of Speech-Thought? If I refused to use it, it was merely because I was obedient.

I had a great battle to fight within myself, for I knew now the secret of the Creeping Mist. Within The Laboratory of the City of The Sun, I had invented a light-screen-dome, wherein I had concentrated sufficient light from the sun to dissipate the Creeping Mist. I had re-found a lost secret—how to capture and hold the light of the sun. My screen-dome, constructed of the secret metal, revolved eccentrically on a quartz pedestal, so that its rays went forth through all the land, reaching out to conquer the mist as radar of ancient days reached out to conquer the unseen, and sonar of an even elder time reached out to solve the mysteries of sound.

I had experimented with the Screen just once, and in a heartbeat of time after it began its eccentric motion, the Creeping Mist was pushed back from the Laboratory until I could see the buildings of Sian for many parasangs in all directions. I gasped, almost failing to shut off the mechanism before people of Sian should have realized that I, Anghor, had solved the problem of Atlantis' salvation. This would not do. I was human, mortal, and they could compel me to use what I had perfected. But what if they never knew, until it was too late?

My problem then, the decision I must make, was very plain. I could save Atlantis and its mighty civilization for ages yet to come, and The Masters would continue to rule it. Or I could keep my secret until destruction came, make preparations that I myself be sure to survive and rule the remnants saved of Atlantis on the "certain mountain-tops" that would remain above the Atlantean Sea. There might not be many of these, but that mattered not at all. For all of me they could all perish.

For when I was the One Master, and all the Masters were perished, who could prevent my use of the Creative Fiat? No One, ever!

I could live as long as I wished, and people my En-Don—which men had once called Eden—with living things of my own designing and my own desires. They would be beautiful beyond all dreams. The men would be perfection, the women more perfect than perfection, but there would be 

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