Richter 10

by Arthur C. Clarke

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he opened the aluminum box and sorted through it.

  “Must be here somewhere,” he said low, then, “Ha!” He pulled a flare gun out of the box and held it triumphantly in the air. “If the world is watching us, then let’s give them a show they’ll remember.”

  “You’re not serious,” she said, backing several paces away from him.

  “I’m always serious,” he returned and shoved a fat shell into the single chamber. He snapped it closed, and raised the gun with his good hand. He fired right into the midst of the fifteen gulls. A whump, then a pale red tracer tracked upward into the flock, the flare bursting bright red on impact.

  “Bulls-eye!” Lanie said, clapping as two gulls, in pieces, went into the ocean, a third moving off, losing altitude by the second. The wounded bird was unmarked, FPF obviously. The bird disappeared behind a swell five hundred meters from the Diatribe, all the other cams turning in that direction to watch.

  He reloaded and handed the gun to Lanie. “Want to try one?”

  “Can I get into trouble for this?”

  “Who cares?”

  She pulled the trigger, bringing down a newscam in a white hot rain of shimmering magnesium. The remaining gulls scattered and put more distance between themselves and their hunters.

  Crane could see boats dotting the ocean, converging, the curious or the professional turning out to see the earthquake man. Beyond the boats, the distant outline of land filled the horizon. They were home.

  “Good shooting!” Crane yelled, the sky now covered with clouds, all of them showing television pictures, people tuning in through their aurals.

  “I think you may be right about the FPF coming for Mohammed Ishmael.” Lanie pointed to several innocuous-looking speedboats.

  “I’m going to get down there and try and stop them.” Crane dropped the box and hoisted a leg over the ladder.

  Boats drew alongside, their decks filled with men in white jumpsuits with white hoods and standard issue face-saver masks with built-in goggles. They were armed.

  Lanie caught up with Crane as he was about to enter the dining room. “Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked, grabbing his bad arm.

  “No,” he said. She had beautiful, inquisitive eyes. They told the truth. “I’ve been making it up since Ishmael dropped his bombshell back on VEMA. I took a shot, needed all the cards to fall right. Ishmael screwed it up enough to queer things.”

  “But you’ve got the deal.”

  “I’ve got nothing.”

  Loudspeakers squawked from all around them. “This is the Federal Police Force,” a pleasant female voice whispered like thunder. “We have been authorized to detain Leonard Dantine, a.k.a. Mohammed Ishmael, in accordance with the Safe Streets Control Act of 2005.”

  “I think this will play badly in the polls,” Crane said, watching white-faced ghosts climb onto Diatribe’s main deck.

  The galley door banged open, Newcombe sticking his head out. “Can’t we do anything to stop them?”

  “Is stopping them the right thing to do?” Crane replied, then waved off Newcombe’s angry scowl. “I’ll try.”

  The gangway was filled with men in white, coming at them fore and aft and from above. Lanie was right on Crane’s heels.

  “What do you mean you don’t have a deal?” she asked. “I thought Li—”

  “Li told me I’d have to do it again.” He stepped up to address the uniformed person before him. The G was anonymous—the source of their strength and their power to produce fear.

  “This ship is outside the territorial waters of the United States,” Crane said. “You are, consequently, outside your jurisdiction and have no right being on board. Kindly leave now.”

  The G spoke into his pad, then nodded. “Two point nine miles,” he said pleasantly, then gestured toward the door. “Is this the only way in or out of that room?”

  “No,” Lanie said, as Newcombe, angry, made to block entry. “There’s a starboard door also.”

  “He won’t run from you,” Newcombe said, stepping aside. “He told me.”

  The G moved into the room in force. Brother Mohammed Ishmael sat calmly at the dining table, smiling beatifically. “Do you gentlemen have a reservation?” he asked.

  “On your feet,” the lead G said. “You’re under arrest.”

  Ishmael stood. “I’m not of your country. Even so, I have broken none of your laws. You cannot place me under arrest.”

