
In the abyss of an emerald sea, a mer-like sovereign presides over a cavern city inhabited by peoples of forgotten worlds. Her graceful, serpentine form and mournful voice reveal a loneliness that has stretched across ages, while the multicolored inhabitants look to her for guidance. When she speaks, the cavern trembles with the weight of ancient promise and imminent peril.
The planet’s course is being drawn toward two fierce suns, and the rising radiation threatens to shrink lifespans to a fraction of what they once were. Faced with an exodus, the mer-goddess declares she will stay behind, accepting death as a release from endless solitude. Her people scramble to launch a fleet of ships, each departure a small relief from dread.
As vessels climb through the water and into star‑less darkness of space, listeners are drawn into a tale of wonder and bittersweet sacrifice. The narrative balances the grandeur of alien architecture with the intimate emotions of a civilization on the brink. It invites you to contemplate what it means to cling to home when the universe itself is moving on.
Language
en
Duration
~28 minutes (27K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2010-06-12
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1907–1975
Best known for the wildly popular and controversial “Shaver Mystery” stories, this American pulp writer and artist became one of the most talked-about figures in postwar science fiction magazines. His work mixed fantasy, paranoia, and underground civilizations in a way that still fascinates readers of strange fiction.
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