"Richter 10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur, McQuay Mike)

Chapter 7 BIG BANGS

A condor flew high above the defensive perimeter of the Crane Foundation. Keeping lone watch over the intruder alarms and electromagnetic jammers, the compound and its occupants, the bird circled and swooped endlessly, perched and glided continuously. The condor’s sleek beauty was surpassed only by its complexity, for it was completely electronic and its ganglia were connected directly into the brain of Mohammed Ishmael. Fitting, he thought, that a huge black American vulture should be his spy from above. Soon, if all went as he believed it would, he’d have another spy, almost as reliable, within the Foundation itself.

In Brother Ishmael’s opinion, Lewis Crane needed careful watching, for he was the only person on the planet who presented a serious threat to him. Crane challenged Brother Ishmael’s apocalyptic vision of the world. He’d known the first moment he’d set eyes on Crane that somehow their fates were linked, and, so, it did not trouble him overmuch that his intense preoccupation with the man and the work of his foundation might be entirely irrational, wholly personal… and far too time-consuming. It was necessary, though he could not be at all certain why or how.

The eyes of the condor zoomed in on the helo landing zone near the primary building in the Foundation complex. Crane called it “the mosque,” which did not amuse Brother Ishmael at all, though it did amuse him considerably to note that the guests arriving at this minute had been at the meeting at sea in June. Everyone had been invited back except him. He threw back his head and laughed.

Lanie King was spectacular in every way, Crane thought as he looked around the central lab or, as he was encouraging everyone to call it now, the globe room. The last three months Lanie had proved herself time and time again. She lived computers, breathed them … and she wholeheartedly shared his goal for the globe. She’d hired the programmers, moved them out of the dank back rooms and into the main room so they could be close to the object of their work and appreciate at all times the immensity of the project. Good management that, Crane reflected.

The only thing with which he was dissatisfied was his public role. He ricocheted from one performance to the next … song-and-dance man, comic, P.T. Barnum and Cecil B. deMille. By nature introverted, he was depleted by these performances, though he doubted anyone guessed how much they took out of him. This little show today was one of the most crucial of his career. The politicos and money people wanted to see progress; most importantly, Li demanded a quake, and by God he was pretty sure he had one to deliver.

The work of Newcombe and Lanie showed that ground-based radon levels were up by nearly thirty percent all through the Mississippi Valley. Electromagnetic charges were also occurring in the region. Both phenomena possibly came from fault-line stress on rocks: When rocks cracked, radon escaped; when they fractured, they allowed electricity to flow more easily through ground water. Precursors. Probably.

In July, Lanie’s computers had used the seismic gap theory of rate of return to predict a major quake on the New Madrid fault line in Missouri. The last big one there had occurred in 1812. He was going to tell all his guests about that historic quake as a preview of coming attractions. His divided soul felt glee and despondency. He needed the quake to go on with his work and, ultimately, save millions of lives. He felt utter dejection, deep grief at the thought of a quake along the 120-mile New Madrid fault line which could destroy everything from Little Rock to Chicago—including Memphis, St. Louis, Natchez. He needed to be right; he hoped he would be wrong … at least about the extent of the devastation. He looked around the dramatically lighted room. A small stand of plush stadium seating had been built near the front doors for the VIPs. They were there, chatting and drinking Sumi’s enhanced champagne. Even Mr. Li seemed in good spirits, as did Vice President Gabler, sans wife today, and President Gideon. How these people could be so cheerful was beyond Crane. There had been riots for the last two months in the War Zones, backing the NOI demand for a homeland. Heightened security and the curtailment of food shipments were doing little to keep the occupied territories in line. The Islamic fundamentalists in Paris, Lisbon, Algiers, and London supported their American brethren with rioting. Boycotts of Liang Int products were forcing Mr. Li to capitulate in many areas, particularly relenting on withholding food.

A new sex plague was sweeping the Indian subcontinent, once more confounding dire predictions of overpopulation. Genetic plagues and antibiotic resistant strains of viruses and bacteria—as well as the ancient enemy of mankind, famine—were proving the Malthusians wrong every day. The food supply was dismal. Very little grew well in the wild anymore; the UV bleaching of crops destroyed everything that wasn’t grown beneath the cheap sun shields developed under exclusive patent by Yo-Yu, Liang’s major competitor.

