Richter 10

by Arthur C. Clarke

  With that, he turned and strode quickly out of the mosque.

  Lanie moved to Crane, put a hand on his good arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have blurted out—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Crane said, watching Newcombe leave the building. “He would have found out soon enough anyway. I’ll be going public.”

  He idly reached out and patted her hand. Lanie feared that this might be the last quiet moment of their lives.

  Looking down on the Zone from the roof of the two-story warehouse Brother Ishmael had converted to his home, Newcombe felt as though he’d stepped into the past.

  The inner city was clean but crowded, people everywhere on the streets. There were no teevs on the buildings, no projected dinosaurs or camheads running around desperately looking for the visual that would change their lives.

  Young children were parading the streets, though, all carrying weapons as the onlookers cheered them on. Newcombe was uncomfortable with the weapons.

  Above, blue lightning crackled across the black top of the Zone, a protective electronic jam for a city within a city. They existed inside an electric cocoon totally cut off from the white man’s world. Looking at the huge numbers of children and young adults, he concluded that over half the population of the War Zone had probably never even seen the outside world.

  He sat with Ishmael, Khadijah, and Martin Aziz. They watched a small teev showing the scene just outside of the gates, in the cleared area that stood as a free fire zone. Several hundred Muslim children were out there charging the FPF positions, throwing rocks and chunks of concrete. The FPF responded with low-frequency infrasound, meant to disrupt the thinking processes, and with nausea gas. The children were going down, writhing and crying, a show for all the world to see.

  “Why don’t you bring them back in?” Newcombe said, “before they’re taken away… or worse. They’re just kids.”

  “They’re martyrs to Islam,” Ishmael said quietly. “Their suffering will open the hearts of the people to our cause. They are the first wave of our Jihad.”

  “What’s the second wave?”

  “My brother is talking about bombs, about terrorism, about killing,” Martin Aziz said.

  “My brother does not have the heart for revolution,” Ishmael said.

  “You’re wrong,” Aziz said. “It’s the stomach I lack. I believe that cycles of killing and revenge and more killing will add years to our struggle.”

  “And what has inactivity brought us?” Khadijah asked.

  “I’m not speaking of inactivity,” Aziz said, Newcombe listening to a sibling patter that was as natural to this family as breathing. “Brother Daniel’s more considered approach through the media has already brought us endorsements from prominent citizens.”

  “Endorsement.” Ishmael snorted, standing to look down over the rail to the streets below. The demonstrators, seeing their spiritual and political leader, broke out in a thunderous cheer, thousands of voices calling his name.

  Smiling, Ishmael turned back to Aziz. “And what has my approach brought?” he asked. “In the last month our spiritual brothers all over the world have risen up and demonstrated against Liang Int, boycotts are in progress in thirty countries, and the lands living under Islamic Law already have refused to do business with Liang until we are given a homeland. Our visibility and the suffering of our children have touched billions of hearts and, more importantly, we are hitting Liang in the pocketbook, the only place they feel pain.”

  Aziz simply shook his head and stared at the teev. “Behold the fruit of Islam,” he said sadly.

  A large FPF force had broken from behind their barricades and were wading with electric prods into the sea of vomiting children, indiscriminately swinging fifty thousand volts at anyone not quick enough to crawl out of the way.

  Grimacing, Ishmael turned from the teev. “That’s enough,” he said. “Call them back.”

  Aziz hit the pad. “Open the gates,” he said. “Now!”

  On the screen, Newcombe could see the two large gates to the secret city swinging open, the children retreating, screaming and crying, back into the Zone, FPF chasing them, swinging their clubs, stopping thirty feet short of the gates themselves. No one had ever tried to breach the Zone.

  The G retook their positions behind a six-foot wall a hundred yards away from the Zone. As they went, they dragged the bodies of dead or unconscious children with them.

  “Turn it off,” Ishmael said.

  “This is horrifying,” Newcombe said, his stomach in knots. “This can’t be allowed to go on.”