  “You may make an official statement to the booking robot,” said the G, punctiliously polite. “These gentlemen are going to escort you. You may choose the degree of difficulty.”

  Six men moved forward. Seemingly unarmed, their sleeves bristled with electronic and microwave bands, deadly defensive weapons. They formed a loose cordon around Ishmael, then moved in quickly, grabbing.

  They got empty air. Ishmael was transparent as they tried to take him, their arms moving through his body, flailing uselessly.

  “A projection.” Newcombe laughed. “It’s not really him.”

  “Only since this morning,” Ishmael called, walking right through the table and up to Newcombe. He whispered in the man’s ear, “Contact me.”

  The G filed out without a word, the last one handing Crane a bill for the downed gull. Ishmael’s laughing projection turned a circle for the remaining gull cams that were perched on the rails looking in through the portholes. “People of the world,” he called, “this is how the white animal behaves. In savagery. In hatred. I wanted you to see why we must have our own homeland. Nothing will deter us. It is the will of Allah.”

  The specter vanished. Crane walked back outside, knowing the government types were going to try and set him up for something with Ishmael to take the heat off themselves. He had to get past it. He moved onto the deck, the gulls flying off, and leaned against the rail, staring out at the G climbing back into their boats. The professional news showed up with the amateur camheads. He sensed Lanie at his arm and turned. Newcombe wasn’t with her.

  “Li and the others, they made a deal with you,” she said. “They have to keep it.”

  “If I can make another earthquake happen,” he whispered, then winked at her.

  Scores of boats of all sizes and shapes, a flotilla, surrounded them as they steamed closer to LA. People were waving and calling out to them.

  Lanie and he drank in the celebrity, laughing and waving back.

  He leaned over the rail and yelled to the closest ship. “Ahoy! What news of earthquakes? I sense something just happened.”

  A loudspeaker crackled from one of the news boats. “We received word a little while ago. Martinique has been leveled by an eruption of Mount Pelee.”

  “Don’t unpack your bags,” he said to Lanie, then put a foot over the rail and climbed down to the main deck, everything forgotten except the chase, the godalmighty, neverending chase.

  Chapter 4: Geomorphological Processes

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  20 JUNE 2024, 8:47 P.M.

  No one knew Sumi Chan was a woman. No one. The yi-sheng who’d delivered her in great secrecy had died five years ago. Her own parents, who’d engineered the deception after amniocentesis had revealed that their heir would be female, passed away in ’22, victims of the St. Louis flu. The flu virus, brought from America by traveling salesmen, had been far more devastating than the flu of 1918, killing hundreds of thousands of people in cities throughout the Far East, while sparing the North American continent with a relatively mild epidemic.

  So, for the last two years Sumi had been alone with the lie of her life. And she’d have to go on alone… even though her twenty-eight-year masquerade had failed completely in its objective: to inherit her ancestral land, a right forbidden to women. But her birthright no longer existed; the land had been forfeited to bankruptcy; her parents had died destitute.

  Being trapped was the operative experience of Sumi’s life. She’d come to America to study science abroad, as was the
custom. The U.S. Geological Survey position was a patronage job, simply meant to look good in the long-term corporate portfolio. Now it was all she had, and she feared desperately that her deception would come to light and she would lose her job. Dishonored, she would have nothing. All life was a lie. The only truth Sumi Chan really understood was the fear of exposure that ate away at her.

  She sat in the denlike interior of a Liang Corporate helo, a silent eggbeater design favored for its smooth ride, and tried to hold herself together. Crane had been good to her, had given her status and generous amounts of credit for her contributions to his projects. She liked him, too, despite his eccentricities, sometimes even because of them. He didn’t deserve what was about to happen to him.

  She watched the crowd of perhaps as many as two hundred people approach the Long Beach Harbor dockside landing pad. The sun was down, a clear star-filled night just dripping onto the skyline of the largest city in the western hemisphere. Umbrellas were clasped firmly under arms now as citizens wiped sunblock off their faces and shed their coats and gloves. The freedom of night had arrived.