In July the President had announced that the government—that is, Liang Int—was funding a major study into the possibility of ozone regeneration, prompting Yo-Yu officials to accuse the administration of attempting to destroy competitive marketing by attacking them directly on the sunblock and sunshield fronts. They called the government study “political terrorism.” Crane could only shake his head at the antics of Man. In opposition to the antics of Nature, however, he was prepared to act … even now. He stepped up onto the platform where Lanie sat at a computer console and Newcombe at the long table with imbedded microphones that projected even a speaker’s whisper through the vast room.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice godlike and booming theatrically from dozens of speakers burrowed into the walls.

The room darkened. Crane waited until his audience grew silent, then said simply, “The universe.”

Brilliant light flashed for ten seconds. “The universe,” Crane continued, “began with a clap of hydrogen and helium, vomiting fiery matter at fantastic speeds in all directions.”

The globe burst into holoprojection flame, vibrant reds and yellows swirled about the globe. “Our planet was born into fire about 4.5 billion years ago. Spinning, its contracting clouds of dusts and gases gradually congealed.” The globe changed as Crane spoke, holographically showing the formation of the planet from gas to solid. The massive scale of the sphere and the changes it demonstrated overwhelmed the people sitting in the darkness. Crane could hear their appreciative muttering.

“At first we were a planet of molten rock. Slowly, the heavier elements, nickel and iron, settled into a dense inner core. Some of the lighter rocky materials, such as basalt and granite, melted, floated upward, and cooled into a thin crust. There was mantle around the core.”

Lanie’s fingers flew over the keys of her computer, and the globe projection transmogrified into a barren, rocky sphere.

“Then it began to rain…”

Thunder reverberated through the room. Holo rain fell on the globe from dense clouds filled with lightning.

“It rained for thousands of years until the planet was covered completely by water. At last the sky cleared.”

The globe became a ball of spinning water.

“Cooling at a leisurely pace, the water evaporating, the planet developed land, floating land.”

Continental chunks appeared on Lanie’s globe, all of them slowly navigating the water world. Everyone watched, rapt, as the continental mass moved toward the equator, finally joining together in a mammoth, still-barren supercontinent.

“Pangaea,” Crane said, “Greek for ‘all lands,’ the starting point for the world we know today. The breakup of Pangaea due to unknown forces, probably convection, brought volcanoes—and the gasses of the volcanoes brought the beginning of biological life.” Crane paused. “And the breakup of Pangaea brought earthquakes.”

Crane looked down at Lanie. “Program the last New Madrid quake into the globe,” he said quietly. Newcombe scribbled on a piece of paper, and Lanie hurried to her programmers. She needed more input than she could manage alone to pull this off. Newcombe held up the paper. It read: Don’t stick your neck out! Crane merely shook his head, smiling wryly.

When Lanie signaled that she and her crew were ready, Crane said, “I call your attention to the United States and the Mississippi River.” All the lights went out except for one spot, focused on Middle America.

“It is May of 1811,” Crane went on. “The rainfall is bad this spring and rivers overflow. Although people hear a lot of thunder, they note that, strangely, there is no lightning. In the fall, the citizens of New Madrid, in southeast Missouri near the border with Kentucky and Tennessee, are surprised to find tens of thousands of squirrels leaving their forest homes and moving in phalanxes to the Ohio River where they drown themselves. In September, the Great Comet of 1811 passes overhead, shedding a brilliant and eerie glow over the forests—an omen to many.”

Crane walked slowly down the stairs. The globe was no longer spinning, but had stopped before the grandstand, showcasing the Mississippi Valley.

“America is a lawless frontier. Tecumseh rules the Indian tribes near New Madrid and all through the fall leads many a battle against the forces of General William Henry Harrison. Pirates and robbers ply their trade on the river, forcing cargo boat captains to form convoys for mutual protection. But in the early morning hours of December 16, a Monday, all that becomes secondary.”

Crane stepped into the spotlight. “At 2 A.M., Hell comes for a visit.”

A loud crack echoed through the room as a huge scar appeared on the globe. “The ground shakes violently, knocking down log houses. A hideous roar, mixed with hissing and a shrill whistling sound, emanates from the ground which opens. Noxious sulfurous odors envelope the surviving settlers. Flashes of light burst from the ground as it rolls. The ground erupts like a volcano, spraying water, rock, sand, and coal as high as the treetops. Twenty-six of these events occur during this one night. Horrendous. But only foreshocks. The twenty-seventh is the day of the quake and its power is felt in thirty states. Entire forests are leveled. The ground sinks, reforming itself, as huge fissures open up, swallowing everything. The Mississippi River reroutes hundreds of times; caught in huge ground-swells it turns into a nightmare of whirlpools and waterfalls, killing everything alive on the river. At one point it flows upstream. As the banks collapse, the river rises, flooding the whole valley, drowning anything not already dead.