  “You’re right,” Ishmael said, patting him on the shoulder, “but all wars have casualties. Understand that. We may bicker among ourselves, but we must be willing to pay the price in blood to have our freedom.”

  There was nothing Newcombe felt he could say. He looked up at the crackling blue fires and realized the sky always looked the same here.

  “How do you power all this?” he asked as Brother Ishmael’s wife, Reena, served cardamom coffee and cookies. “It would take a focus the size of a small building to generate a web this big.”

  “You know the Pan Arab Friendship League building downtown?” Ishmael asked.

  “Of course I do,” Newcombe said. “It’s shaped and faceted like a jewel. People come—”

  “The whole building is a giant focus,” Khadijah said. “We’ve barely tapped its power.”

  “No one has ever suspected,” Ishmael said. “The cables that connect us are in the sewers. You will find something similar in every city that has a War Zone.”

  The cheering grew louder, and they all stood to watch. Leaning over the rail, Newcombe saw children as young as six, bloody and battered, some being carried on stretchers, returning home from battle. The procession stopped beneath them. The crowd roared now. Ishmael picked up a bullhorn to address them. Newcombe was startled to realize that most of these people probably didn’t have aurals. It was exciting in its very primitiveness.

  “Heroes of the Revolution,” Ishmael said, “we salute you! You are the future! You will live to raise your own children on your own land, with Allah as your guide! Go now… home to your parents who love you!”

  To thunderous applause Ishmael returned to his seat, delicately picked up his demitasse cup, and sipped. He sat back and said, “Soon, other cities, other War Zones will join the children’s revolution. We’ll schedule the riots in shifts so that there’s always one going on someplace.” He looked over at Newcombe. “Do you go with the others from the Foundation to Memphis?”

  “I leave tomorrow.”

  “There’s a small War Zone there,” Aziz said.

  “Yes, I know,” Newcombe said. “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.” He pulled out the EQ-eco he’d drawn up for the city of Memphis. The War Zone there was circled in black. “Do you see this area? It’s downtown Memphis.”

  Khadijah and Martin walked over and joined Ishmael in peering at the paper Newcombe held.

  “This jagged line shows an area where the earth will sink by as much as fifteen feet. Here, on the other side of the jagged line is an area of uplift that will tear the city in two.”

  “It goes right through the War Zone,” Khadijah said.

  Newcombe looked at her, their gazes holding. “Yes,” he said, then turned his head to Ishmael. “Do they have a way out of there?”

  “Underground… like we have here.”

  “Will they listen to me if I warn them?”

  “If I tell them to.”

  “Tell them.”

  “Where would they go?” Martin Aziz asked.

  They all stared at one another, Ishmael’s face slowly cracking into a wide smile.

  “They’ll go south,” Ishmael said. “Into Mississippi.”

  “The promised land,” Khadijah whispered, eyes alight. She clapped her hands.

  “They will be the first to make the pilgrimage to our new homeland,” Ishmael continued. “There
are hundreds of traditional Africk townships in Mississippi. Our people will locate in one of them and take it over. It will be our beachhead.”

  “Perfect.” Newcombe smiled, and Crane’s words from Sado fell out of his mouth unbidden. “What drama!”

  “As long as the government of Mississippi doesn’t object,” Aziz said.

  Khadijah laughed. “It certainly presents an interesting problem for Mr. Li,” she said.

  “If he should allow us to settle,” Ishmael said, on his feet now and starting to pace, “our people will immediately demand separatist status.”

  “And if he decides to stop the pilgrimage?” Aziz asked.

  Ishmael shook his head. “More martyrs. But I’ve noticed something about businessmen. They dislike killing consumers.”

  Aziz nodded, smiling slightly. “Brother Daniel has provided us the impetus to make our revolution active. I approve.”

  “Excellent!” Ishmael said, hugging everyone in turn. He laughed after kissing Newcombe on each cheek.

