Arthur Clarke - Richter 10

The observation windows were locked down, shuttered tight as Sumi moved fluidly through the crowd, replenishing drinks doctored with dorph. Newcombe sat beside Ishmael, their heads together, talking low as everyone else stared at them.

“Civilization exists,” Crane said, “by geological consent, subject to change without notice. With all the wonders we’ve created for ourselves, we’re still terrorized by the world we live in. The question is why?”

The room was large, perhaps fifty feet long and thirty wide, by far the largest enclosed space ever put on a sub. It was bare, utilitarian, but met the needs of the scientists and sailors who worked this ship on the edge of the rift. Diffuse lighting glowed instead of brightening the room. The ship occasionally shuddered slightly to the sound of a tiny thump, which the audience assumed to be engine noises. Crane knew better; so did Newcombe.

Crane walked slowly around the table. “Our planet is nearly five billion years old and still seems to be primordially forming itself, tearing itself to pieces minute by minute.”

“The nature of life is struggle, doctor,” Brother Ishmael said.

Crane stopped walking and addressed the man. “And the nature of Man is to try and rise above the struggle.”

“To deny God!” Ishmael persisted.

“To make a better world.” Crane returned to his place, his good hand clasping his bad behind his back. His left arm was throbbing. He faced the group again. “There are over a million earthquakes a year, on the average of one every thirty seconds. Most are not felt, but about three thousand a year do make their way to the surface, of which thirty engender appalling devastation. The tendency is to say it has always been so and always will be.” He looked at Mohammed Ishmael. “I disagree. How many of you really know what forces drive these quakes?”

“Please, just continue with the briefing,” Mui, Li’s associate, said.

“This is much more than a briefing,” Crane replied. “The Earth we live on is made up of huge tectonic plates, twenty-six in all, six majors. The plates move fluidly on a cushion of hot, nearly liquid mantle. Ninety-five percent of all earthquakes occur in what are called subduction zones where the moving plates crash into each other, the plates that hold the oceans of the world literally crawling beneath the continental plates.”

The sub shook again, this time more noticeably. “Is there some problem with the boat?” asked Rita Gabler, a hand to her throat.

“No, none at all. Let me return to the subject. The oceanic plates are feeding themselves back into the core once they subduct beneath the continents,” he said, his voice louder now to get over the nearly continual banging and shivering of the VEMA. He could feel the tension thick in the air, smiled at the sweat that had broken out on the faces of those in his audience. “Once the plate subducts, it begins a long process of transformation that results in … this.”

He hit a console button on the table, the metal curtains sliding open immediately. Before them, the ocean glowed red-orange, brilliant. Belches of lava rose between the peaks of undersea mountains in an unbroken line as far as they could see in either direction, and they could see fire for many miles. The participants were hushed to silence in the face of magnificent turmoil on a planetary scale. This was how Crane wanted his audience—humbled.

“Rebirth!” Crane said loudly, moving right up to the window and pointing out with his good hand. “What you are looking at is the Earth repairing itself. Basaltic magma is rising from the asthenosphere and forcing itself between those incredible peaks and valleys beneath you only to cool in the ocean waters, form more peaks, then push the plate thousands of miles into more subduction.”

VEMA shook hard, for the rebirth of the planet was accompanied by continual earthquakes.

“Is it … dangerous for us here?” Mr. Li asked, his even tone betraying no emotion.

“Only if we walk outside,” Crane said, laughing. He turned to watch the beating heart of the Earth Mother that had indirectly killed his own mother. They were five hundred yards from the plasmic rift, the Pacific Rift. The sight of the orange-red liquid fire filled him with awe and anger, and he let his emotions spill over before turning back to the people he needed if ever he was to tame that fire.

“Come to the window,” he urged them. “Come look at the open wound that gives much, but causes humanity such pain and heartache.”

They rose tentatively. He wanted them to trust the sub, to trust Man’s ability to control his own environment. It was sucking them in, he could feel it, the temperature rising in the room, bright red light from the eruptions dancing over their faces. It was the primal power of an entire planet unleashed.

“Incredible,” Lanie said, her voice hushed. She moved around to face Crane, her eyes reflecting the fire from without and from within. He smiled, knowing what she was feeling, knowing that she would be the perfect tool to help forge his vision. She was a dynamo, a natural.

So, too, was Kate Masters, who’d moved close and was eyeing him. Finally, she spoke.

“What has any of this to do with me?”

“You’re my hammer, ma’am,” he said. “To make these fine people do the right thing.” He turned and pointed to Brother Ishmael, then to the gray-haired Aaron Bloom of ARP. “So are you … my hammers.”

“I’m not sure,” Gabler said, “but I think we’ve just been insulted.”

“Let me handle the business discussion, Mr. Vice President,” Li said, making no effort to hide his contempt for his front man.

Crane continued around the table, stopping behind Newcombe and King. “With the help of these two able people, plus your assistance, I guarantee you that I can produce within a few years a computer program that will predict to the hour every earthquake that will happen on Earth. The program will tell not only where the quake will occur, but its magnitude, the strength of its P and S waves, the areas of primary, secondary, and tertiary damages. We will be able to tell you where it’s safe to stand and when to get out of the way.”

“Show me the profit,” Li said, Mui nodding his Tweedledum agreement.

There was laughter farther down the table. “Excuse me,” said a bald man with a red beard, a representative from the insurance industry who sat next to a brunette from the Krupp empire. “Such a program would render insurance companies able to write policies on earthquake damage that makes sense. We’ve been studying the figures since we left Guam. With knowledge of the kind you could supply, we could deny insurance in major damage areas, perhaps even pass laws to keep people from building there. In the secondary areas we could legislate building regulation. In existing businesses, foreknowledge enables breakable items to be stored beforehand. It would save billions a year—billions, I might add, that are then available to be loaned to you industrial producers to expand your own businesses which will earn further billions. A perfect circle.”

“Impressive,” Li said.

“You’d know where not to build factories, dams, and power plants,” Crane said. “Armed with my program, you’d lose nothing in a time of disaster, not man-hours lost to casualties, not downtime for rebuilding and repairs.”

“That hurts the building industry, then,” the Wang International spokesman said, and Crane thought of the namazu.

“Wait a minute,” Newcombe said, standing. “You’re stacking the building industry up against the loss of ten to fifteen thousand lives every year. How can you—”

“That’s all right, Dan,” Crane said, nodding the man back to his seat. “We all inherently care about the value in human lives saved, am I right?”