Engines Of God к-1 Page 13

"Okay. Hang on. Braces coming."

  While he waited, George thrust his lamp forward. This could be the inner sanctum of the military chapel, the chamber in which priests prepared to conduct services, where they perhaps stored their homilies and their sacred vessels.

  "Can you see anything?" Tri called.

  Yes. There was something, a piece of furniture probably, to his right, half-buried, just out of reach. It had been metal once. "Something," George said. "A washstand, maybe. Or a cabinet. Can't tell."

  Tri moved forward with a pair of braces. "Let's get these up first," he said.

  "Just a second." George inched into the space. He was acutely conscious of the weight of the Temple hanging over him. "I think it's a machine."

  "In here? What kind of machine?"

  "I don't know. But there is a housing. Wait." The hole was too narrow for him. He pulled back, scraped out silt and loose rock, and tried again.

  "That's enough, George," said Tri. "Let's do it right."

  He got his shoulders through the entrance, and pushed forward. "There's a metal framework here. With, uh—Hell, Tri, I don't know what to make of this." He carried a camera on his left forearm. "Maggie, are you there?" he asked through the commlink. "Can you see this?"

  "Maggie's coming," said Andi, who was watch officer.

  He struggled to get closer.

  "What do you have, George?" It was Maggie. He knew she'd be straining to see the object on the big screen.

  "Don't know." He was in now, and stood over the device. Metal bars and plates were connected to a system of springs and pulleys. Everything was heavily corroded.

  "Shine the lamp to your left," Maggie said. "Look, there's a tray." There were small objects that looked like stones in the tray. "See if they're loose," she said.

  He took one out, dabbed at it carefully, and held it close to the camera. There was a dark smudge on it.

  Maggie was silent for several moments. Then her voice went very soft. "Goddammit, George, I think you've found us a printing press!"

  "Well, good," said George.

  "Yes." Her voice was ecstatic, and he heard her clap. "Show me the frame."

  He did.

  "Closer," she urged. And then: "It's got some sort of typesetting arrangement. It's filled with type."

  "What language?" said Andi. "Can you tell?"

  "Not yet. But we might be able to restore enough of it." He listened to her breathe. "It might be the jackpot."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Place like this would need multilingual prayer-cards. Or whatever. If there's a Rosetta stone here, this could be //. George, haul it out."

  Henry was napping in the community room when his commlink chimed. He came immediately awake. Henry lived these days in constant fear of disaster. He knew he was violating safety procedures, risking his people, risking his career. Not good, but he knew that history was watching him. It was not a time for caution. "What is it, Andi?"

  "Kosmik on the line. You want to listen? Or take the call?"

  "I'm busy," he said. "You do the talking. If necessary, tell them you'll check with me and get back. And, Andi?"

  "Yes?"

  "Don't give them any trouble. Okay?" He shook the last of the sleep out of his brain, got up, and walked wearily downstairs to Operations.

  Henry loved Quraqua. He loved its quiet mountain ranges, and its long wandering rivers; its vast silences and its abandoned cities. The ancient walls and towers rose out of deep forests, bordered great plains, embraced harbors. Many of the more recent ruins remained in good condition: one could not stroll through them without anticipating that the dusty fountains would one day flow again, the lights come on, and the avenues fill with traffic. Quraqua was a place, in Richard Wald's memorable phrase, "on the shore of time."

  He had been here sixteen years, had married two of his wives here, one of them atop the Golden Stair at Eskiya. He had gone back to Earth only when necessary, to fight with the Second Floor about funding, or to take on those who wanted to rearrange his priorities. He was a blue-collar archeologist, an excavator, a detail man, tough, competent, good to work for. Not brilliant, in the way that Richard was brilliant. But solid. Methodical. If one could say that Richard Wald was curious about the inscription at Oz, it was equally arguable that Henry was driven by it. And not because of some deeper mystery behind the arcane symbols, but because he understood he was locked away from fundamental truth, essential to understanding this thing he loved so much.

  Andi was waiting for him. As he arrived, she pressed Transmit. "This is the Temple. Go ahead, Kosmik."

  The monitor glowed, and Harvey Sill's image appeared. "Dr. Jacobi, please. Director Truscott wishes to speak with him."

