Charles Sheffield - Summertide

He slowly climbed the stairs that led to the observation-and-control deck of the capsule. The clear roof of the upper chamber showed Midway Station in the middle distance. Far above, confirming that the capsule was descending toward Opal, Rebka saw the distant prospect of Quake, dark-clouded and brooding.

The walls of the observation deck, ten meters high, were paneled with display units. Julius Graves, seated at the control console and flanked by J’merlia and Kallik, was watching in thoughtful silence. The succession of broadcast displays that Graves was receiving showed a planetary surface — but it was Opal, not Quake.

Rebka watched for a while before announcing his presence. With their attention on Quake, it had been easy to forget Opal had also experienced the biggest Summertide in human history. Aerial and orbital radar shots, piercing the cloud layers of the planet, showed broad stretches of naked seabed laid bare by millennial tides. Muddy ocean floor was spotted with vast green backs: dead Dowsers, the size of mountains, lay stranded and crushed under their own weight.

Other videos showed the Slings of Opal disintegrating as contrary waves, miles high and driven by the tidal forces, pulled at and twisted the ocean’s surface.

An emotionless voice-over from Opal listed the casualties: half the planet’s population known dead, most in the past twenty-four hours; another fifth still missing. But even before assessment was complete, reconstruction was beginning. Every human on Opal was on a continuous work schedule.

The broadcasts made clear to Rebka that the people of Opal had their hands more than full. If his group were to land there, they should not look for assistance.

He drifted forward and tapped Graves lightly on the shoulder. The councilor jerked at the touch, swiveled in his chair, and grinned up at him.

“Aha! Back from Dreamland! As you see, Captain—” He flourished a thin hand upward, and then to the display screens. “Our decision to spend Summertide on Quake rather than Opal was not so unwise after all.”

“If we’d stayed on the surface of Quake for Summertide, Councilor, we’d have been ashes. We were lucky.”

“We were luckier than you think. And long before Summertide.” Graves gestured to Kallik, who was manipulating displays with one forelimb and entering numbers into a pocket computer with another. “According to our Hymenopt friend, Opal suffered worse than Quake. Kallik has been doing energy-balance calculations in every spare moment since we left the surface. She agrees with Commander Perry — the surface should have been far more active than it was during the Grand Conjunction. The full energy was never released while we were there. Some focused storage-and-release mechanism was at work for the tidal energies. Without it, the planet would have been uninhabitable for humans long before we left it. But with it, most of the energy went to some other purpose.”

“Councilor, Quake was quite bad enough. Elena Carmel is dead. Atvar H’sial and Louis Nenda may be dead, too.”

“They are.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I don’t know if you realize this, but they were in orbit around Quake at Summertide and they tried to blow us out of the sky. They deserved what they got. But why are you so sure they’re dead?”

“Darya Lang saw Nenda’s ship dragged off toward Gargantua with an acceleration too much for any human or Cecropian to survive. They had to be crushed flat inside it.”

“Nenda’s ship had a full star drive. No local field should have held it.”

“If you wish to argue that point, Captain, you’ll have to do it with Darya Lang. She saw what happened; I did not.”

“She’s asleep.”

“Still? She became unconscious again when J’merlia started work on her foot, but I am surprised she is not waking.” Graves turned in annoyance. “Now then, what do you want?”

J’merlia was hesitantly touching his sleeve, while by his side Kallik was hopping and whistling in excitement.

“With great respect, Councilor Graves.” J’merlia moved to kneel before him. “But Kallik and I could not help hearing what you said to Captain Rebka — that Master Nenda and Atvar H’sial escaped from Quake, then they were hurtled off to Gargantua and crushed by the acceleration.”

“ Toward Gargantua, my Lo’tfian friend. Perhaps not to Gargantua itself. Professor Lang was quite insistent on the point.”

“With apologies, I should have said toward Gargantua. Honored Councilor, would it be possible for Kallik and my humble self to be excused from duties for a few minutes?”

“Oh, go on. And don’t grovel, you know I hate it.” Graves waved them away. As the aliens headed for the capsule’s lower level, he turned back to Rebka.

“Well, Captain, unless you want to collapse again into slumber, I propose that we go below ourselves and check on Commander Perry and Professor Lang. We have plenty of time. The Umbilical will not offer access to Opal for another few hours. And our official work in the Dobelle system is over.”

“Yours may be. Mine is not.”

“It will be, Captain, very soon.” The grinning skeleton was as infuriatingly casual and self-assured as ever.

“You don’t even know what my real work is.”

“Ah, but I do. You were sent to find out what was wrong with Commander Perry, see what it was that kept him in a dead-end job in the Dobelle system — and cure him.”

Rebka sank into a seat in front of the control console. “Now how the devil did you find that out?” His voice was puzzled rather than annoyed.

“From the obvious place — Commander Perry. He has his own friends and information sources, back in the headquarters of the Phemus Circle. He learned why you were sent here.”

“Then he should also know that I never did find out. I told you, my job is unfinished.”

“Not true. Your official job is almost over, and it will be done with very soon. You see, Captain, I know what happened to Max Perry seven years ago. I suspected it before we came to Quake, and I confirmed it when I queried the commander under sedation. All it took were the right questions. And I know what to do. Trust me, and listen.”

Julius Graves hauled his long body over to a monitor, pulled a data unit the size of a sugar cube from his pocket, and inserted it into the machine. “This is sound only, of course. But you will recognize the voice, even though it appears much younger. I sent his memory back seven years. I will play only a fragment. No purpose is served by making private suffering into a public event.”

…Amy was still acting goofy and playful, even in the heat. She was laughing as she ran on ahead of me, back toward the car that would take us to the Umbilical. It was only a few hundred meters away, but I was getting tired.

“Hey, slow down. I’m the one who has to carry the equipment.”

She spun around, teasing me. “Oh, come on, Max. Learn to have some fun. You don’t need any of that stuff. Leave it here — nobody will ever notice it’s gone.”

She made me smile, in spite of the growing noise around us and the sweat that covered my body. Quake was hot.”

“I can’t do that Amy — it’s official property. It all has to be accounted for. Wait for me.”

But she just laughed. And danced on — on into that funny blurring of the surface, the fragile, shimmering ground of Summertide…

…before I could get near her, she was gone. Just like that, in a fraction of a second. Swallowed up by Quake. All that I could take back with me was the pain…

“There is more, but it adds nothing.” Graves stopped the recording. “Nothing that you cannot guess, or should not hear. Amy died in molten lava, not in boiling mud. Max Perry saw that shimmering of heated air again, in the Pentacline Depression — but too late to save Elena Carmel.”