Richter 10

by Arthur C. Clarke

  He stood and moved to a plot of ground wet from the gushing fire hydrant, taking Jimmy Earl with him. He spoke to the camera. “If you have injured people who are bleeding,” he said, “Nature provides her own remedy.”

  He dug his hands down into the ground. “Mud,” he said, holding up two handfuls. “Pack the wound in mud.”

  He hurried back to Whetstone, demonstrating the mud technique on the injured man, packing his head in it. “This will stop the bleeding. Worry about infection later.”

  A huge explosion from the university complex punctuated his sentence, followed by another shock, a strong one that hurled people to the ground.

  He pulled the belt out of Stoney’s mouth and ran it around his shoulder to make a sling for the broken arm. Behind him, the Zoners were working quickly to build the tower to get the people out of the top of the rubble of the jail. Everyone was fighting against the darkness of despair.

  Jimmy Earl had backed up and was framing the action as men formed a human chain to hand up pieces of debris, the cops pitching in to help. Humanity was happening, petty hatreds and politics crumbling in the face of danger to the family of Man.

  There was life; there was hope.

  Stoney came around, groaning, then smiled up at Crane. “I’d thank you,” he said, “but you’ll probably find a way to charge me for this.”

  “Charge you? Hell, man, I’m saving you money.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The whole police station’s gone.” Crane smiled. “We don’t have to bail ourselves out.”

  Book Three

  Chapter 14: Aftershocks

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  13 APRIL 2026, MID-MORNING

  Mohammed Ishmael’s condor glided gently on the thermals high above Constitution Avenue, following Crane and his motorcade as it tracked through the ghost town of Washington, DC, toward the Capitol building.

  Much had changed during the past year—and each change brought surprises. When Li Cheun had told the President of the United States in February of ’25 there would be no quake on the Mississippi, he could not have guessed that he would be dead within thirty-six hours. And by his own hand.

  The cataclysm on the Reelfoot had been so devastating in so many areas—and so much more so because of Mr. Li’s connivance—that within a day it had been obvious Liang Int America would show a loss for calendar 2025, a first in its North American history.

  Upon seeing the financial projections and being a man of honor, Mr. Li had doused himself in Sterno, stepped within his beloved diorama, and set himself ablaze. Most considerate of Mr. Li, Mui Tsao thought. His death made it possible to carry on without having to change much of anything. Had Mr. Li gone into exile or been imprisoned, company rules would have compelled a change of every code.

  Mr. Mui then survived a corporate inquisition by bringing forth all the records he had sent to the home office in Beijing concerning what he had termed Mr. Li’s “increasingly foolish” behavior. He also accused the dead man of “egotism and intractability” in his business dealings and vowed to be a more levelheaded, compromising manager who would put Liang America back in the black within a year. That last part was, of course, a lie and everyone knew it, but optimism is fundamental in business theory.

  Mr. Mui immediately acquired his own Harpy, a young and ambitious corporate man named Tang. The new Harpy was pushing hard for Liang to compete with Yo-Yu in the mind chip business, an area in which he had great interest as he himself was a double-ported chippy.

  Truth of the matter was, the Liang Int empire was slowly collapsing under its own weight and the Reelfoot quake, along with its associated eight hundred aftershocks, simply had accelerated the process.

  In 2011, Liang had bought up all of America’s debts, all its chits. Basically, it owned the country, with most of the taxes collected going to interest payments on the huge debt owed to Liang, although a small amount of tax dollars had to be applied to various programs for the people. Liang Int not only owned and exploited America, but also didn’t want to maintain its investment. Since the company was the de facto government, however, it was left holding the bag when Reelfoot hit.

  Reelfoot had been big enough to fell a giant. The main shock was an 8.5 on the scale, about as high as the scale measured. Memphis never got out from under the Mississippi, though the river continued to change course for three months after the quake. It was simply the memory of a city now, a place for divers to search for lost treasure.