  "Dr. Jacobi is not available. Director Truscott may speak with me if she wants. I'll be happy to relay her message. Or if you prefer, I can have Dr. Jacobi return the call."

  "Oh, for God's sake." Melanie Truscott replaced Sill. "We don't have time for bureaucratic nonsense, young lady." She paused, and lifted her eyes above Andi, as if she were searching the room. "Henry, I know you're there. Please talk to me. We have an emergency."

  Henry sighed, and walked around in front of the screen. "Hello, Melanie," he said wearily. "What seems to be the problem?"

  "We've had an accident."

  Henry glanced sharply at Andi, a gesture delivered primarily for Truscott's benefit. "What happened? Do you need help?"

  "No. But you might be in some danger."

  "What do you mean?"

  "We lost control of one of the snowballs. An orbiting piece of ice. It fell into the Yakata three minutes ago."

  He smothered his anger. "Where?"

  "Roughly sixteen hundred kilometers south of you. It impacted at seventy-two point five south, one-fifteen point two west."

  Andi brought up a map of the region, and marked the location.

  Truscott's eyes fastened on Henry. "A tsunami has formed," she said.

  "Melanie, you are a bitch."

  "I'm sorry you think so, Henry. But I hardly think that's the issue." She looked guilty. She tried to stare him down, but the fire had gone out of her eyes.

  "How big is the wave?"

  "We don't have a measurement yet."

  "Please let me know when you do."

  "I will. And, Henry—I'm sorry about this. If we can help—"

  "Yes. Of course. Temple out." He broke the link. "We'll need to evacuate the Temple. How fast do tidal waves travel?"

  Andi was already consulting the data banks:

  TSUNAMI. (SEA WAVE, SEISMIC WAVE, TIDAL WAVE.) AN OCEAN WAVE RESULTING PROM AN UNDERSEA EARTHQUAKE, VOLCANIC ERUPTION, OR OTHER SUBMARINE DISTURBANCE. THE TSUNAMI MAY REACH OVERWHELMING DIMENSIONS, AND HAS BEEN KNOWN TO TRAVEL ENTIRELY AROUND THE EARTH. (Cf., THE ARGENTINEAN PLATE SLIPPAGE, 2011.) IT PROCEEDS AS AN ORDINARY GRAVITY WAVE. THE WATER FORMING TSUNAMIS TENDS TO BUNCH UP BEHIND THE WAVE WHILE IT IS TRAVELING THROUGH DEEP WATER. ON APPROACHING SHALLOW AREAS, VELOCITY DECREASES, BUT THE WAVE WILL INCREASE SHARPLY IN HEIGHT. LOW-LYING AREAS MAY BE ENGULFED. TSUNAMIS DO NOT RESULT IN ANY WAY FROM TIDAL ACTION. THE POPULAR TERM "TIDAL WAVE" IS A MISNOMER.

  She scanned ahead.

  VELOCITY OF THE WAVE EQUALS THE SQUARE ROOT OF GRAVITATIONAL ACCELERATION TIMES THE DEPTH OF THE WATER.

  "Do we have the sea depths south of here?" Henry asked.

  Andi shook her head. "I don't think they've been measured very exactly." Her fingers danced across the keyboard. "Best guess is that it will be traveling at five or six hundred kilometers per hour. But it's only a guess."

  "Son of a bitch." She listened to Henry's harsh breathing.

  Hutch was riding her cart, carrying six containers toward the sub bay when Henry broke in on the common channel. "We've got an emergency," he said softly.

  She turned a comer and saw Eddie Juliana coming out of one of the storerooms. He was scribbling on a lightpad.

  Henry outlined the situation briefly. Hutch thought it was probably a false alarm, a m
aneuver in a war of nerves. But Eddie was staring at her, eyes wide.

  "We don't know yet how fast it's coming," Henry continued, "or where it is, or how big it is. But it could be here in a couple of hours. Everyone is to leave the Temple. Return immediately to Seapoint."

  "My God," said Eddie, "we'll lose it all."

  George broke in: "Henry, we're in the middle of something."

  "Now, George. I want everybody back here within thirty minutes. Please acknowledge to Andi. Don't worry about securing equipment. Frank, what's the status on the sub?"

  Carson was enraged. "It's loaded. We were just getting ready to head for the pier."

  "Forget it. Is-Tommy with you?"