“In Jackson, Mississippi, fifty miles from the epicenter, trees snap and buildings fall. In St. Louis, far upriver, lightning shoots up from the ground, chimneys topple, houses split in two. A thick haze envelopes the city for days. Ruin is extensive in Arkansas. Memphis is devastated by landslides. As far away as Nashville, buildings rumble and quake. A lake just north of Detroit bubbles like a boiling pot. The shocks are felt heavily in Richmond and Washington D. C. The statehouse in Raleigh, North Carolina, is rocked during a late-night legislative session. In Charleston, the church bells clang and residents experience nausea from shaking.”

Lighted branches on the globe extend out from the quake zone to include most of the United States.

“What has this to do with us, doctor?” Li called.

“A great deal, Mr. Li, because our calculations indicate that another major quake on the New Madrid fault line is years overdue.

Many of the precursors of such an EQ are already in place and we are attempting to pinpoint an exact time for this catastrophe. Dr. Newcombe, do you have anything to add?”

Newcombe sat for a moment. He wasn’t sure it was time to sound the alarm, but he couldn’t very well keep silent after Crane’s presentation.

“The Rocky Mountains tend to soak up western quakes,” he said at last. “Any quake to their east is going to be devastating. Our initial findings put the death toll at over three million people and the damages somewhere in the vicinity of two hundred and fifty billion dollars. The inherent chaos would affect the country’s ability to provide goods and services well beyond the quake areas and onto the international stage. The blow to the economy might doom it, and the country might never recover, much as Great Britain was unable to recover from its Twentieth Century wars.”

The entire room fell into a deep, hushed silence. Newcombe took a long breath. “Does that answer your question, Mr. Li?” he asked without rancor.

Crane liked the looks of President Gideon. His concern seemed genuine and he gazed into your eyes when he talked to you. He had an air of command about him that the Vice President lacked. Of course, that didn’t make him any more autonomous than Gabler, just easier to deal with.

“I hope you were merely trying to scare us all, Dr. Crane,” Gideon said, a drink firmly lodged in his hand. “I surely don’t know that I would want to preside over a disaster as all-encompassing as the one you describe.”

Mr. Li, standing beside Gideon, leaned up close to the President. “The good doctor doesn’t have that kind of a sense of humor,” he said. “I think he truly believes the prediction he made today.”

“I’m not conjuring spells, gentlemen,” Crane said, “if that’s what you mean. We’re merely building a reasonable scientific hypothesis.”

The President cocked his head. “You’re not sure this will occur?”

Crane raised his glass, Burt Hill hurrying over to refill it with bourbon. “Oh, it will occur, Mr. President. The Earth will not be denied.”

“But the timing, Crane.” Li smiled. “This is all about the timing.”

“We’re working on it,” Crane replied, watching both men carefully. “The signs are there. We’re trying to put a date on it now. If the globe were finished—”

“But it’s not,” Gabler said. “And your predictions are so much talk.”

“Like Sado was just talk, Mr. Vice President?” Crane replied, staring the man down. “My team is filled with highly skilled professionals who have spent their entire lives building to this moment. What are your credentials, sir?”

Gabler’s face turned red as Gideon put a hand to his mouth to hide his smile.

“We really must pin this down,” Mr. Li said. “The election is only two months away.”

“I’m doing my best,” Crane said. “To hurry into a wrong prediction wouldn’t do anyone any good.”

“True enough,” Li said. Sumi walked up to pour enhanced champagne into his glass. “Remember that it’s in your best interests to come up with something before election time.”

“Could you see it?” Gideon said, holding his own glass out to Sumi. “We announce, in advance, a major disaster … save millions of lives and billions in property. The Yo-Yu people wouldn’t have a chance.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. President, I fear that precisely the opposite might happen,” Li said, catching Sumi by the arm. “We announce a major disaster, evacuate, shut down factories, protect inventory, only to have it never happen.”

“Bite your tongue,” Gideon said.

“Those are the stakes,” Li said. He turned from the President to Crane, his sober expression changing chameleonlike to one of warm affability. “Is Sumi working out to your satisfaction, Dr. Crane?”

Crane and Sumi shared a smile. “Sumi Chan is the best overseer a project could ask for,” Crane replied. “He’s on site most of the time, understands the priorities, and writes the checks accordingly. A first-rate associate.”

