Is it feasible that people would colonize a planet where a town or city is submerged at high tide so that buildings would have to be watertight with air locks? Nyanzans live by fishing, hunting kraken, collecting shells at low tide or diving for them at high tide. They work and travel in ships and swim short distances wearing transparent helmets and aqualungs that electrolyze oxygen from water. Thus, they are always on or under the water except on the rare occasions when they visit the single island on the planet for trade or diplomacy. (The Imperial Resident resides there.)
"Sunset blazed across violet waters. The white spume of the breakers was turned an incredible gold; tide pools on the naked black skerry were like molten copper. The sky was deep blue in the east, still pale overhead, shading to a clear cloudless green where the sun drowned. Through the surf's huge hollow crashing and grinding, Flandry heard bells from one of the many rose-red spires...or did a ship's bell ring among raking spars, or was it something he had heard in a dream once? Beneath all the noise, it was unutterably peaceful." (p. 323)
The sights and sounds merge with Flandry's imaginings. The sound of a bell from a sunken city recalls Ys. This sunset is simply the end of a day, not a symbol for the decline of Empire or the descent of man.
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