  Little Rock and Paducah were rendered all but uninhabitable. Nashville was severely damaged, as were Louisville and Evansville and Carbondale. In St. Louis, the river swamped the city under a huge wave, knocking the Arch onto the city itself and leveling buildings. In Kansas City, the Quay River left its banks and drowned more people than were directly affected by the quake. Lake Michigan also overflowed, and flood waters along with aftershocks in Chicago toppled the twin black Liang office towers on Dearborn.

  Knoxville, Lexington, Frankfort, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, both Springfields (Missouri and Illinois), Jefferson City—all towns suffered Mercali VII or VIII damage.

  Four dams in the TVA system collapsed, flooding Tennessee and cutting off hydroelectric power to a region of the continent that still used it. Levees in Mississippi and Louisiana crumbled.

  The death toll reached nearly three million; a staggering ten million were left homeless. Damage ran into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

  Liang was a streamlined operation that matched production to natural resources. Hundreds of chemical plants, paper mills, auto factories, food processors and distributors, focus factories, and shield manufacturers went down with the quake, to say nothing of the retail outlets Liang owned to sell their products. People turned to their government for financial help, and Liang Int was put in the unenviable position of demanding restitution from itself.

  They couldn’t afford it. Neither could their insurance carriers.

  Corporate decided simply to try and get the flow of goods and services moving back through the area and rebuild slowly. To that end the company declared the quake region a total loss and walked away from it, leaving the Midwestern United States a poverty-and-disease-ridden dead zone of collapsed buildings and broken dreams. Revenue loss was staggering, public relations destroyed.

  President Gideon had become the most hated man in America. He refused to step down because he needed the paycheck, and he was unable to put the blame on Mr. Li, where it rightfully belonged, because that would be admitting that Mr. Li had told him what to do in the first place. Gideon had become a prisoner in his own White House.

  Brother Ishmael’s condor dropped to treetop level for closeups of the motorcade as it pulled up to the Capitol. Its occupants hurried out of their vehicles and into the building.

  The edited version of Jimmy Earl’s viddy, The Last Best Hope, had been the most watched show in the world in 2025, bringing him awards and fame and, parenthetically, turning Lewis Crane into the most beloved and recognizable man in the country.

  Then there were the Zoners who had escaped the cataclysm in Memphis. They’d gone south and taken military control of a small town named Friars Point, Mississippi. Renamed New Cairo, the city had attracted fifty thousand refugees.

  The Mississippi had always run right by the town. Now it was several miles away, but it had left behind the richest silt on the face of the planet. Quickly enough, the initial fifty thousand had been joined by a million others, disaffected southern Africks, escapees from the Zones, or any Muslim wanting a start on a new life. The original boundaries expanded, taking in more and more land, pushing out the previous landowners until finally Mr. Mui was forced to step in.

  Mui regarded the spread of Islam as an inevitability. Besides that, he was not about to undertake the expense of a full-scale war to roust them from the land. What he did, in effect, was create another War Zone, larger than any other. Immense, in fact. He built a wall seventy feet high that completely surrounded New Cairo, though
several miles from its front lines and not a direct threat. People were allowed to travel freely, unarmed, in and out of the walled area.

  NOI set up immediate contacts with other Islamic States worldwide that supplied them with food and materials while they got on their feet. Soon after, Brother Newcombe went to Yo-Yu and struck a trade deal that gave NOI enough shields to cover the delta crops it would need to raise to allow New Cairo to become self-sufficient.

  It worked. What also worked was violence, ever-escalating guerrilla and economic warfare with unrelenting confrontations with the FPF and threats or actual boycotts of Liang Int products. In the deepest inner sanctum of NOI leadership the split was more profound than ever. Martin Aziz and Dan Newcombe versus Mohammed Ishmael… neither side able to prove itself conclusively. Stalemate.

  Sumi Chan sat on her lofty perch in the Senate chamber and presided over the bumptious gladhanders who called themselves congressmen. Currently they were “debating” whether or not to pass a nonbinding resolution that would, in a miracle of complex rhetoric and dazzling illogic, blame the Yo-Yu Syndicate for the tragedy at Reelfoot Rift.

