Richter 10

by Arthur C. Clarke

The techs were gaping as they looked out the large ship’s bubble ports. The sight of Tokyo spread out beneath them would take anyone’s breath away. The buildings of a major city dominated the landscape, yet it was the surrounding city, the ramshackle dwellings of thirty-three million people, that commanded the attention. Wooden houses jammed together along narrow streets made it look like a patchwork quilt. Millions of wooden houses. More houses than the human mind could truly imagine. Only seeing was believing.

  But what was worse were the huge propane tanks sitting beside the dwellings, sometimes dwarfing them. They still used gas here. When the quake started—and it would start soon—the fires would ignite quickly. Within fifteen minutes a third of Tokyo would burn to the ground, a half million buildings destroyed. Crane’s arm hurt.

  “You’re a damned fool to come out here,” Hill said, “chasin’ after EQs like you ain’t done since ’28. Somebody ought to get you to a psychiatrist.”

  “You are the most disagreeable man I’ve ever known,” Crane said. “Why I put up with you is a mystery to me.”

  “You need me, because you’re too much of a baby to look out for yourself. Hell, you’d’a been dead twenty times over if it wasn’t for me. And I’m here to tell you now, that this may be the twenty-first time. I’ll bet you Doc Bowman didn’t give you the okay for this.”

  “Didn’t tell him,” Crane said. He hadn’t been able to shake Bowman since his brush with colon cancer the year before. It had been caused by radiation exposure during the fight at Imperial Valley. The cancer was why he was here, wanting to experience a massive earthquake once more. It had been seventeen years since he’d allowed himself to visit a quake site—he was flagellating himself; Burt was right about that—yet as great as his pain and loathing for the Beast, so too was the exultation and excitement. The Beast provoked an exquisite enmity.

  He’d been at Moonbase Charlestown, supervising the unending small details of a project so massive and in such unlivable conditions as to overpower anyone, when he’d gotten sick. He’d never really been sick before. The cancer was advanced when they discovered it. They’d treated him chemically, then told him his body would do the rest. What they didn’t tell him was the terrible price he’d pay physically. The war his body waged had gone on for eight excruciating months. When it was finally over he was cancer-free, in fact, immune to most forms of the disease, but he was weak; he tired easily. He couldn’t drink anymore and felt like an old man at fifty-eight. And this day he was going to witness a quake the likes of which he’d never seen.

  Tokyo sat at the juncture of four plates: the Philippine, the Pacific, the Eurasian, and the trailing edge of the North American, by way of the Japan and Isu Trenches. A major subduction quake was getting ready to occur at the Japan/Izu Trench conjunction, and it would destroy most of Tokyo.

  An eerie scenario had developed around the Crane Report in recent years. Discredited by many, respected by others, the Report was used by a few to plan their adventures and their deaths. Whenever a major EQ was predicted, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people showed up to test themselves against its power. Like running with the bulls, men used it as a proof of manhood. Others planned it as a dramatic suicide.

  The firebreak loomed below, a jagged gash of buildings butted together, cutting the city in half. Their steel shutters were already locked down tight, huge water cannons at the ready. Ironically, it was September 1, traditionally Earthquake Day in Japan since September 1st, 1923, when forty thousand people burned to death in the firestorm that leveled Edo, as Tokyo had been known then. All told, one hundred and fifty thousand people died that day.

  The helo stalked Shirahega. There was a crowded observation station built atop one of the central buildings, a helopad right alongside. The pilot banked them in and bullseyed the pad, the young techs jumping out of the machine no sooner than it had set down. They were there to help with the survivors—for besides the gatecrashers, there were always people who refused to evacuate.

  Crane and Hill climbed out last, Crane waving Hill off when he tried to help him. “I may be a cripple,” he said, grunting as he took the long step down, “but I’m not a damned cripple.”

  He had only been on the roof for a number of seconds when he experienced the first tremor. “Do you feel it, Burt?”

  “Sir?” Hill mumbled.

  Crane was feeling the temblors up his leg, shaking his whole body, vibrating it like a tuning fork. “I think you’d better position yourself. It will only be moments now.”