“Excellent,” Li said, smiling broadly. He put an arm around Sumi. “Liang Int could use more men like Sumi. You know, doctor, I’m fascinated by your globe. I have one, too.”

“I’ve heard,” Crane said. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Li laughed. “I’m afraid that would be impossible. Regulations, you know.”

“Of course. Sumi, President Gideon seems to have emptied his glass.”

“We can’t have that,” Sumi said, bringing the bottle around to give Gideon a refill. “At the Foundation, no glasses are allowed to go empty.”

Gideon nodded happily. He seemed loose and comfortable, his bodyguards, too, at ease. He raised his glass. “To you, doctor.”

They all drank, then Gideon said, “What are the chances of getting a tour of your facility? I find it amazing. If someone’s free, I’ll—”

“No one knows this place like I do,” Crane said. “Come on. Anybody else interested?”

“You two get acquainted,” Li said. “I have some business to discuss with Mr. Chan.”

“Fair enough,” Crane said, leading Gideon off.

Li turned to Sumi. “How close are they really on this New Madrid thing?” he asked, sharp, the foxlike smile with which he’d gifted the others completely gone now.

Sumi shook her head. “I’m not sure. There’s a lot of information coming in. I know they’ve settled on it, but they’re still in the process of pinning it down. They might find it won’t happen for years.”

Li frowned. “I want them to find a quake that’s going to happen before the election.”

“They can only do what they can do.”

“No, Sumi. They can find a quake—if Crane’s theories are at all on the mark. But to do so, these people must apply themselves to getting what I want—not indulging themselves playing with their data and their toys—” he sneered “—their basic research. Speaking of research, how is yours on Dr. Newcombe? Is his little journey still on for tonight?”

Sumi nodded, feeling the net that had fallen over everyone at the Foundation was being tightened. “He’ll be traveling under the name Enos Mann. He’ll leave with the dark.”

“Hmm, gone all night then. The Masada Cloud is scheduled to run in around midnight.”

“Are your people in place?”

“Don’t worry about my people,” Li said, a frown settling on his face as Mui approached. “You take care of pushing these people to get me that prediction. Now I suggest you circulate so that we do not make people suspicious.”

Sumi bowed slightly, holding in the tension and the anger. She moved toward Newcombe, wishing there was something she could say, some subtle way she could get across to the man that he should stay at home tonight. Newcombe’s actions could doom Crane, the Foundation. Kate Masters, dressed in a bright red body stocking and trailing cape, was talking as Sumi arrived, champagne in hand.

“Oh, Sumi,” Masters said, her red hair in tight curls hanging to her shoulders. “You simply must give me the secret of this sometime.” She held out her glass.

“Old family recipe,” Sumi said, giving Masters the kind of leer she’d seen men do. “Good for your sex life.”

“Honey, I got no problems in that department, but fill me up anyway.” She held out her glass, and Sumi poured. In a lot of ways, she felt that Masters played a game of hide and seek similar to her own, a game designed for a man’s world. There was more, much more, to Masters than she revealed.

“Hey, save some of that for me,” Newcombe said, holding out his own glass.

“I want all of you to know,” Masters said, taking a long drink, “I think what you’re doing here is important. I know that Crane has to sell it to the powers that be and that by its selling it becomes cheapened. But not to me.”

“We appreciate that,” Lanie said, smiling at her. “We really only want to help people here, but it seems we always have to have an angle.”

“Nature of the game,” Newcombe said, frowning. “It’s a game I hate, but it’s the only one in town.”

“You scared me to death, you know, with your speech today,” Masters said.

“I hope so,” Newcombe said. “It’s got me scared to death.”

“For what it’s worth,” Masters said, taking another long drink, “we traded the Vogelman Procedure for backing the Crane Foundation, but had the administration declined, we would have backed you anyway. Some things are more important than politics. You people have class.”

“Hale fellows well met, huh?” Sumi said. “Good for you. I must go get another bottle now. Stay in the shade.”

Sumi left quickly, Lanie following him with her eyes. There was something terribly lonely, terribly sad about Sumi Chan. She didn’t trust him, but that didn’t stop her from feeling sorry for him. She looked at Masters. “What’s involved in the Vogelman?”

“You interested, honey?”

“No,” Newcombe answered for her. “We’ll just—”

“Yes, I am interested,” Lanie said, looking steadily at Newcombe. “I have a lot to do in the next couple of years and I don’t want to have to worry about children.”