  Newsmen swarming him like gnats, Crane led the long line down the well-lit docks toward her position. Most of the people following Crane were camheads, unemployed or bored citizens who lived to get on the teev, to see themselves projected onto the sites of buildings and clouds. So many people did it that it was no longer an obsession; it was a demographic.

  Crane was flanked by Newcombe and the new woman. Why had Crane brought her in? Sumi didn’t know what to make of Lanie King. She seemed to have Crane’s drive and Newcombe’s emotions, a potentially dangerous combination, but more importantly, Sumi feared the woman would see through her ruse, just as she feared all women would see through her.

  The crowd arrived, and Sumi opened the bay door fully to admit Crane and his team.

  “Hey, Dr. Crane,” called a newsman in a gold mandarin jacket, “when’s the big one going to hit LA?”

  “If I told you it would happen tomorrow,” Crane replied, grabbing the sliding door from the inside as Newcombe and King slipped in, “what would you do? That’s the question you should ask yourself.”

  He slid the door closed and fell heavily into a padded swivel chair. He groaned, relaxing for just a second, his good hand coming up to rub slowly over his face. Then the second passed and he snapped up to the edge of the chair and looked at Sumi. “What the hell are we waiting for?”

  Sumi touched the small grille in the arm of the chair. “Go,” she said, the helo rising within seconds. She smiled at Crane. “Next stop, the mosque.”

  “The mosque?” Lanie asked as she wiped the rest of the sunblock from her face with a towel.

  “It’s what Sumi calls the Foundation,” Newcombe said, stretching. “You’ll see when we get there.”

  “Do you have updates on the Pelee?” Crane asked.

  “Not with me,” Sumi said.

  “Give me what you know off the top. Martinique is in the Antilles Chain, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Newcombe barged in before she could go on. “There could be more eruptions.”

  “Already have been,” Sumi said. “Two others… smaller. The real problem right now is the weather. Twenty rivers run out of Pelee, all of them bloated, flooding. The mountain has been crumbling… coming down as mudslides, carrying away entire villages.” Without pause, Sumi asked, “Can I get anyone a drink? Some dorph?”

  “No,” Crane answered, tapping his wristpad to connect his aural. “Sumi, call the newspeople. I want to take a few of them with me down there or they’ll forget who I am by tomorrow. And get Burt Hill at the Foundation. Tell him I want a dozen emergency medical personnel and a dozen big men.”

  “Big men?”

  “Strong men… men who can dig. Good to see you by the way, Sumi.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sumi replied, using the Foundation funded comlink on the chair to set up a forty-way conference memo to the major news organizations.

  Crane punched up the exclu-fiber for Harry Whetstone on his key pad. He swiveled to take in the night show of Los Angeles through the bay window while waiting for the call to track down the man. He liked his benefactor, Old Stoney. A great guy. Damned shame his cash, all those billions, was being held hostage by the courts. Kill the lawyers, like Shakespeare said. Still, Stoney had things and people galore at his disposal, so he could provide what was needed.

  “Whetstone,” came a firm but friendly voice.

  “Stoney, this is Crane.”

  “Hey, great to hear from you. So how the hell did it go with the Big—”

  “No time for that now, pal. I want your plane and I need equipment.”

  “Pelee?”

  “I should leave within the hour. Can you get the plane to my landing strip in the next thirty minutes?”

  “Sorry, I can only give you a big bird. Old jet with no focus. I’ll have to see if it’s gassed up. If so, you’ll have it on your timetable. If not, it’ll take over half an hour just for fueling. I’ve got access to some heavy equipment I can send along if you’d like.”

  “God, no,” Crane said. “What I need are picks and shovels. Can you get me those?”

  “Are you sure you—”

  “Picks and shovels, Stoney. Call me back on the Q fiber when you’ve got an ETA. Hurry.”

  The city was alive below him, teev pictures seemingly juicing in liquid crystal from every horizontal surface—buildings, billboards, walls and vehicles—the tallest buildings assuming the veneer of life as huge videos filled all twenty and thirty stories of them. They headed north toward Mendenhall Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains.