  “Mr. President,” said the congresswoman from New York, “I would like to allot three minutes of my time to the Honorable Senator from Arkansas/Oklahoma.”

  “Noted,” Sumi said automatically. “You have the floor, Mr. Gerber.”

  “Thank you,” said the gentleman, with the aplomb of a snake oil salesman.

  As he began to speak Sumi drifted. She had yet to completely figure out why she was here. And the only man who could tell her was long dead. She had managed to avoid Mr. Li from the time she had taken the job until his death because she’d feared him sexually. Now here she sat, bored and alone, symbol of American political leadership since Gideon had hidden himself away in the White House.

  “Mr. President!” The voice startled her. A Senate page tugged on her sleeve. “Someone wants to see you. He says it’s important.”

  “Who?”

  “Lewis Crane.”

  “Crane’s here?” she said loudly enough to be heard in the chamber.

  “He’s waiting out in the corridor, sir.”

  “My God,” Sumi said. She’d had no personal contact with Crane since Reelfoot. She turned to the page, a pimply-faced federal judge’s son, and said, “Put him in the old Supreme Court downstairs. I’ll meet him in a moment.”

  The page hurried away, Sumi fully alert now and excited. Crane may have been many things, but he was never boring. She turned the gavel over to the sergeant at arms to call the majority leader, and slipped out of the chamber and into the hollow, echoing halls. She’d heard that once six million visitors a year had come here to listen to proceedings and see democracy in action. No one came now. They were all anachronisms, living out their lives in a two-hundred-year-old building that was crumbling because of George Washington’s nepotism in choosing his own inferior rock quarry for the materials to build the damned thing.

  Lewis Crane had come to her territory. He must want something. But then, Crane always wanted something. Now he wanted something before Yo-Yu took power. In a government where the votes were purchased, Liang’s rival had more purchasing power. Yo-Yu could get control of the government without taking one seat in an election. She’d even been approached with bribes… and had considered the possibility. America tended to have that effect on people.

  Crane waited with Lanie in the gallery of the tiny preserved eighteenth-century courtroom while the rest of his entourage toured the entire facility. The room was an incongruously small space for producing the big decisions that had been handed down there—Dred Scott, Marbury vs. Madison—remarkable precedents in jurisprudence. Modern American society had been formed in this place, then deconstructed in the large faux Greek building across the street.

  Lanie put her hand over his. “Don’t worry,” she whispered as if she were in a Cosmie church. “It’s going to work out.”

  “We haven’t seen Sumi for a long time.”

  “I have faith in you,” she said. “You’re coming to the right place at the right time.”

  Crane hoped she was correct, but was skeptical—and, he felt, appropriately cynical about politics. He would make his judgments about Sumi after they’d talked. His bad arm ached terribly. There was going to be a major quake this afternoon on the Cocos Plate where it met the Caribbean Plate. Later tonight, in Africa, the Great Rift would separate a little bit more as part of it pulled away from itself, creating grabens and opening huge fissures. There would be mudslides tomorrow in California. Evacuations of the affected areas were already underway, thanks to the Crane Report, his monthly newsletter about the state of the Earth. He gave populations a two-month lead time on any impending quake.

  “Crane!” came a voice from the doorway. He turned to see Sumi Chan, in black silk pajamas, standing with arms outstretched, smiling broadly.

  Crane jumped up to hurry over and give Sumi a bear hug. “You’re looking well.”

  “Looks can deceive,” Sumi said, walking past Crane to greet Lanie. “Congratulations on your impending marriage. I hope I will be invited to the ceremony.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Crane said, as Sumi kissed Lanie on the cheek. “We wanted to invite you personally.”

  “Right,” Sumi replied, turning back to Crane and smiling. “And maybe do a little business while you’re at it?”

