Richter 10

by Arthur C. Clarke

  He sat with a young man named Tennery in his office, embarrassed that the display on the wall seemed gaudy, ostentatious. He spoke simply to hold Tennery’s attention and keep him from looking around. “Why do you want to join our little colony?” he asked.

  “I’ve heard that it’s… different,” Tennery said, curly red hair falling to his shoulders. He was twenty-four years old. “I heard that you’re trying to build a world where logic speaks loudly, where people think before they act.” He laughed. “I’ve always wanted to live in a world like that, because it seems to me I’m surrounded by maniacs.”

  “True enough,” Crane said, his gaze drifting to the view of the globe in the main room. It was turning slowly, lights and whistles signifying geologic movement on San Andreas. “You’re a botanist?”

  “No,” the man said. “A farmer. Just a plain, simple farmer. I do have my agricultural degree, but—”

  “But it’s useless as far as real farming goes?”

  The man nodded. “Getting up at 5:30 in the morning takes something more than a degree. Besides, I’m interested in Moondust.”

  “Yes. I know. Sterile soil, totally devoid of any organic compounds. Yet, when mixed with regular dirt….”

  “The Sea of Ingenuity dust I’ve been receiving from Charlestown has increased my corn production by nearly fifteen percent. I also hear you have a mix.”

  Crane smiled again. He liked this one a lot. “Yes. Delta dirt, Ganges dirt, Amazon dirt, Himalayan dirt. We’re mixing up to fifty different soils, looking for the best pH and natural nutrient balance. Interested?”

  “Am I?” The man looked at his hands, then back at Crane. “My wife wanted me to ask you something. We’ve been hearing there’s a lot of problems with water supply on the Moon—”

  “Not at Charlestown,” Crane said. “When the Islamic consortiums got control of all the shipping of water Moonside, they started using it as a blackmail device, rationing, threatening to cut it off if the Moon didn’t become an Islamic State. We had already anticipated such an eventuality and had been secretly mining Mars for permafrost. We now have a permanent, dependable shipping system from Mars, new water arriving every six weeks. We’re hoping we’ll have enough to sell to the other colonies to make some money and keep the region autonomous.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I should wish it to you. You’re the one who is going to live in Charlestown.”

  “You’re not going to be there?”

  “Not like you think.” Crane smiled. “Welcome aboard.”

  “So I’m accepted?”

  “You and your wife, Mona, and your two children.” He thought for a minute. “Lana and Sandy. We need people like you in the colony. I think eventually it will be the last refuge for humanity. As such, it should be represented by people who are decent, honest.”

  “We know very little about Charlestown.”

  “Intentional,” Crane said. “We’re not advertising. The right people tend to seek us out. In that way we’re kind of like a lighthouse.”

  “What are the rules?”

  “Be polite,” Crane said, “and live your life. We have no police, no jails, no courts. It’s been set up as a large family unit. Whatever earnings we generate go to the maintenance of the city itself. Whatever’s left is divided up. People seem satisfied with it. I don’t know, to tell you the truth. The city seems to be self-perpetuating, evolving its own way of life. I learned a long time ago that I don’t have all the answers. I meet the applicants. If I like them, they go up. If I don’t, they don’t. You’re the last.”

  “The last applicant?”

  Crane nodded. “The last that I’ll screen. You will bring the total to five thousand citizens. I’ve thrown the stew together. It’s up to you to cook it.”

  “You’ve got schools?”

  “All the comforts of home, though our schooling tends to be very old-fashioned. We teach kids to work their brains, not their pads. And I don’t know that religion plays a very large part in Charlestown life.”

  “My religion’s always been self-reliance,” Tennery said, standing. “When do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow,” Crane said, “from my complex in Colorado Springs. Pack as much as you can carry.”

  Burt Hill filled the doorspace. “Dammit, Crane. You haven’t packed a blinking thing yet.”

  “All in good time, Burt. Meet our newest citizen of Charlestown, Jackson Tennery.”