  "Yes."

  Eddie climbed onto the cart. "Get going," he said to Hutch.

  "Tommy." Henry sounded calm. "Take the sub and head straight out to sea. Go as far as you can."

  "Why not leave it where it is?" asked Carson.

  "Because it's safer in deep water. We don't know what'll happen here. Frank, I need you and Hutch to find the wave. I want to know where it is, how big it is, and how fast it's coming."

  Carson acknowledged.

  "One more thing. It's going to be hard to see. Tidal waves are small when they're in deep water. Maybe only a meter or two high. But it's long. There might be a kilometer or two between the crest and the trough."

  Hutch and Eddie rolled into the sub bay.

  "I'm not sure what constitutes safe cover for something like this," Henry continued. "If we have time, I'm going to get everybody ashore, out of the way of this goddam thing."

  "Then you'll need the sub," Carson said.

  "It'll take too long. We'd need time to unload it, and then a couple of trips to get everyone out. And then another three quarters of an hour to get to high ground. No, we'll use the jetpacks if there's time. You find out what the situation is. Where is it? How bad? When will it get here?"

  "Don't forget," Andi added, "to get both shuttles away from the dock."

  Eddie jumped off the side of the cart as Carson closed the cargo hatch. "What are you doing?" he asked.

  Carson blinked at the question. "Getting underway."

  "You've got room for more." He was trying to direct Hutch to pull closer to the sub.

  "Forget it, Ed."

  "Anyway," added Hutch, "the sub's going out to meet a tidal wave. Last thing you want is a lot of ballast. It's probably already overloaded."

  That brought a worried reaction from Tommy. "Maybe we should unload some of this stuff."

  "Listen," said Eddie, "this place might get wrecked. We've got to save what we can."

  "Seapoint'll be fine," said Carson, but he threw a worried glance toward Hutch. "Let's get going."

  Before they were clear of the base, Hutch had used her remote to start Alpha inland. Five minutes later, she and Carson rode the Temple shuttle into a dripping sky.

  Below, Tommy, frightened and alone, headed out to sea.

  George, deep in the Lower Temple, was also reluctant to adjust his priorities. "Henry," he pleaded, "we can have it out of here in an hour."

  Maggie, wherever she was, joined in: "Henry, this is critical. We can't take a chance on losing it."

  They were on the common channel. Hutch had been distracted, hadn't heard enough to know what it was. "We may not have an hour," Henry said. "Don't argue with me; I've got too much to do. George, get back here."

  Hutch stared at the ocean. It looked peaceful enough. "This kind of screw-up," she said to Carson, "intentional or not, should cost her her career."

  "Who?"

  "Truscott."

  "That's a joke. We're politically unpopular right now. They'll give her a medal."

  Scanners are specialized. Those mounted on the Temple shuttle, intended for archeology, were designed to penetrate subsurface objects and provide detail at short range. What Hutch needed was the broad sweep of her own instruments. "We took the wrong shuttle," she said.

  "Too late now. It'll have to do."

  It was still snowing.

  Hutch looked at her screens. "The wave might be only a meter or so high. I'm not sure that's going to show up."

  Carson frowned. "What if we go lower?"

  She responded by taking it down on the deck. But she kept air speed at three hundred until Carson grumbled. "We've got to make better time than this."

  "We won't find it at all if we aren't careful. There are a lot of waves out there."

  Carson shook his head. "This drives me right up the wall. Tidal waves are supposed to be easy to see. You sure Henry knows what he's talking about?"

  "He's your boss. What do you think?"

  Richard was helping Janet pack rations. The rest of the Academy team trooped in, in twos and threes. Henry plowed back and forth through the community room, head bent, hands locked behind his back.

  Carson's voice came over the link. "We're at one hundred kilometers. Nothing yet."

  Tri and George came in. That made thirteen people present. All accounted for.

  "Okay, people," Henry said. "Now that we're all here, I think you should know what we intend to do. Let me say first that I think Seapoint will be safe. But there's no way to be sure. If we have sufficient time, we'll evacuate. Karl has brought up some light cable. We'll form a human chain, and use the jets to go ashore. Once there we'll head immediately up the pass. There's accessible high ground there, and we should be able to get well out of harm's way within a half hour or so after we get to the beach."