“Single implant,” Masters said. “Outpatient stuff, over in fifteen minutes. It stays put forever and keeps you from ovulating—no cramps, no periods.” She looked at Newcombe. “A lot of women are having it done.”

“So much for the world’s population,” he said.

“You want to get preggie, you take a pill. No sweat. Mothers are having it done on their daughters at puberty. It takes care of one headache.”

“It’s unnatural,” Newcombe said.

Masters flashed her toothy smile. “Easy for you to say, buster. Nature is as nature does. There’s a couple of really good doctors in LA who do the procedure, Lanie. You want me to set something up for you?”

“Yes,” Lanie said.

“No,” Newcombe said.

Masters took a long breath, finished her glass of enhanced. “So … maybe you two had better talk it over, eh?”

“I’ll call you,” Lanie said, glaring at Newcombe. Why did he have to be so overbearing?

“I’d better mingle,” Masters said, theatrically tossing her long hair. “They don’t pay me to stand here and drink.”

“Like hell they don’t,” Newcombe said.

The woman shrugged. “So I know when to make a graceful exit, okay? Thanks again for the show today. I’ll have nightmares for a week.” She shook hands with Newcombe and gave Lanie a lingering hug.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Lanie whispered. When Masters was well away, Lanie turned angrily to Dan. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been more embarrassed,” she said. “How could you do that?”

“How could I? Isn’t something like this a decision both of us should make?”

“Not from where I’m standing. It’s my body, my life. And next week I’m going to have the Procedure done whether you like it or not.”

“We’re not kids anymore,” he said. “Your childbearing years won’t last much—”

“Childbearing,” she said, taking a long breath to relax herself. “I’m not some earth mother just waiting for fertilization, Dan. Why do you always have to spoil—”

“It’s a great day!” Crane interrupted. “We set ’em on their asses, didn’t we?”

“We promised them something we can’t deliver,” Newcombe said harshly. “What’s so great about that? At the very least you should have waited until we took stress readings on site before announcing the quake to the world.”

Crane looked at Lanie. “What’s his problem?”

“Babies,” she said.

“Babies,” Crane repeated, then shivered. “What a horrid thought. Never mind. We’ll have all the loose cannons out of here in a tick. I want to invite both of you up to my house for dinner, a little celebration.”

Lanie brightened. “That sounds—”

“I can’t,” Newcombe said.

“What? You got another invitation?” Crane asked.

Lanie watched Dan avert his eyes. “I’ve got to go down the mountain,” he said. “I’ve been putting off checking the calibration on our San Andreas equipment. It needs to get done.”

“Tonight?” Crane said. “It’s a Masada night.”

“I’ll take a burn suit.”

“Take two,” Lanie said. “I’ll go with you.”

He shook his head. “You stay here. Enjoy dinner. I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

“I really don’t mind, I—”

“I want to do this by myself,” Newcombe said, Lanie surprised at how mad he was. “Nothing personal … I-I need some time to think.”

“Think about what?” Lanie asked, suspecting that his behavior had nothing to do with her having the Vogelman Procedure, that it was something else he was hiding from her.

“Doc Dan!” Burt Hill called as he trotted toward them. “It’s getting dark. I got the helo out for you if you still want it!”

“Coming!” Newcombe said. “I’ll be back in the morning. Enjoy your dinner.”

With that, he turned and strode across the globe room without a backward glance.

“What the hell was that all about?” Crane asked.

Lanie shook her head. “I don’t know, but it had nothing to do with the San Andreas Fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“He sent one of his techs to recalibrate that equipment last week.”

“Are you ready yet?” Crane called from the cherrypicker as he sped around the globe on the thing, thirty feet in the air.

“Come down from there!” Lanie shouted. “You’re going to kill yourself.” The crazy man was hanging out of the gondola and waving a bottle of rum at them.

“I’m too ornery to die!” he yelled through cupped hands. “Get your people’s asses in gear and let’s crank this thing up.”

“We’re working on it!”

Sumi was at Lanie’s side. “Crane seems … exuberant tonight.”

“That’s one word to describe him, I guess.” Lanie was starving. Crane’s dinner invitation never quite materialized once he got hung up on the idea of trying out the globe for real. Between Dan’s absence and Crane’s childishness, she was beginning to feel more like a mother than an associate.

She turned to her programmers, then rolled her eyes at Sumi. “Come on, people. You heard the man. Let’s get the thing online.”

Groans and complaints came from all down the row. Lanie looked at Sumi. “Can you get him down?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t even try.”

“That’s what I thought.”