  “It’s on the darkside, you know,” Hill said, shaking hands with the man.

  “I know.”

  Hill cocked his head. “You’re as crazy as the rest of them up there,” he said, then looked again at Crane. “If you want to do that stupid teev show, we have to leave now.”

  “Good,” Crane said, standing also. “We’ll accompany Mr. Tennery to his helo.”

  They walked out of the office. The Foundation was a beehive of activity as scientists and workmen hurried around carrying boxed equipment and personal belongings. Mendenhall was evacuating. Within several hours, the debris of the Foundation would be part of Baja Island, a new addition to the map of the Pacific.

  They moved through the globe room, Crane stopping for one last look at the machine that encompassed all his dreams and all his frustrations. It had been Lanie’s. It had belonged to many others since then, including Sumi, who’d died two years ago of a genetically created cancer virus. The virus had been unleashed by the Brotherhood, the terrorist arm of the Religion of Cosmic Oneness—the Cosmies—who were seeking their own State free of the religious persecution of the world’s Moslems. The plague had killed nearly forty million people worldwide before mutating into a common cold germ, to which Crane had been immune because of his earlier experiences with the disease. Brother Ishmael inadvertently had saved his life.

  Sumi…. It was Sumi, ultimately, who’d made today possible with her work on the globe. It was Sumi who’d made him understand he didn’t have all the answers and that the pain of life wasn’t his alone to command. It was Sumi who’d come up with the idea that synthesized his entire life, that made today—3 June ’58—the culmination of all his dreams and hopes and expectations. If Lanie had been his great love, then Sumi Chan Crane had been his great teacher. She’d made his life, and his death, worthwhile.

  He’d completely rethought Charlestown because of Sumi’s forcing him to testify. He’d realized he was no smarter than anyone else when it came to telling people what to do. It had made all the difference.

  Their years together had been the best, the happiest of his life, and he felt doubly blessed for having known two women of remarkable character and insight, two women he’d loved dearly and had to let go of reluctantly.

  It was difficult to imagine sometimes that he had known Sumi for nearly fifty years and Lanie for less than five. Years compress like fault lines in the mind. While everything else changes, the mind remembers exactly what it wants to remember. A decade can be lost and a year seem like forever. When love is abruptly taken, love remains active.

  He’d learned, finally, how to relax under Sumi’s tutelage. He’d learned to sail and they’d taken up oceanography together. He’d seen Charlestown to completion, happily turning the running of it over to its citizens. He’d seen the radioactive cleanup of the water systems finally complete itself when Crane freighters hauled all the waste into a Moon orbit, then slingshot it toward the Sun. The things he’d seen, the things his mind had held, filled him up. No man could have asked for more and no longer did he feel plagued by the failure at the Salton Sea—only one of many things that had happened to him. One of many dreams.

  The years had passed quickly, but had left a million memories behind, enough for a king’s lifetime. What more could anyone ask?

  The globe was still operating and would continue to operate until the forces of Nature pulled it apart. The Foundation itself was being split between his Cheyenne Mountain headquarters and the Isle of Wight globe station, good, trained people left behind to carry on.


  They moved out of the mosque to stand on the flat plain of the Mendenhall Ledge, a continual surge of helos filling airspace around the Foundation. One thing he’d learned in life in seventy-one years was that no matter how far in advance a person knew about something, he would still wait until the last minute to take care of it.

  “Is all this really going to be gone later today?” Tennery asked, as they walked him to his rented helo.

  “Yes, it is,” Crane said, and a lifetime swept through him like a wave. “Gone but not forgotten. Life changes whether we want it to or not.”

  The man, excited, not giving a damn about California, climbed into the helo. “I can’t wait to talk to Mona. She’s really going to sky out. Is there anything you want me to tell them when I get up there? Any messages?”

  “Yeah,” Crane said. “Tell them to do the right thing.” He shut the man’s door and smiled at him. Then he turned and walked away, Hill hacking beside him.

