Arthur Clarke - Richter 10

“Volcano?”

“—and we got trapped ourselves. And yes, Dan’s all right. He’s not here. Here is Martinique.”

“Have I asked you these questions before?”

“A time or two.”

“Guess I forgot. But I won’t forget now. What happened to the boy we were trying to save?”

“Put your left hand out beside you.”

“Okay, I—Oh God!” She practically jumped onto his lap. “Is that…?”

“The boy. He didn’t make it.”

She went limp, then slumped against the tub. “We’re going to die, aren’t we? We’re going to die in the dark.”

“The possibility exists. I’m sorry. They’re looking for us now. We did get the city evacuated in time, though.”

“City … evacuated?” He heard her take a deep breath. “Can we do anything from in here?”

“Not really,” he said. “In the dark, I’d be afraid to pull on anything for fear of bringing the house down on us.”

“Maybe there’s a lighter or—”

“We’ve already looked … even in the boy’s pocket. Besides, I’m beginning to worry about the oxygen.”

“Scare me, why don’t you?”

“It’s all right, you’ll forget.”

“I resent that. I will not. Is Dan here?”

“No … and he’s fine.”

“Good,” she said, then took a long breath. “Did we predict this one?” she asked.

“I can’t predict anything,” he said, then stared in her general direction. “You want to hear the whole story?”

“What story?”

He drew a deep breath of the fetid air. “I’d been tracking Sado,” he said low, “since the day the Israelis saw the Iranian helos overhead and blew their whole nuclear stockpile, thirty multimegaton bombs. Fifty million people vaporized instantly, ten million more within seconds.” Tears rolled down his cheeks; Lanie was shuddering. “The blasts not only irradiated the entire Middle East and its oil, but it had profound effects below ground—first on the Arabian Plate, which in turn had an effect on the Turkish-Aegean and Iran Plates. It was like watching dominoes fall. By the time the Indo-Australian and Eurasian Plates started to buckle, I was predicting the quakes with a fair degree of accuracy, within, say, a month or two. Finally, years later, the Indo-Aus, Philippine, North American, and Pacific Plates collided roughly, which had a small, but devastating effect on a zone near Sado.” He shrugged. “It was laid out like a road-map.”

“What was?”

“The EQ’s connected to the Masada Option.”

“Why didn’t you predict other quakes before Sado?”

“Two reasons. First, nobody listens anyway. Second, if I was going to take the chance of being wrong and being forever labeled as a crackpot, I’d take the best odds. Sado was the plum, the shot heard round the world.”

“Now … we’re not at Sado now, are we?”

“We’re in Martinique. Dan’s not here. He’s fine. Ask me the next question. If you’ve been listening, you’re probably wondering what I’m selling since you now know that I can’t really predict earthquakes.”

“Yeah. Tell me that. I’ll remember this time.”

“I’m selling the dream of a perfect world,” he said. “This kind of suffering is needless, wasteful.”

“I’m sorry … I lost something back—” She flailed her arms, squealing. “Crawling on me. A thing’s crawling on me. Get it off. Off!”

His hand felt her thigh, running its length. He felt it then, cold, metallic.

“Ha!” He grabbed the optical sensor that had slithered into their lair and held it up to his face. “It’s about time you got here. Dig us out slowly. We’ve got a pocket here, but the whole place is about to go. Tunnel in easy. Try and get us an air tube first. And for God’s sake, get me a drink! They have sugar mills here; there must be rum. If you can get to the air hole, shove a bottle through.”

The sensor slithered away. He relaxed at the sound of the rescue workers pounding a pipeline of fresh air into their musty tomb.

“Is Dan out there?” Lanie asked.

“He’d better not be,” Crane said. “He’s supposed to be at the labs looking for quakes.”

“If you really can’t predict,” she said, “what’s the point?”

He took her hand in the darkness, kissed it. “Dear lady, you don’t give up your life’s dream just because it has no reality.”

Suddenly the barest light shone in the cavern, brightening it to a sickly haze. A rush of fresh air followed, and with it, hope.

“Dr. Crane,” a voice called down the five-inch tube.

“I’m here! Where’s that rum I ordered?”

“Coining!”

The bottle was shoved through the tube, followed by a bottle of water. Crane handed Lanie the water and unscrewed the cap on the rum, taking a long drink. “How far away are you?”

“Ten to fifteen feet,” the voice returned. “We’ll have you out quickly.”

“Are we the only ones?”

“Everybody alive got out … except you three.”

“Two,” Crane said, taking another long swig of rum. “There’s only two of us here.”

He sat back, glancing sadly at the corpse. Lanie had been staring at it ever since the light had entered.

“What happened?” she asked reaching for his bottle of rum after she finished the water.

“We tried to save him. He died. End of story.”

“Was this an earthquake?”

“A volcano … we’re in Martinique.”

“You’re kidding. Where’s Dan?”

“Back home.” He liked having her this way. He was able to be honest without ramifications, sincere without recriminations. “Do you remember your promise?” he asked.

“Promise…”

“Never mind.” He sagged close to her, pressing his lips to her ear. “I love you, you know,” he whispered.

“Don’t say things like that,” she said sternly. “We have enough problems in our lives.”

“Say things like what?”

She took another drink and passed him the bottle. They looked like people made of clay. “You know,” she said, “there’s something I don’t understand.”

“Yes?”

“You want all this funding, all this … power to predict quakes. Didn’t we just talk about that?”

“Yes, we did. You’re probably wondering what I really want.”

“Yeah. Predicting to save lives is a noble cause, but Dan’s the person working those fields. Why not go his way? Define areas likely to be affected and rewrite building codes or make them off limits. You don’t need the detailed information you want to do that.”

He said what he’d never had the guts to say to another human being. “I don’t give a damn about earthquake prediction,” he whispered. “It’s a means to an end.”

“What end?”

“I cannot co-exist with the world the way it is,” he said. “So I intend to change it. I intend to stop earthquakes from happening.”

She laughed and reached for the bottle again. He took another long drink before giving it to her. “And how do you intend to stop earthquakes?”

“By fusing the plates,” he said fierce and low. “This world was once one continent, named Pangaea. It had no earthquakes, no volcanoes. I’m going to make it that way again.”

Lanie drank deep, Crane grabbing the bottle from her and finishing it. She giggled. “You said you wanted to fuse the plates, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

He winked at her before murmuring directly into her ear, “By exploding huge thermonuclear bombs right on the fault lines.”

“What?”

Light flooded in, the sound of excited voices echoing all around them. “Come on, Elena King,” he bellowed, grabbing her around the waist with his good arm. “We live to fight another day!”

“Is Dan here?” she asked as hands reached in to pull them to safety.