She moved away from the terminals set against the wall and out near the globe, the thing rising majestically into its contoured ceiling. They were so small beside such a large dream. “Get yourself down here!” she called up to Crane as his hoist made another circumnavigation. “Or I’ll shut it down!”

He banged the controls, the hoist jerking to a stop, his gondola swinging wildly. His bottle crashed on the floor near Lanie. “Oops,” he said.

“Down Crane … now!”

He brought the gondola down to the floor and stepped out of it, his face boyishly contrite. “My bottle fell,” he said.

“I’ll get you another,” Sumi said, hurrying off.

“Great,” Lanie said, looking at Crane. “How much more of that have you got?”

“Cases,” Crane said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Cases of rum from the grateful citizens of Le Precheur. What’s the holdup on the test run?”

“As you may or may not know, doctor,” she said sternly, “we’ve been feeding info, not programs, into the computers. A task, I might add, that we haven’t finished yet. We’re having to open up all the pathways for your little test run tonight. These people have been at work all day and they’re tired. Give them a minute, okay?”

“You’re angry with me,” he said, pouting.

“I’m angry at Dan,” she said. “You’re here. One thick-headed geologist is the same as the next.”

“Dan’s a big boy. He’s got business or something, that’s all.”

“His life is here. He’s got no business below.”

“One bottle of Martinique rum.” Sumi said, hurrying up to them and giving Crane the bottle. “Unenhanced.”

Crane unscrewed the top and took a long drink, turning on his heel to stare at the magnificent globe. “I’m going to go nuts soon if we don’t get this thing running.”

“You’re already nuts,” Lanie returned. “Look, you can’t expect much this first time out. The intangibles are—”

“The intangibles are the reason I hired you,” he said, his smile gone. “That’s why the imager is here, to talk to my globe, to synnoetically communicate, to synergize.”

“It’s not simple, you know. We’re getting in all the historical data, but we’re talking about the life of the planet itself. Somebody digs a pool in Rome, lubricating an unknown fault: Two years later there’s a major earthquake in Alaska. We can’t program in chaos and we don’t know how large, how pivotal, a role it plays.”

Crane looked at Sumi. “What do you think?”

“I think you need to predict something before the election or we’re going to lose our funding. If this will advance that cause, then I’m all for full speed ahead.”

Lanie ignored Crane and looked at Sumi. “What the hell good would it do any of us to mispredict? I don’t get you. You’re as bad as Mr. Li. We can’t make the earth perform to our specs.”

“We can’t survive without funding either,” Sumi said, then looked at Crane. “You all but predicted an EQ in mid America within the next few months. I didn’t say it, you did.”

“We were on the spot,” Crane said. “Needed to come up with something, that’s all. The signs are there, but not complete signs.”

“What else do you need?”

Lanie felt a chill go through her when Sumi asked the question and she wasn’t sure why.

“We’re going to the site next week to take stress readings. That will tell a more complete story.” Crane drank. “Some increased activity after the period of dilation or a foreshock would be nice. More ground-based electrical activity wouldn’t hurt either. Though with the dilation process, I’d be willing to do some speculation if the seismic activity picked up again. It’s a pretty good sign that lubricating activity has moved the serpentine, the olivine and water mix, into a position to make a major fault slip.”

“You’d predict on that?” Sumi asked.

“If push came to shove,” Crane said, then pointed to Lanie with his good hand which also held the bottle. “And I want to tell you something. First of all, I want no negativity. We’ve gotten this far by being positive and bold. Secondly, we’re fulfilling the dream of a lifetime here. Your computers are becoming crammed with more knowledge about planet Earth than any other single source encompasses. Answers will lie there. Maybe, once we’ve assimilated all this knowledge, you might possibly discover a great many things we’ve never realized before, including the notion that there might be a pattern to chaos.”

“Don’t you ever run down?” she asked.

“Never!”

“I think we’re online!” one of the programmers called, a small cheer going up from them all.

“I thank you one and all.” Crane turned to Lanie. “Would you like to do the honors?”

She felt it then, the mixture of fear and excitement that she’d held at bay ever since he’d suggested trying the program. She nodded, unable to speak, and walked to the master board, a double-tiered profusion of winking lights, rheostats, and buttons with a single, controlling keyboard below a large monitor.

She juiced the monitor to a flashing cursor and wished that Dan were here, no matter how things came out. She hesitated at the keyboard.

“We don’t have any brass bands, Ms. King,” Crane said, and he was staring straight up at the monstrous globe.

Fingers shaking, she typed: Advance from Pangaea. Then she took a deep breath and hit the enter key.