  “What is your boss going to think about all this?” he asked.

  “He’s too busy trying to blow up the world to notice,” Newcombe replied, surprised at how much anger came out in his voice.

  “What?” Ishmael asked.

  “You remember you told me the first time we met that Crane had a secret agenda?” Ishmael nodded. “Well, he does. He wants to fuse the continental plates by exploding fifty-three gigaton bombs at key points where the plates intersect. He wants to stop earthquakes completely.”

  “He shakes his fist at Allah,” Ishmael said. “Crane puts himself above everything. Just amazing.”

  “It’s only amazing in that he wants to,” Newcombe said. “I can’t imagine a government in the world that would consent to a scheme as obviously misguided as his.”

  “I cannot believe, Brother, that you underestimate Crane so very much,” Ishmael said, putting an arm around his sister, both of them staring hot fire at Newcombe. “He’s already come back from the dead and is returning to the scene of the crime. No, he’s probably more than capable of convincing people to go along with him.”

  Newcombe was puzzled. “You seem almost happy about it.”

  “I’ve been waiting for the connection,” Ishmael said, “the collision point between Crane and the Nation of Islam.” He shrugged broadly. “And now I have it. Our greatness will be tested. This is the mountain upon which Dr. Crane and I will take tea.”

  “I want to convert,” Newcombe said, watching amusement show on Ishmael’s face. All of them laughed.

  “You are a godless man,” Ishmael said. “Why would you wish to become Muslim?”

  “Why do you care? I believe you’d want me to convert if I worshipped inkblots. Correct?”

  “More than correct, Brother,” Aziz said quickly, rather than let the words pass through Ishmael’s mouth. “By having you go through a public conversion we’d reap major public relations benefits—an intelligent and successful man chooses NOI because he believes in it. The gentle side of Islam balances out the necessarily violent revolutionary side.”

  “It also makes him an insider,” Ishmael warned. “He would rapidly become our official voice without meaning to.” He pointed at Newcombe. “You haven’t yet told me why you wish to convert.”

  “No mystery,” Newcombe said. “I’m doing it for the Cause. And I’m doing it because it will put me in direct opposition to Lewis Crane when this bomb business becomes public. He’s a madman. I wish to stand against him as one of you.”

  “Liar,” Khadijah said. “It has something to do with that white woman.”

  “No,” Newcombe said, lowering his head. “Lanie and I are… no longer together. We haven’t been for some time.”

  The woman laughed and took a step closer to him. “So maybe you want to teach her a lesson, huh?”

  “God, I hope there’s more to me than that.”

  Rum bottle between his legs, Crane watched the satellite viddies of the Masada Option. He felt a shameful exhilaration at the monstrous beauty of thirty multimegaton bombs going off all at once. The blast cloud rose, amazingly high from the vantage point of outer space, its crown branching off and flattening out, spreading.

  It had been one of those stunning events in world history that forces everyone to remember where he or she was when it happened. Crane remembered that he’d been getting his first aural implanted at that moment. The news of Masada were the first sounds he’d heard through the device. He’d been horrified at first, in shock, along with the rest of the world. But things once done could not be changed, and he’d realized the inherent importance of Masada as field research for his studies on the relationship between nuclear testing and EQs.

  He’d been in a burn suit in Sudan by the next afternoon with a truckload of seismos. It was the day after that, standing in Saudi Arabia, that the notion of fusing the plates had come to him. The Rub Al Kali desert was a solid sheet of glass unbroken to the horizon. The intense heat had melted the sand. Under roiling gray clouds and thick rains of radioactive ash, he had skated on the desert.

  “Crane,” Lanie called. “You in there?”

  “Go away,” he said, taking a drink, watching the Masada cloud beginning to drift eastward, China and The Russia Corporation gradually disappearing beneath a haze of gray.

  “It was beyond belief,” Lanie said from right behind him, her voice soft. “I was twenty-two, starting grad school. I remember feeling cheated that I wouldn’t have the chance to inherit the world. There was speculation that everything might go. Plus, Jews were being killed in many places. It was scary.”

