ATLANTIS

      Although currently assigned to the U.S.S. Quantum as ship's counselor, I
occasionally volunteer for other assignments when I'm supposed to be on leave,
or when the ship is in a spacedock for refitting.  I have this arrangement 
with some of the beings down at Fleet Experimental Labs to help them 
out when they've got something really unusual going on.  Some of these 
"assignments" are still classified, some aren't.  (Some they don't even 
bother to classify because they figure no one would believe them in the 
first place.)  With this latter kind, or as things have been 
declassified, I regale my stay-at-home younger brother Scotty (No, not 
THAT Scotty) with a letter describing my "adventure."  (Scotty is a 
machinist mate in the orbital yards back at Earthdock.)
      Anyway, here is my most recent missive to one of my younger sibs.  I
thought you might also find it interesting.


Dear Scotty:
      Whew, that was a close one!   Darn near got my component
molecules spread from here to hell and gone, but I found out what happened to
Atlantis. Only problem is I almost didn't get out of there before some idiot
blew me and my favorite pair of underwear into a cis-lunar orbit.
    Anyway, I'll quit griping about the trauma of the incident(but remember to
be very nice to me next time you see me because I have been severely
traumatized!)
     What was I talking about?  Oh yes, Atlantis.  I'll bet you'd like to know
all about that.  You know destruction, super tsunamis, mountains turned into
underwater molehills, etc.(You know, I haven't seen any underwater moles
since.  Maybe fallout from the explosion got 'em all?)
    Well, you see, its all the fault of these ancestors of the Italians.  An
early science fiction writer by the name of E.E. "Doc" Smith kind of had the
right idea in one of the early books of the Lensman series (I think it was
Triplanetary).  Doc has Atlantis sinking to the depths because a nuclear
missile goes off underwater and sets off a seismic fault that starts up the
grandaddy of all earthquakes and Atlantis sinks to the bottom of the sea. 
     Almost, but not quite right.  It definitely was an explosion, but
nuclear it was not.  Ain't no way some piddly little A bomb or H bomb could do
that much damage. No matter if it triggered off the San Andreas, New Madrid,
and any three other faults you'd care to pick at random.
    You see, I know where Atlantis was and what happened to it 'cause I was
just visiting some people there the other day(testing a little device for
those magical maniacs at Fleet Experimental Labs).  We'd stopped by this cafe
to get a little something to eat cause we were in the mood for some
anti-pasto.
     Oh yeah, I was telling you where Atlantis was.  Atlantis was actually a
fairly mountainous region in what is now called the Mediterranean Sea.  Course
back then there wasn't much of a sea there to see you see, just this
hellaciously big island paralleled by these two great big rivers(one river on
what is now the European side, one on the African), and an inland sea about
the size of a couple of Lake Michigans near what is now called Lebanon.
     The Atlanteans were pretty well advanced too (I wonder if maybe they'd
had a little help from off-planet in that area?)  They had a technological
culture (nuclear power, air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, modern
advertising), were exploring the solar system, and were even fiddling with a
star drive.  Course none of that was what did them in, it was their
cooking.       
   
     Boy was that one hellacious explosion!!  I'm still picking pieces
of crockery, pasta, and hot dog vendor's cart out of my radiation burned(first
degree only, thank you) posterior.  Think maybe I ought to go see a doctor
about that?  I don't want anything to get infected.  (I mean I can't swivel my
head thru a 270 degree turn and see what's all back there like some of my
fellow crew members can.)
     Where was I?  Oh yeah, the restaurant and the explosion.  Well, anyway,
we'd placed our orders, anti-pasto all around, and were going after the local
vintners', brewmasters', and distillers' products like a bulemic mosquito at a
nudist fat farm(It was kind of hot out).  The cafe was filling up, the lunch
crowd I guess, and waiter-persons were buzzing like bees 'round an ice cream
cone sizzling in the summer sun.  Our waiter-person comes out groaning under
our load of anti-pasto, and staggers toward our table.  Some idiot in a flame
green outfit tries to wiggle past him to get to a table in the corner -
doesn't quite clear - and waiter-person and food do one of these juggling
numbers out of an old 2-D silent film that would make any slapstick comic weep
with soul felt artistic admiration. 
     Anyway, food is flying through the air and I sense impending disaster. (I
have accurate premonitions sometimes.  They found a high PSI clairvoyance 
potential when they were doing my testing for the Academy.)  Waiter-person has
got to the point he's starting to imitate a 2000 year old redwood (of course
the redwoods weren't around yet) that's had a 1999 year acquaintance with the
teenage mutant ninja termites from hell AND the twister that sent
Dorothy to Oz.  Our anti-pasto is about to make a fraternity food fight 
look like a lone bug hitting the windshield of a stalled ground car.
     And then I see it, I mean it was so obvious!!  Our anti-pasto headed
for a plate full of pasto!  Anyone with even an elementary grasp of warp
drive technology or particle physics could see what was going to happen next,
so I hit the "Home" button on my porta-chron(that time dingus from Fleet
Experimental Labs) and just miss the biggest explosion this planet has seen
since the gods farted and set the sun aflame.
      (Yes, I know that the sun really isn't on fire - it's a fusion 
reaction.  But the gods had hopped to this little place for some real 
mexican food, had a hot sauce chugging contest, ate chili peppers like 
they were M&Ms, and in general adopted an Alfred E. Neuman "What me 
worry?" attitude about what they were going to feel like a few hours later. 
I'll give you the details on that little trip in another letter.)
   (Would you quit distracting me? I was telling you about Atlantis!)  What
used to be a mountainous island is now turned into a shallow sea, super
tsunamis are baptizing anything between here and Judea, and other parts of the
then semi-civilized world are introduced to the concept of rock and roll via
rocks falling from the now unfriendly skies and the earth rolling under their
feet.  Dust clouds are everywhere, and mankind is back to square minus one as
far as civilization goes. (It's centuries before anyone figures out how to
do a decent bottle, let alone decent bourbon to put in it.)
        Oh well, I'm tired and its been one hell of a day.  I am still kind of
hungry though.  You think I could use this time dingus for a little trip to
the Big Bang Burger Bar?
                                   Sincerely - Your Brother 
                                        Bill

p.s. I'm sure that I don't need to explain the ramifications of a
pasto-antipasto mix to anyone familiar with warp drives and anti-matter power
systems.

Contact the Circle of Janus Web-Master if you have any questions, comments, additions or changes in regards to this web-page. InConJunction, The Circle of Janus, and their respective logos are trademarks of The Circle of Janus, Inc.