Arthur Clarke - Richter 10

Seabed sucked into the subduction zone beneath the Eurasian Plate, then jerked the surface of the ground with it, feeding a chunk of the Pacific Plate back into the furnace of the planet’s core. Bedrock, grinding to dust, collapsed in upon itself; great rents and tears in the skin of the earth widened into mouths that gulped the boulders, people, trees, buildings, and boats near its lips.

The plain danced violently beneath them, and Crane hoped against hope that he hadn’t misplaced his trust in Newcombe to map the paths of destruction—and, thus, the small, safe place upon which they stood. Below, the villagers who had not been crushed and trapped within their houses had escaped to the streets, their screams rising to join those of the people watching in horror with Crane. The mayor was crying out. And behind, Mount Kimpoku was busily rising another twenty meters into the air while the ancient mines Crane had just visited fell in upon themselves, erasing forever the carved records of those who had suffered there. Sheets of volcanic rock slid into the sea, screaming against the morning. Sado Island was disintegrating all around them.

The motion of the earth changed to a wild swivel, hurling the people around Crane onto the hard-packed dirt plain as the village below disappeared in rubble and a fine mist of ocean spray. The rending of the island, Japan’s sixth largest, was stentorian, the sound of a dying animal bellowing in rage and sorrow that brought tears to Crane’s eyes. He remembered … he remembered. And he knew that even worse was to come.

Only Lanie still stood beside him, her death-grip on his arm the sole sign of the ultimate fear that comes with understanding of the true powerlessness of mankind. “Courage,” he whispered to her.

And then perdition stopped. Ninety seconds after it had begun, the Earth had finished realigning itself and deathly quiet reigned. Slowly people began to shake themselves off, to stand up, to look around in awe and shock. The island was half as large now as it had been a minute and a half before. Landmarks had disappeared or moved. Nothing was the same. Nothing would be the same.

Miraculously, there were survivors below. They, too, were shaking themselves off, picking themselves up. Emergency teams began to mobilize for the trip down to what had been Aikawa with fresh water, medical supplies. Motiba stared in stupefied horror at the remnants of his life; his glasses were askew on his face, his eyes distant, unfocused.

“I must … go,” he said softly. “To my people … I must—”

“No,” Crane said. “You cannot go down there yet.”

The man ignored him and ran back through the crowd.

“Stop him!” Crane yelled. “Bring him back! All of you, hold your places. Look to the shoreline!”

They looked. The Sea of Japan had receded hundreds of meters from the island, leaving it high and dry, a seabed full of writhing fish and of boats drowned in mud.

Two Red Cross workers dragged the struggling Motiba back to Crane’s side. “Let go,” he shouted, hysterical now. “Why do you hold me?”

Gently, Crane patted the man’s trembling shoulder, then pointed out to sea. “We hold you because if you go down, you will be killed. See!”

A mountain of water was racing toward the island from several kilometers out… rushing to fill the void caused when the heaving of the Earth had shoved it back.

“Tsunami, ladies and gentlemen,” Crane said calmly, too aware of the cams and very careful not to betray the horror that gripped his soul. There was time now, a few minutes only, perhaps, to speak as if all were normal. “After it subsides, we will go down and look for survivors. I trust that you representatives of the news media will pitch in and lend a hand.”

He turned to see Newcombe putting his arm around Elena King. Crane pulled her hand from his dead arm and gave her completely over to Newcombe. “You did a good job on the location, Dan. Let’s just hope we’re up high enough.”

“How can you be so calm?” Newcombe’s emotions were in shreds, his voice the growl of a hurt animal. “Those are people down there … and they’re dying.”

“Someone has to keep his head.”

“What kind of goddamned Cassandras are we?”

“Get used to it, doctor,” Crane said. “This is merely the beginning.”

“But why?”

Crane ignored him and turned to Motiba, the man completely broken down, crying silently. He took the mayor in his arms, clutching him tightly. “You must be strong, Motiba-san,” he whispered.

“Let me die with them,” the mayor pleaded as the water charged them, roaring, grasping.

“No,” Crane said simply. “Someone must live … to remember.”

Eating the screams of the survivors on the plain, the tsunami assaulted them first … then the water, advancing like a juggernaut from all sides, slamming into Sado Island, reached higher, climbing. The wall of water smacked the land like a monstrous hand of God. The people on the plain turned as one and fled as a pack as far back as they could until the water crested and gushed over the top, reaching them and driving them down onto the ground. Waves carried pieces of broken buildings and bodies, crushed cars and uprooted trees. Churning thick with the debris of life, the water poured over Crane, boards banging against him. After the first deluge, the water proved to be shallow. Crane huddled on the muddy, pool-speckled ground, hands over his head, just as he’d done when he was seven years old.

He hunched there, shivering in fear until the water fully subsided, then climbed to his feet to look with horror at the dead spread over the plain. Many of his own party had been hurt by the tidal scum that had washed so high over the island. And he noticed that the Red Cross workers were tending to their own first.

While most people were dazed, many of the camheads were already up and rolling viddy. And it hit him then that he’d done it. Given the world the show. Everything Sumi Chan had advised him they needed to get the publicity, the funds, the aura of authority to attach to him so that he could do the work that was his life. And in that moment of great tragedy, he knew great triumph. Oh, yes, he thought cynically, horror made sensational copy. And what better than this?

He spotted Burt Hill and called him over. “Organize the aid teams to go down to what’s left of the village,” he ordered. “Pull it all together.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to see the edge of the cliff. Motiba was there, and he joined him. The sea was smooth as glass, unusually beautiful in deepest teal blues and greens. But where Aikawa had stood was only empty beach, not even a boat or shack littering the pristine sand that gleamed in the deadly sunlight.

“I’m sorry,” Crane said, low and hoarse.

Motiba looked up at him, tears working their way down his cheeks. “I know I should not blame you for this,” he said, “but I do.”

With that he turned and walked off, leaving Crane absolutely alone with his demons. No one came near. No one reached out a hand or asked if he were all right. To the people left on the plain he was as distant and as untouchable as the dead that surrounded him. But they were wrong. The dead, at least, knew peace.

The sun was lowering behind the Washington Monument and Mr. Li Cheun, head of Liang International in this hemisphere, knew that for the last couple of hours the little American bureaucrats who worked for him, though they didn’t realize it perhaps, had been scurrying home. More important to him, the North American headquarters of Liang International was winding down for the evening. Liang Int, the Chinese star ascendant in the world of business, owned America. Ten years before, Liang Int had managed to get a toehold in America, wresting some business away from the Germans who’d owned the country then. The Masada Option had proved to be better than any business plan or ruthless tactics the Chinese might have devised, for the resultant radioactive cloud and fallout from the explosions had swept southern, central, and eastern Europe. When the Fatherland was devastated, suffering a loss of almost half its population, Liang Int was able to move swiftly and turn its toehold into a stranglehold, not only on America, but on German business operations throughout the world.