Arthur Clarke - Richter 10

His diorama beeped and squeaked in a thousand different intervals and tones, Li recognizing them all. So, when he distinguished the delicate alto chirping of the telephone, he decided to make his move. He turned in Mui’s direction, waved off the incoming call, and said, “Get Sumi Chan for me, scrambled and secured. Put him over the west coast.”

While waiting, Li smiled. He knew Mui would be watching and listening very carefully.

Sumi Chan’s disembodied face, five inches high, blipped to life, hanging in midair somewhere over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Li would not address the man face to face, however. He had a computer projection that stood in for him so as never to give anything away through inadvertent gesture or expression.

“Hello, Mr. Li,” Sumi Chan said.

There was something expressed in the man’s eyes that Li didn’t understand. “Hello, Sumi,” he said, the computer matching his voice to its projection’s movements. “Are you well?”

“Yes, and I am also most grateful and most excited,” Sumi replied formally. “You have honored me by your attention.”

“As you have honored me by your invitation to meet with Dr. Crane.” Li paused, allowing Sumi to begin offering up information about the meeting. When the man was not immediately forthcoming, he added, “I assume I am not to meet with him alone.”

“Not unless you desire to do so. Dr. Crane wishes to present you and a number of other distinguished leaders with some of his ideas … and proposals.”

Li nodded. “A very timely meeting. His exploits on Sado are being reported continuously and everywhere, I’m told.”

“Yes, Sado. A great tragedy, but one whose human consequences could have been averted in large measure.”

“Economic consequences, too, of course.”

“Of course,” Sumi echoed. “May we count on your attendance?”

“If my schedule permits, I should certainly like to be a part of such a gathering. I would ask, however, that you coordinate with Mr. Mui Tsao on the guest list, the arrangements, and so forth.”

“That goes without saying, sir. May I tell you how pleased I know Dr. Crane will be?”

Li grunted and waved his hand dismissively. He’d had quite enough of this, and with a smile and a nod, he concluded, “Stay in the shade, Sumi Chan.”

“And you also, sir.”

Sumi’s face instantly blipped off, and Li paced a few steps up and past the Arctic. He could walk freely within the body of his virtual world and literally feel the flow of capital and goods pumped through the beating heart of consumerism. The world was a living network of corporate deities and he was a demigod. Things were as they were supposed to be.

As an official of the Geological Survey, Sumi Chan actually worked for him. Tacitly understood in their conversation was the fact that he, Li Cheun, would call the shots on Crane’s meeting. He would brief Mui on what he wished to accomplish. Yes, things were as they were supposed to be.

“Mr. Li Cheun is, of course, the one on this list who counts, the man to convince if you wish to succeed, Crane,” Sumi said, smiling slightly, “and I trust you will dazzle him. I fear I’m going to use up all my chits on him.” What he left unsaid was that he feared he’d already used up all his chits … with Mui Tsao, to whom he’d been talking until just ten minutes ago. There could be no doubt that Li Cheun had a definite use in mind for Lewis Crane.

“Oh, I’ll dazzle him all right, do a veritable song and dance for him,” said Crane, tilting back his chair and drinking directly from a bottle of very old Scotch.

“You’ve got copies of my paper for everyone who’s agreed to attend?” Newcombe asked, trying to steer the conversation back to his concerns.

Sumi nodded. “There will be copies awaiting each of them in their cabins when they board.”

Newcombe shook his head. Why Crane had chosen to spirit them away from Sado on this yacht to rendezvous with Sumi mid-ocean was beyond him. And out in the stratosphere were Crane’s reasons for wanting to hold his high-powered meeting on a boat. Still, the Diatribe was a helluva craft, luxurious and crammed with technology. Who owned it and how Crane had come by it were mysteries Newcombe was fairly sure would not be solved for him.

“Let’s review the politicos again,” Crane said to Sumi. “We’ve got Kate—”

Sumi’s laughter cut him off. “They’re all politicos, every last one of them, the Vice President of the United States being the least political of them all.”

“Gabler,” Newcombe said scornfully, “a fool … a buffoon.”

“And an important showpiece, Dan,” Crane said firmly. “Just leave all this to Sumi and me.”

“With pleasure,” Newcombe retorted. “So let me get to the area where I am an expert. Why are you planning such elaborate maneuvers? We’ve got a pretty straightforward situation as far as I can see. The data on earthquake ecology is on paper—and proven. Sado came in so close to my projections that you’ve got to go five digits past the decimal to find divergence from the actual event. This is something concrete to sell, Crane. Sell it.”

“I’ll use it,” Crane told him, smoothing his free hand over the bright yellow shirt covering his bathing trunks, “but I won’t marry myself to it.”

Newcombe frowned harshly and Sumi quickly refilled his glass with synthchampagne to which he added two drops from a small green bottle containing his own special dorph preparation. Newcombe knew Sumi urgently wanted him to ingest the dorph, but he didn’t mind. Sumi’s understanding of glandular chemistry was legendary.

“I’ll tell you why I don’t sell your EQ-eco, Danny boy,” Crane said, slightly slurring his words. Crane didn’t face living people very well straight. He put a hand over the mouth of his bottle when Sumi tried to bring the eye-dropper of dorph to it. “First of all, you’re out of line in making your suggestion.”

“You hired me for my talent,” Newcombe said. “Along with that conies my mouth.”

“It’s my foundation,” Crane said, “my decision. Your calculations indeed worked wonderfully … because, Dr. Newcombe, you knew in advance where the epicenter was going to be. You knew it because I told you. Your work is only a small part of what the Crane Foundation represents. To focus simply on the EQ-eco limits the amount of grant money available to us. To be perfectly honest, however, I also see a basic flaw in your perceptions. You expect people to do the right thing. They don’t. All the people in Los Angeles know they live atop faults held together by the thinnest of threads, yet they stay there. Would you convince the government to depopulate LA to the tune of thirteen million people? Where would you put them?”

“My system saves lives!”

Crane sighed and took a long pull from his bottle. “Few would consider that a compelling argument, doctor. Saving money is more to people’s tastes.”

“But it was so successful.”

“Exactly why I want to use it, but de-emphasize it at the same time. I want nobody thinking in those terms alone. We’re looking for much more.”

“Like what?”

Crane leaned closer to Newcombe, Sumi automatically drawing near. He spoke low, dramatically. “Have you gentlemen ever thought about what it would be like if all scientific research in a given area were brought under one banner, in one unifying edifice, and properly coordinated?”

“You want everything!” Newcombe laughed. He couldn’t believe it, the brazenness of the man.

Crane grinned. “Liang Int is omninational. Total control of tectonics is a real possibility.