  Sway belts were connected to the metal front wall of the firebreak. Hill helped him belt in. He picked up a pair of binoculars hanging beside the belt. Below, groups of people on the surrounding streets were still partying, many dressed alike. There was a group in black shiny suits with bright red stripes shoulder to ankle. There was another group of young men, and a few women, who were naked except for shoes, their clothes tied in bundles they carried on their shoulders. Another group dressed in clown outfits. All young, foolish people. They were called Rockers because they challenged geology on its own terms.

  The suicides he could see farther back in the city, all ages, all looking for a shaky building to scale, for some large structure beneath which they could wait. The Rockers stayed close enough to the firebreak to run. The suicides wandered aimlessly, but far enough away from Shirahega that they couldn’t reach it in a firestorm. Those who simply refused to believe in the quake were, he presumed, in their homes or offices, doing whatever they normally did.

  “Got a moment for an old friend?” came a voice from behind. He turned to see Sumi Chan. Her hair was shoulder length, her eyes made up with pale blue shadow.

  “Oh, my,” Crane said. He reached out as Sumi hurried to hug him. “Let me look at you.”

  She stepped back from their brief embrace. She wore a black jumpsuit and hiking boots and looked sexy. She had aged well: A lifetime of controlling her emotions had left her with a remarkably unlined face. In fact, Crane realized, Sumi was beautiful—all the more so because her eyes were friendlier than he’d ever seen them, more intimate in their gaze. He nodded, once he was able to discern that she was healthy and quite comfortable with herself.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, as she moved to hug an already-strapped-in Burt Hill.

  “I heard you were coming, so I popped over,” she said. “We’re practically neighbors.”

  A loud rumble bellowed out of the earth. The building began shaking, and Crane grabbed Sumi. He pulled her to the wall to help her strap in.

  “Hang on!” he yelled. “It’s going to be a rough one!”

  The building shook violently from side to side, S waves, big ones shivering the mantle. It didn’t stop, it intensified, P waves joining the assault, up-and-down waves making the earth heave.

  Crane grabbed the facade before him with a still-strong right hand, his gaze locked on the city twenty stories below. People were scattering, everyone forgetting mock heroic plans in the face of catastrophe. They ran, falling, back toward the firebreak. Huge rumbling fissures opened in the streets and the whole group of naked Rockers disappeared into the bowels of the Beast.

  The shaking intensified, entire blocks of buildings simply falling over where the ground turned liquid. The smashing of glass and concrete as buildings fell mixed with the rumble of the EQ in an overpowering wall of noise. A cloud of dust rose from demolished structures and spread across the city.

  The explosions started, the temblor only thirty seconds old. Bridges and overpasses fell, dumping cars full of last-minute evacs into empty space, spilling people and automobiles across the crumbling cityscape.

  And then the fires began.

  Ninety seconds passed and still the ground rolled and pitched, the firebreak creaking beneath them. Thirty feet away, the helo that had brought them bounced itself to the side of the building, then pitched over the edge.

  “I told you, Crane,” Hill said. “We’re right in the damned middle of it again.”

 
; “And it’s great,” Crane said low, his insides burning, alive! He could feel himself surge with the Beast’s power, his enemy putting life back into him. He hadn’t felt this good in years.

  “Look at Tokyo Bay,” Sumi said, taking his bad arm, grasping hard.

  The Bay was drained, empty, the ugly jagged scar of the trench evident several miles out in the mudhole.

  “That wind,” Hill said.

  “The firestorm’s creating a vacuum, consuming all the oxygen around it,” Crane said loudly, above the noise. “That wind is just the air rushing back in to fill the space.”

  The shaking had slowed. But the firestorm was moving closer to them, eating Tokyo a block at a time.

  “Feel the heat?” Sumi said, her hands in front of her face, the fire now an unbroken line ten miles long and two miles wide. It roared toward them, a mile and closing, as an aftershock jerked them sideways.

  The smoke was thick, Crane’s blood hotter than the inferno he faced. The fire, huge and unrelenting, rolled like an ocean in shimmering waves that crashed and broke, leaping up like bright orange surfspray.