  “Is that when you became a Cosmie?”

  “No.” She laughed, moving around to sit beside him on the couch. “My father was Jewish by birth, not my mother, which left me nowhere in a matrilineal culture. I always remember my dad as a Cosmie. He converted when I was very young. Guess that’s why I gravitated that way. Cosmies are friendly enough folks, like Unitarians with vision. It didn’t stop me from losing a scholarship because they said I was Jewish, though.”

  “There was a lot of anger for awhile,” Crane said. “I remember the backlash. That’s why most of my staff members are Jews. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “You’re a visionary,” she replied immediately. “All visionaries are thought of as crazy by the people they want to serve.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  She tilted his face to hers, staring at him. Crane was tense, her touch was electric to him. “Yes, you’re crazy,” she whispered. “You’re just crazy enough to survive the madness we live in.”

  “My plan can work. It can.”

  “You don’t have to convince me.”

  He nodded grimly. “Thanks.” He looked away, then back at the screen.

  “Why,” Lanie asked, “do I have such a hard time making eye contact with you?”

  He looked at her for a second, looked away. “I have a… difficult time thinking when I look at you. I don’t know what it is. It’s never happened before. I get, I don’t know… lost in your gaze or… or something. Stupid, huh?”

  She moved into his line of vision. “It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she answered, and this time he forced himself to hold the eye contact. “You know,” she went on, “you said a lot of things when we were trapped in that house in Martinique. Do you remember?”

  He started to look away, held on. “Yes, I do.”

  “Did you mean them?”

  “I thought you’d never remember.”

  “Did you mean them?”

  “I meant them,” he said, looking down, her fingers lifting his face back to hers. “I’m sorry, I… didn’t mean to compromise our professional—”

  “Oh, the hell with that.” She scooted closer and put her arms around his neck. “You have greatness in you. It excites me.”

  “But I’m a cripple, I’m—�
�

  “Just shut up and kiss me.”

  In the next few minutes Lewis Crane discovered, for the first time in his life, that communication need not be verbal to be understood and meaningful.

  Chapter 13: Mercalli XII

  MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

  27 FEBRUARY 2025, EARLY AFTERNOON

  The barn smelled like wet horses and manure. Newcombe hid in the corner behind bales of hay to make contact with the War Zone.

  “There is no doubt,” he was saying into a monitor-cam sitting in his palm and pointing toward his face, “that the quake will happen today. I am speaking under Green Authority. Repeat: Green Authority. Your pilgrimage must begin within the hour if you are to survive. You may have to fight your way at first, but the way will be clear soon enough. You must leave within the hour. Go now!”

  He blanked and hoped for the best. He’d been transmitting on the ultrahigh-frequency infrared band that nobody used because of the cost of the reception equipment. But it would be picked up in the War Zone’s focus building in downtown Memphis to be rebroadcast through the connecting cable to the Zone.

  His hands were shaking. He had just committed an act of sedition, one that Brother Ishmael had made sure he would have to accomplish. “If you’re convinced of the quake,” Ishmael had said, “if you’re sure, send the message when you know.”

  He knew.

  The Ellsworth-Beroza nucleation zone was now constant, showing ever-building seismic activity. They had measured hundreds of temblors, undetectable on the surface, but growing to the Big Slip. Cracking rock had released large amounts of trapped gases while dilation occurred throughout the Reelfoot, cutting off the S waves that were unable to move through the water seeping into the cracks. It was classic, all the physical signs coming into line. The horses were kicking nervously against their stalls, neighing and whinnying in fear. Dogs bayed in the distance.

  “Dan!” Lanie called. “Dan? Are you in here?”

  He slipped the cam into his shirt pocket and moved out of his hiding place. “You caught me,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

  “What are you doing in here?” she asked, moving through the barn doors. She was wrapped head-to-toe, hatted, and block gleamed on her face.