  "How long," asked Andi, "is 'sufficient time'?"

  "Two hours," he said. "If we don't get two hours to clear out, we'll stay here."

  Art Gibbs stood. He looked uncertain and nervous. "Maybe we should put this to a vote, Henry."

  Henry's eyes hardened. "No," he said. "No votes. I won't have anyone killed over democratic principles."

  "Maybe there is no wave," said Carson. "Maybe it's a gag."

  "Could be," Hutch said.

  Henry's voice broke through the gloom. "Nothing yet, Frank?"

  Carson looked pained. "Negative, Henry. Everything's calm out here."

  "I don't think we're going about this right," said Henry. "You're moving too slowly. If it's in close it won't matter if you find it because we'll ride it out here anyway. What we need to know is whether it's far enough away to allow us time to get to shore. Why not take it up to top speed? If you find it far enough out, we're in business. If not, nothing lost."

  "No," said Hutch. "I don't know much about tsunamis, but I do know they come in packs. Even if we hustled out and found a wave, we couldn't be sure there weren't others in close. We're not looking for one wave. We're looking for the nearest."

  At two hundred kilometers, they ran out from under the storm. The sea was choppy, moonlit, restless. Icebergs drifted everywhere.

  They flew on and watched the screens and the ocean. They began to sense that Henry had also begun to hope it was a false alarm.

  In the glow of their navigation lights, an enormous black fluke rose out of the water. "Whale?" she asked.

  "No whales on Quraqua." Carson looked down. "It has to be a fish. But I don't know that much about local wildlife." Then, without changing his tone, he said, "There's the wave."

  It was long and straight, a ripple extending unbroken toward the horizon. It was not high, perhaps two meters. And not at all ominous. Just a surge of water trailing a black, polished wake. "You sure?" she asked.

  "Yeah. That's it."

  "Henry, this is Hutch. We've got it."

  "Where?"

  "Four hundred kilometers. It's moving at five-fifty."

  "Okay," he said. "We'll stay here."

  "Yeah. For what it's worth, it doesn't look bad."

  Tommy Loughery was running on the surface. He had heard them pass overhead, outbound, although he'd seen nothing in the clouds.

  "Tommy." Andi's voice.

  "Go ahead, Andi."

  "You heard everything?"

  "Sure did."
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  "When it gets near, go deep. It should be easy to get below the turbulence."

  "I will," he said. "Good luck."

  "You too. But I think we'll be okay."

  He agreed. He'd seen the pictures transmitted from the shuttle, and it now seemed to him like a needless panic. His scanners were watching for the wave. If it grew enough to become a hazard, he would have plenty of time to get down. Truth was, he was grateful to spend a few hours in the storm, watching the snow come down, listening to the sounds of the ocean. The Temple had become claustrophobic, and oppressive, and grim. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but he was almost glad that Kosmik had pushed them off. He'd been here only a semester, and he was scheduled for another. It had begun to seem endless. Better to get back to a world filled with women and lights and old friends and good restaurants. It would not have helped his career to break his contract and leave early. But now, he could return to D.C., and take advantage of his field experience to land a teaching job. In the future he'd leave the long-distance travel to others.

  Because the craft was designed to lie low in the water, Tommy's sensors gave him good range only when he topped the crest of a wave. But that happened often enough to keep him aware of anything coming his way.

  He drifted, watching the sea and thinking about better days. After a while, he heard the shuttle return, and a few minutes later his sensors gave him an unusual blip at sea level. Range twenty-two kilometers. Decreasing very rapidly. "Andi."

  "Go ahead, Tommy."

  "I see it. Estimate speed five hundred. It just looks like a long wave."

  "Thanks, Tom. Take the sub down."

  "I'm forty kilometers out. And diving." But he waited on the surface. It did not appear dangerous. He'd seen bigger along the Carolina coast. He maneuvered the sub until he had the prow pointed directly at the surge, and then he moved slowly forward.

  The blue line on his screens grew.

  Lightning flickered silently overhead.

  He turned on his spotlights, but he could see nothing except rain. The prow tilted abruptly, and he rode up. For a breathless moment, he thought he was going to be flipped. The sub pitched and righted itself and moved again through smooth water. "No sweat," he said, under his breath.

  "Look at that son of a bitch," murmured Carson.