  They were sweating, all of them, as the water cannons came on, pumping sea water under pressure, a wall of water to match the wall of fire. A thick spray of water refracted the bright orange, producing countless minirainbows in the midst of conflagration. One of the cannons was pointed straight up, the water spraying over the top of the building, cooling them, drenching their legs before hitting drainholes and arcing back out toward the fire. The same drama was being enacted along the entire firebreak. Shirahega was the city’s only hope.

  The temperature was up, way up. Burt ripped off his mask and coughed. “Are you okay?” Crane called into the man’s ear.

  Burt hacked and spit. “Hell, I told you I could never go around in a space helmet… didn’t I? But I can take it as long as you can!”

  Sumi was giddy with it, laughing. “You’re high octane one hundred percent!” she screamed, water streaming out of her hair, eye makeup running down her face.

  “I didn’t invent it… I just predicted it,” he called in return, feeling the heat on his clothes. Everyone’s face was blood red.

  There were exclamations farther down the line. People looked up. Crane followed suit. The sky was orange above him, the fire attempting to leapfrog completely over the break to pick its targets on the other side.

  “The trees’ll go like candles!” Crane said, unbuckling and sloshing away from the southern view to watch the building’s north side, Sumi and Burt right behind him.

  He looked north, half the city already rubble there, many small fires burning off into the smoke-shrouded horizon. Below, the evacuation park was jammed with people who’d somehow survived the temblor and the firestorm. Two trees were already blazing from airborne embers, and people lay huddled on the ground to escape the smoke. It was the same way everyone had died on Edo a hundred and twenty years earlier.

  He looked back at the firebreak. Most of the water cannons jutted from the edifice of the building itself, but three large ones, the size of howitzers, were buttressed on the roof. He looked at Hill. “Think you can handle one of those things?” he asked.

  “If it’s mechanical, I’m its daddy,” Hill responded, ripping off his mask to spit again.

  “Take the southeast cannon,” Crane said. “Turn it around, onto the park. Go! Now!”

  Sumi followed him dutifully to the southwest cannon, the one pointed straight up. It was massive and heavy enough to not buckle under the intense water pressure. Two large handles jutted from the back of the machine. Crane and Sumi each took a handle and jerked, slowly bringing the cannon down and around, arcing the water over the facade to spray the park.

  The Japanese on the roof ran to the north wall and gazed over. Then they turned around and politely applauded.

  A tired Crane and Sumi Chan leaned over the wall and stared down into the park at medtechs smoothly working triage and giving emergency care. Hill was off somewhere, trying to arrange transport out of the damage zone since they’d lost their helo.

  “How long since we’ve seen each other?” Crane asked. It was fascinating to him, but he had no problem accepting Sumi as a woman.

  “I don’t know… fifteen years, or so. I was still living as a man then.”

  “With Paul.” Crane smiled. “We all assumed you were homosexual. You see Kate anymore?”

  “She came out to visit a few months ago. Stayed a week. Same old Kate. She was in the process of divorcing her fourth husband and acquiring her fifth.”

  “The one fixed point in an everchanging universe,” Crane said, wondering why Sumi really had come to see him.

  “How is the worldwide water situation?” she asked. “I assume the Foundation is still involved in the radiation cleanup projects.”

  “We provide daily updates after receiving word of what’s being done, then counterbalance with suggestions for the next day. Some of it is quite remarkable. There’s a fellow in Colorado, America, and one in Argentina who are diverting underground rivers, bringing them to the surface and controlling their flow to avoid hot areas. Things are still bad, obviously, and rationing is still necessary, but I think we may hit turnaround in a half dozen or so years.”

  “How about the Mideast?”

  “Still hot as lava,” he returned. She was good, professional. “Now tell me why the hell you’re really here.”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling. She patted his hand. “I have two propositions for you.”

  “Kate Masters’ visit wasn’t just a vacation, was it?” he said. “She was lobbying you, wasn’t she? Successfully, I guess.”