  “You know you didn’t leave yourself enough time to pack,” the man said, leading Crane toward a passenger helo in the midst of the swarm.

  “That’s all right,” Crane said casually. “There’s nothing I need to hold on to.”

  “You’re in a hell of a good mood today. I figured today would be a bitch for you, was wonderin’ how I’d keep you glued together when you knew your dream was really over.”

  Crane put his arm around the big man’s shoulder. “Nothing’s ever over, Burt. The circles just spin smaller. Besides, I did everything I could to avert this catastrophe—everything.”

  “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  “Yes!” Crane answered emphatically. “Gloriously crazy. Today is just the beginning, Burt.”

  “The beginning of what?”

  “Stage two.” Crane winked.

  Hill shook his head. “I’ll get somebody to pack your stuff up while we’re gone,” he said, reaching the sleek, bulbous ship, climbing in to help Crane up.

  “Whatever.”

  The seats were plush, and Crane sank back into his, eyes still fixed on the Foundation compound, the chalets on the hills, the covered walkway from Lanie’s level to his. He’d never see these places again, yet felt no remorse. They’d live on in their own way.

  The ship rose smoothly into the air, its props silent as they angled toward Los Angeles. The sky was full of ships, hundreds of thousands of people getting out, heading to refugee camps in Oregon and Arizona. No matter how many times it was explained to the population that everything from the Imperial Valley north to San Francisco would be gone, most people still thought in terms of a quake they’d bounce back from, in terms of returning to their homes after the temblors were done.

  He wasn’t sure what the fate of Baja was to be. Cosmies in huge numbers were pouring into the area even as so many others left. They intended to declare Baja a free nation the moment it broke from the continent, an island republic belonging to them. It was even possible they could pull it off. There was no power structure in America that would try and stop them and the Islamic world was already crumbling under its own puffed-up weight as the remaining non-Islamic world forged defensive and economic alliances against them. New, streamlined power brokers were emerging from such places as Stockholm and Toronto. Islam had always been as much an emotional issue as an economic one. Once it had reached the limits of its fierce domination of the world, its members immediately began to squabble among themselves and wither as a group. He loved to watch the wheel turn.

  New Cairo was feeling the burn, too. Its relationship with the rest of America had soured as soon as America was able to forge non-Islamic alliances, and they’d had the expense of two costly wars with Central American Islamic States over trade issues.

  Abu Talib had taken religious and political control over New Cairo within a year of his release, following the assassination of Martin Aziz. As in the case of Ishmael Mohammed, Aziz’s murderer was never found. Talib’s path hadn’t crossed Crane’s since the hearing in which he’d been freed. The times Crane had seen the man on the teev, Talib had been quiet and soft-spoken, talking of unity and brotherhood. His wife seemed to do the lion’s share of the political work, Talib content to stay in the background. Crane thought about Newcombe—not Talib—a lot these days. And he regretted that he hadn’t contacted the man and made peace with him. His next project was one that would probably appeal a great deal to Dan.

  The helo passed above the old War Zone, a regular part of the city again, and moved toward Sunset Boulevard and the KABC studios where he was supposed to give his interview, direct from the heart of the conflagration. Cars and helium floaters clogged the roadways both in and out of town, Crane wondering if those escaping had enough time at this point, for even as the helo set down in the parking lot, he knew the compression on the fault near Mt. Pinos was straining on the edge of rupture, the Imperial Fault also rupturing, beginning the process of rending California in twain from the Gulf of California through the Salton Sea and the San Jacinto Fault all the way to San Francisco. Meanwhile, the Emerson Fault near Landers would tear under the Salton Sea and begin a rupturing process that would stretch six hundred miles to Mt. Shasta, beginning the clockworks that would put Nevada and Arizona on the shores of the Pacific in the next few years. He wouldn’t be around for those. He’d had his shot and was more than ready to leave the world to—what had been Tennery’s word?—maniacs. He liked that. The maniacs.