  “I can always do business,” Crane said, the three of them taking seats. Crane noticed a slackness to Sumi’s features. The man needed a challenge. He pulled a magazine out of his back pocket and gave it to Sumi. “Here, the new Crane Report, hot off the presses.”

  “I’ve already got one. Required reading for any acting head of state. When is the big day?”

  “July twenty-third,” Lanie said. “At exactly two thirty-seven in the afternoon.”

  “In the Himalayas,” Crane added.

  “The Himalayas.” Sumi smiled. “Your fortunes have risen since last we met, my friend.”

  “As have yours.”

  “No. I am simply doing what I did when you first met me, hype and PR, only I’m doing it in another place. I feel like a caretaker, just watching the office until the real Vice President shows up.”

  “Then it’s true what we’ve heard about Yo-Yu?” Lanie asked.

  “Probably more true than you realize,” Sumi replied. “The Syndicate scored big with new chips that I hear are better than dorph. People want Yo-Yu. Once they started their ozone regeneration project, I knew Liang was finished. Yo-Yu has managed to replace five percent of the ozone layer this year alone. People like that. They vote for that.”

  “Is your power completely gone?” Crane asked.

  “Not completely,” Sumi said, her eyes already sharpening. “How’s Dr. Newcombe?”

  “Haven’t seen much of him in person the last few months,” Crane replied. “He’s on a sabbatical, trying to fine-tune his EQ-eco to better fit soil liquefaction. We see him on the teev all the time, though.”

  Sumi nodded. “He’s in Washington more than I am. New Cairo is still news to people and he’s the NOI spokesman. I think his public conversion has had a lot to do with the people’s greater acceptance of the Nation of Islam.”

  “He’s a geologist, not a politician,” Crane said, not troubling to hide his contempt. “He needs to spend more time on the important things.”

  “Have we hit a sore spot?” Sumi asked.

  “Dan’s talented.” Crane shrugged. “Wasting his talent on nonsense is incomprehensible to me… no disrespect intended to you.”

  “There are those who find the notion of an Islamic State in America something other than ‘nonsense,’” Sumi replied. “I know the people at Liang look at it as a top priority.”

  “The people at Liang can—”

  “Crane,” Lanie interrupted as she pointed to her wristpad.

  He nodded, then smiled, surprised to find himself nervous. “Have you wondered why I haven’t tried to contact you
for so long?”

  “I assumed you were angry with me,” Sumi said, bowing slightly.

  “Oh, Sumi, no. Think about it. Who better than I to understand how one can be pressured, tormented, ultimately coerced to do things he does not really want to do? Who better than I to understand the rationalizations that lead one to conclude the end justifies the means?” He shook his head, an expression both wise and compassionate on his face. “I have put the past behind us. Please believe me, and do not think of it again.”

  Sumi and Crane looked intently at each other. They connected and there was understanding and forgiveness between them.

  Crane cleared his throat. “I’ve spent the last year working on a special project, something really big. But to put it over, I need your help.”

  “It pains me to admit it, Crane, but government R&D money is pretty tough to come by these days. Sadly, someone in Beijing will have the final word on any funding—”

  “I don’t want funding. I want permission and sanction. The Foundation’s rich. That three-billion-dollar bet, you know. Also, we started publishing the Report and the world has paid—for the Report itself, for the EQ-eco in predicted areas, for the core assessment of possible damages, and for general advice. We are prosperous beyond my dreams.”

  “No funding?” Sumi asked, frowning. “But what can you want from me, if you’re off the teat? What could I possibly have to offer a man who has all the money he needs?”

  Crane’s mouth was dry. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny disk. “Take a look at this,” he said, handing it to Sumi. “It will explain a lot.”

  Sumi slipped the disk into her wristpad, then looked around for a screen. “May I borrow your goggles, please?”

  Lanie handed Sumi the extra goggles from her tote bag, what she called her everything-Crane-needs-to-survive-on-the-road bag. Lanie took a deep, nervous breath, her eyes wide. This was it.

  “Try it on the L fiber,” Crane said as Sumi pulled down the goggles and padded on.