With a low groan, the globe started spinning, the continents reforming themselves to the single, great continent of enormous weather variations. It split apart quietly, the continents running red veins of EQ’s where they broke and sheared against one another.

“Beautiful,” Crane said. Lanie far too involved in watching for glitches in the process to appreciate it. She was a bundle of nervous energy as she walked up to join him.

“What’s our first historical interphase?” he asked, his voice hushed.

“The Chicxulub meteor, five miles wide,” she said, “sixty-five million years ago.”

“The K-T boundary,” Crane said.

She stared, shaking, at the globe. “Yeah. Beginning of the Tertiary, end of the dinosaurs. Look for volcanoes on the antipode. There.”

The holoprojection of a huge meteor burning in the atmosphere flew through the globe room, slamming into the Yucatan peninsula. A mammoth dust cover rose and spread over the entire globe, the faintest trace of throbbing red lines extending from the impact site showing through the dust as volcanic activity began on the opposite side of the sphere.

Crane reached out and grabbed her arm, his face transfixed as he watched Earth history create itself before his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered to her own growing excitement.

And then she heard it: A small bell sound from a distant programming station, then another, and another. The system was shutting down.

“No,” she said, breaking free of his grasp and turning to her console, error messages flashing, bells clanging loudly all over the huge room. She turned her back and looked. The globe had shut itself down completely. Crane’s head jerked from side to side, and a deep growl issued from his throat.

She reached for the console, her hands ready to type in damage control, but she stopped when she saw words written on the monitor that she’d hoped never to see:

Her hands fell to her sides in utter confusion, Crane striding quickly to stand beside her.

“Get on with it,” he said. “Work the inconsistency.”

“I can’t,” she said, pointing to the screen. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

He read the words, then spun her by the shoulders to face him. “What does it mean?”

A horrible confusion took hold of her as other programmers walked slowly to form a loose cordon around her and Crane. “It means that the Mexican crater cannot be made to fit historically with anything else we’ve programmed into the machines. It’s telling us this is impossible.”

“No,” he said, then louder, “No! I will not accept that. Reset it and let’s do it again.”

“Look, Crane,” she said. “There are two possibilities. One is that we misprogrammed, which is understandable considering you gave us no time to double-check ourselves. To fix that, we’ll have to go back over everything we’ve done tonight, checking it every step of the way. These people are too tired for that.”

“What’s the other possibility?”

She took a long breath. “Events before Chicxulub, perhaps the breakup of Pangaea itself, had already altered the world so much that the meteor’s impact had a different effect than the one shown on our globe.”

“You told me that the machine could define and correct such inconsistencies by running through the limited possibilities of missed events.”

She watched him tilt the bottle to his lips and drink half of it in one long pull. He was, as always, a time bomb ready to explode. “That’s between known event and known event,” she said. “Between, say Chicxulub and the walls of Jericho falling. But Chicxulub’s as early as we know about. Anything before that is pure speculation.”

He pointed at her again, his finger shaking with drunken rage. “Still within a limited scope of possibilities,” he said, turning from her to walk to the globe, staring straight up at it, as if concentration could give him the answers of his life. For the first time since she’d come to work for Crane, she began to wonder how much of his energy carried this project. It wouldn’t be the first time that a crazy man had talked people into believing nonsense.

He turned to her. “Crank it up again,” he said. “We’ll check the program as we go.”

“No,” she said. “My programmers are tired. I’m tired. Let’s try it again in the morning.”

“I gave you an order!”

“And I refused it.”

“Damn you!” he yelled, flinging his arm up. The half-finished bottle went flying into the globe, smashing on Siberia. Acrid smoke rose where the rum had drenched the wiring. “You’re fired!”

“Fine,” she said, and turned to the group of programmers huddled around her. “Go on home. We’re through here for the night. Your new boss will tell you what to do tomorrow.”

“I think we need to get him home,” Sumi said.

“The hell with him.”

“Lanie…”

Lanie nodded wearily and moved to take Crane by his bad arm while Sumi took his good. “Come on, we’ll get you home,” Sumi said. “You need sleep.”

“I don’t need sleep,” Crane said, reluctantly letting them lead him out, watching the globe as they dragged him away. “I need to sit down and work.” He turned and kissed Lanie on the cheek. “Ah, perhaps it’s a matter of weight. How much did you add to Earth’s total?”

“A thousand short tons a day because of meteor impacts.”

“Try adding in more weight than that in earlier times. Meteor activity is far less now than it was a billion years ago.”