  “Why did the G come on board my ship today?” Crane asked loudly.

  Sumi answered with the obvious. She always had to be careful with the truth around Crane. “There is a great deal of negative reaction to Ishmael’s demands. People want some sort of action taken. They fear what’s stockpiled in the War Zones.”

  “How is this affecting us?”

  “Too early to tell. There’s damage… we don’t know how much.”

  “But Li’s not taking any chances, is he?”

  “Mr. Li’s a businessman,” Sumi said immediately. “What would you expect?”

  “I would expect him to protect me and the deal we made,” Crane snapped, then waved it off. “This is no surprise.” His mind drifted toward damage control. “I just need to run the action myself. I can survive Ishmael.”

  He sighed and shook off a wave of tiredness. He could sleep on the flight to Martinique. The horror was welling in him. He could feel the suffering. He knew the heart-pounding panic of those trapped within their homes under tons of mud and rock. Tears came and he wiped at his eyes, willing himself quickly into emotional detachment, vital to his getting through disasters like Sado and now Pelee.

  He tried to focus on the nightshow below, seeing his Liang helo on many of the teev screens. There were reasons for the outside screens. They were mostly to keep occupied people who were waiting in huge lines for basic necessities. Electronics were cheap and entertaining; they kept a person’s mind off the fact that the country’s infrastructure was shaky at best. Dingy apartments, chronic food shortages from too few shaded fields in production, lousy wages made electronic consolation the next best thing to dorph.

  Below, one of the helos chasing them had dipped too low, its skid catching on the side of a building, the machine smashing nose first onto the flat roof and tumbling, all the citizens running to the scene with their cams. Within seconds, they had passed the site and Crane followed the wreck on teev screens that filled the night.

  Several men with crowbars jumped onto the hulk of the helo to steal the focus. Two pried on the ten-inch disc from three sides as another man squeezed into the smoking cockpit in search of survivors.

  “Is there anything good happening?” Crane asked, his chair still turned facing the bay.

  “Kate Masters,” Sumi said, “has thrown unconditional support behind y
our earthquake plan in exchange for the government’s allowing the Vogelman Procedure to be billed out on health insurance.”

  “Great,” Crane replied, shaking his head at the thought of the no-pregnancy implant. “Now we’re in the birth control business.”

  Of the hundreds of teev screens below them, half still projected the helo crash. As the vandals got the focus off the wreck, the other man emerged with the disoriented pilot in tow. Both men saw the vandals and attacked, fighting them for the focus. One of the powerful liquid electric cells that resided within could run a house for a year. Many would kill for a cell.

  His wristpad blipped, and Crane activated his aural. “Yeah?”

  “Stoney,” came the response. “The bird is gassed and ready to take off. I’ve also got a couple thousand picks and shovels in a truck on its way to you from a north LA warehouse.”

  Below the lights were fading as they reached the blackness of the War Zone, the entrenched and heavily fortified two-by-four-mile stretch of real estate that had once been called East Los Angeles. Brother Ishmael’s territory.

  “You did good, Stoney,” Crane answered. “My best to Katherine.”

  “Crane… about the plane….”

  “I won’t give it away like the last one. Promise.”

  “Thanks.”

  Crane blanked as they passed over the perimeter lights of the troops surrounding the War Zone. The Zone itself was totally netted in thick mesh that covered roofs and sides of buildings. No one had seen inside for years. No one had any idea of how many Africk-Hispanics lived within the Zone or what they did to survive. Troops allowed trucks carrying non-contraband material to go inside; so few went in that many speculated the actual number of Ishmael’s followers was quite small. It was a matter of some debate, for a great many children could be born in fifteen years, children with access to nothing but counterculture rhetoric. Young soldiers. The pilot immediately took on altitude when reaching the War Zone.

  “We’ll be leaving within thirty minutes of arrival,” Crane said to Lanie. “You’d better call ahead and have them prepare any equipment you want loaded.” He did a quick calculation on his wristpad. “I’m allowing you fifty square feet of storage with a two-ton weight limit.”