  “Correct on all counts,” Sumi answered, the smile leaving her face. “Crane, right now America is on the verge of a race war. There’s fighting all along the border with New Cairo. The issue of Abu Talib has dwarfed everything—logic, life itself.”

  “I don’t want to hear this,” Crane said. “And when Burt walks back over here, he’s not going to want to hear it, either.”

  “Burt will hear exactly what you want him to hear,” she said.

  “Was that supposed to be offensive?”

  “No, truthful. He idolizes you. You know that. He’d listen to me if you’d tell him to. Let me make my pitch before you throw me out. For old times’ sake, huh?”

  “I find this entire discussion unsettling,” Crane said. “Make it fast.”

  “Okay. The remnants of leadership in Washington have no idea of what they’ve got in their jail. Kate should have pardoned Talib years ago, but she didn’t because of her respect for your feelings. Now she regrets it. The people in charge think he’s some sort of monster who’ll lead New Cairo on an Islamic bloodbath across America. The Muslims think America is holding Talib as an affront to them, an attack on their religious leader.”

  “Newcombe… religious?”

  “His wife is the only one who talks to him. She keeps bringing all these messages, the NOI religious protocol, back from her visits. She’s very powerful and persuasive. People believe her.”

  “And Kate wants to force it into the open?”

  “She’s got a lot of pull still, even though she’s retired from politics.”

  “Yeah, I see how she’s retired.”

  “Just listen. She wants both you and Burt to testify. People who really knew Talib. Your voice would be the loudest in the country raised in favor of his release. We both know that Dan wouldn’t lead any revolts or anything.”

  “I watched him shoot Burt. He fronted the raid that killed my family. I believe he’s capable of anything.”

  “I’ve gone through all the disks, all the history of the event,” Sumi said. “From everything I’ve seen, he went on that raid to try to stop you, but also to prevent bloodshed. His shooting Burt was pure self-defense. He’d have gotten his head bashed in if he hadn’t.”

  “Don’t you understand,” he said slowly, sounding out each word, “that however many people died in this mess today, howe
ver much damage was done, it wouldn’t have happened if Newcombe hadn’t led those people into the Project? By this point in time, the planet would have been earthquake-free.”

  “You’re only speculating,” she said. “You have no idea if the rest of the world would have gone along with your scheme.”

  “I hate him,” Crane said.

  “This is bigger than you and him. People’s lives—”

  “I’m not in the lifesaving business anymore,” he interrupted.

  “Then what were we doing with that water cannon?” she asked.

  He looked at her, wishing he could share with her, somehow let her feel the pain that still ate him alive every time he saw a toddler, every time he saw a husband and wife holding hands. The tears came unbidden. “He ruined my life, S-Sumi,” he choked out. “I don’t want to s-stir it up. I don’t want to th-think about it. Can’t it just be left alone to work itself out without me?”

  “No. It can’t be worked out without you. And you’re the one who doesn’t understand. Facing this won’t just release Abu Talib. It will release Lewis Crane also.”

  “Release me to what?”

  “Maybe peace… finally.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “You said you had two propositions.”

  She held his gaze. “I want you to marry me,” she said without inflection.

  “What?”

  “Paul was a substitute for you,” she said, “the years I spent living with, then trying to get rid of, him were hard, destructive. I’m fifty-two years old and have no understanding of how to meet or approach men.”

  “Are you saying you’re in love with me?” Crane asked.

  “I always have been… for almost twenty-five years now.”

  Crane sighed and slid down the wall to a sitting position, sloshing right into the water still pooled there. “It’s been so long since I even thought that way,” he said. “Since Lanie, there’s been… there’s been nobody.”

  “Are you ready for the grave, then?” she asked. “Are you already dead? Because if there’s the least spark of life in you, you’ll think seriously about my offer. I understand your work and I understand you. I know this is difficult. You’ve always thought of me as a man. But I’m not. I never was. I was an actress playing a role. I love you, Crane. And I’m so damned scared of getting old and dying without sharing my life with you that I’m willing to sit here in the water and make a fool out of myself to be near you. I’m not ashamed of it.”