“Whatever you say,” she returned, and they got him outside, Crane brushing them off to stand on his own.

He looked up at the sky, the Moon three-quarters full, running scenes of bloody car wrecks on its side. “That’s where I need to live,” he said, pointing, then looking at both hands for a bottle that was no longer there. “Up there I could watch the lunacy rise in the morning and set in the evening.” He guffawed.

They walked toward the staircases set into the mountainside. “At least you wouldn’t have to worry about earthquakes on the Moon,” Lanie said.

Crane and Sumi laughed. “The Moon has earthquakes,” Sumi said.

“Really?”

“About three thousand a year,” Crane said, weaving.

“Is there a core?”

“Yep,” Crane answered. “A nine-hundred-mile diameter. They’re little quakes though, Richter 2s. Very seldom break the surface. Almost like a quake memory.”

“A memory of what?” Sumi asked.

“I don’t know.” Crane stared again at the Moon. “A man could build a world to suit himself up there. Not like the mining companies, the takers, but a world of truth.”

“You’re starting to sound like Dan,” Sumi said. “There is no truth.”

“Science is truth,” Lanie said quickly. “Love is truth.”

“There is no such thing as love,” Sumi replied bitterly, the first time Lanie had ever heard the man expose anything of himself. “Love is simply a disguise for pain.”

“That’s not true,” Lanie said.

Sumi looked at her, eyes inscrutable. “Then where is your man tonight?”

“The lie of freedom,” Crane said, quoting Newcombe. “The lie of security. The lie of politics. The lie of religion.” He turned to Lanie. “You’re not fired.”

“Thank you … I think.”

“You must make the globe work. Do you understand what I’m saying? This can’t stop here; it just can’t. The dream … the dream…”

Lanie shuddered, thinking of dreams and realizing why she was so upset that Dan was gone. She’d have to face the night alone. “I’ll do everything I can to make the globe work,” she said. “Trust me.”

“I do trust you. I trust you as much as I trust Dan … or Sumi, here.” He patted the small man on the back, Chan looking uncomfortable. It made Lanie sad to think Crane’s world was so small he had to trust Sumi Chan, though she could think of no reason for the feeling.

A bell sound drifted on the warm breeze across their plateau, followed by the compound computer’s voice saying: “The radiation levels have risen to an unacceptable range. Please take shelter and appropriate precautions immediately.”

The immediate response was the sound of closing doors and snapping window-shields.

“The cloud,” Crane said, pointing to the west. The Masada Cloud. “We’d better get indoors. Let’s go up to my place for a drink. What do you say?”

“Crane,” Lanie said, “if you’d ever open your eyes you’d realize that I can’t go up to your place.”

He stared at her, face slack, then his eyebrows shot up. “Vertigo,” he said. “I remember now. You’re afraid of heights.”

“Petrified, is more like it,” she said. “My knees weaken and I simply shut down physically.”

Crane laughed. “I always wonder why you and Dan never come up to visit me. You’re just full of surprises.”

They had arrived at the stairs; Lanie walked up to the first landing, the lowest level where the bungalow she shared with Dan was located. Crane, using Sumi for support, straggled behind. “If you think that’s something,” she said, “wait until you hear about the nightmares.”

“Nightmares?” he said, reaching the landing.

“I dream about Martinique every time I go to sleep.”

“What are you dreaming?” he asked.

“I’m remembering little things,” she said and shivered. The wind blowing in with the Cloud was cold. “Pieces. I remember sitting in the dark and touching that poor boy’s body. I remember … rum.”

“What else?”

She frowned. Crane seemed upset about her dream. “You’re in the dream,” she said slowly. “You’re wearing a big, bulky suit… all white like a burn suit, only bigger … more solid. You’re all excited about something, but I can’t hear you through all the bulky clothing, I … I’m not sure. There’s screaming and explosions all around me, and that dead boy is there … and all the men covered with mud. I-I guess the worst of it is the feeling it makes me have.”

“What feeling?”

“Like I’m waiting to die.” Tears came rolling down her cheeks. She reached for the knob on her front door.

“Lanie, I—”

“I’ve got to go in,” she said abruptly. She went inside quickly before Sumi and Crane could see her fall apart.

“Dan,” she cried softly, burying her face in her hands. “Where the hell are you, you son of a bitch?”

She went to bed and cried herself to sleep—and had the nightmare again, only this time Crane was reaching for her in his bulky suit, trying to make her take his hands. This time, she could hear the word he was yelling: Pangaea.