  They stepped out of the helo and into the madness of an open city. All around them, looters smashed store windows. Those too poor or stupid to get out were having a party to celebrate their inheritance of the city. Sirens were sounding, but no authority figures could be seen. The city was sitting on the cusp of its own eternity.

  “You really wanted to come here,” Hill said, “to see this?”

  “I want to wallow in it,” Crane said, walking toward the building. A car out of control careened past them to smash against a brick wall, throwing the driver into the windshield. “My whole life has been tied to this day.”

  “You don’t have nothin’ nuts in mind, do you?” Hill asked as Crane moved through the doors.

  “Depends on your definition of nuts.”

  They entered into the cool darkness of the small, one-story building. Crane was pumped up, excited. Ever since the day Sumi had died, he’d been counting down until today. She’d have been proud of him.

  A man with a cam-eye where a real one should have been hurried up to them in the empty lobby. He wore a shiny, lime-green plastic suit with ruffled shirt and gold ascot.

  “You’re Crane, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “My name’s Abidan. Quite a show you’ve cooked up here.” He was sweating and seemed nervous, shaky.

  “I don’t make them,” Crane said. “Are you staying behind?”

  “That’s what journalists do, sir. They stay behind.”

  “That’s what geologists do, too, son. Let’s get on with it.”

  “We’re going to broadcast from back here,” Abidan said, leading them through a ghost studio, devoid of people, full of bleeping equipment. “This is a main news webset. We have uplink capabilities here to forty-seven hundred news distribution points worldwide and I’m going to be juicing to all of them.”

  He opened the door for them into a small studio, a living room setup surrounded by black curtains. The lighting was somber.

  Hill gasped when they walked into the room. “Son of a bitch,” he said. Seated at one of the chairs in the living-room set was an ancient-looking Abu Talib, dressed in his usual black suit, minus the fez. Talib stood up.

  “Just because we’re old, boy, don’t mean we can’t whip you,” Hill said, Crane putting out a hand to silence him.

  “It’s all right, Burt. In fact, it’s perfect. Like old times.” His excitement grew. It was coming together—and without him even having to work at it. Dreams really did come true.

  He moved across the empty floor to the set. Hand extended,
Abu Talib, seeming hundreds of years old, stood and smiled warmly. “It is good to see you, old friend,” he said, shaking Crane’s hand.

  “It’s good to see you, too…. What do I call you? Your Eminence or Mr. Talib or—”

  “Call me Dan.” He smiled. “I think it’s the most comfortable thing for both of us.”

  “Here it is, ladies and gentlemen,” Abidan said, his cam-eye glaring at them, “the meeting between two great enemies. One man who wanted to save California. One who was willing to kill to stop him.”

  “Not very cordial,” Talib said, shaking his head at Abidan as if he were a naughty child. “We’ve been had, Crane.” He nodded in acknowledgment at the figure several feet away. “Burt.”

  “Dr. Crane,” Abidan said, goading, “how does it feel to be standing here on the eve of the cataclysm with the man who destroyed your life?”

  “If Mr. Abidan wants a fight, I think he’s going to be very disappointed.” Crane laughed; smiling, Hill applauded softly.

  Newcombe’s brows knit deeply. “Mr. Abidan has already been less than gracious,” he said quietly. “I would think that if he wanted any kind of interview at all, he’d shut up and let us talk. Don’t worry.” He grinned at Abidan, the wrinkles in his weathered face folding upon one another like accordion pleats. “We’ll be through soon enough.”

  “Why did you come here?” Crane asked Talib. “You have a country to run.”

  “That we’ll talk about after the camera’s off. May we sit, please?” he asked, motioning to a chair on the set. “My back’s not what it used to be.”

  “My everything’s not what it used to be,” Crane said, sitting down. “And I’m dying to talk to you. I have a proposition for you.”

  Newcombe sat back, his deep, sunken eyes lighting up. “A proposition,” he said. “I’m intrigued.”

  Abidan started for the third seat, Newcombe waving him off. “Burt, come up here and sit with us. Let that young man stand… though I bet he won’t be standing when the EQ hits.”