by Ray Hammond
‘We were planning to leave tomorrow,’ said Emilia hastily. ‘We’re selecting our support team right now.’
‘Very good,’ rasped the CEO. He fixed the senior Pacific Region geophysicist with his rifle-bore gaze. ‘Get up on the real mountain, Doctor Knight, and be ready to apologize to the world for our failure. I’ll get our press office to fix a couple of network TV crews to meet you there. Then say you’re sorry that the world’s leading seismic prediction contractor was unable to warn the public about that eruption. And, for God’s sake, woman, look like you mean it!’
WORLD NEWS . . . 17:00 ET . . . 05/26/55 – MSN NEW YORK
ANCHOR, AURORA TEMPLETON
SCREEN CAPTION: FBI RAIDS TERRORIST HIDEOUT
AURORA:
The FBI today raided an apartment in Venice, Los Angeles believed to have been used as a hideout by the Planet First Organization.
With the cooperation of the LAPD, government agents entered the apartment building shortly before dawn, seizing computer systems, files and a small quantity of explosives. A female suspect, said to be in her thirties, was detained for questioning.
Earlier today the PFO claimed responsibility for the explosion that damaged the ERGIA Space Station and triggered a multinational rescue effort to save over sixty crew members and nearly one hundred visitors.
In its statement the PFO added, ‘Controlling the world’s weather for the sole benefit of wealthier nations is a criminal act that will inevitably endanger the planet’s long-term health.’
Now we go live to our reporter, Sandy Pertakis, in Venice Beach, Los Angeles.
‘They’re blasting now,’ Dr Heinrich Jensen yelled into the microphone, just as the sound of another distant explosion shook the prefabricated communications hut. ‘They’ve blown off the tips of two glaciers, and they’re now rigging tow-lines to the largest icebergs. Over.’
The research climatologist released the transmit button on his hand-held microphone, and waited for instructions from his project director in Hamburg.
‘Who are they? Say again, who are they?’ demanded Professor Karl Politza, Director of Antarctic Research, from his office in Northern Germany. The question arrived faintly at the Heard Island base, the short-wave signal bouncing between two satellites, disrupted by the fierce solar radiation and magnetic fields swirling around the South Pole.
‘They’re hulk people,’ said Jenson. ‘I can just make out one of their hulk platforms on the horizon. They landed here at dawn. Over.’
Heard Island lay in the Southern Ocean, seven miles inside the Antarctic Circle. Technically, this small volcanic outcrop was administered as an External Territory by Australia. But in the six years that the University of Hamburg had maintained a research team on the island, the personnel who had rotated through the station had never seen even one Australian visitor, and had never experienced anyone attempting a landing by sea – until now.
Jensen’s walkie-talkie lay on the bench beside him and it suddenly crackled into life.
‘They’ve got guns,’ reported Akiro Kakehashi, shouting over the noise of the howling Antarctic winds. He was the best linguist on the team and along with five others he had gone down to the small cove to remonstrate with the uninvited visitors. ‘They’ve been shooting the penguins and the seals and now they’re demanding food, water and diesel fuel from us.’
Jensen relayed this information to Hamburg and waited for a response.
‘Don’t resist,’ ordered Politza, concerned only for the safety of his distant research team. ‘Give them all the supplies you can spare. We’ll re-equip you from Auckland as soon as the weather allows.’
After the Director signed off, Heinrich Jensen was in two minds about following Hamburg’s advice. As he had been helicoptered down to Heard Island from Auckland four months earlier, his aircraft had skirted two of those vast hulk-platforms. He had realized how many tens of thousands must be living out there on the open seas, and once you started handing out precious supplies of food, water and fuel, there would be no end to it . . .
*
Dr Emilia Knight waved goodbye to the two TV crews who had interviewed her and watched as the Samoan police escorted them down from the dangerously hot mountainside. She waited until she could see their vehicles throwing up clouds of lava dust on the narrow road leading back towards Apia – the islands’ still-smoking capital, fifteen kilometres to the east. It was now time for her to unpack some equipment and get on with her real work on this newly reawakened volcano.
She had earlier pointed out to the TV journalists the rivers of drying lava, the smoking stumps of rainforest trees, the many belching magma holes, and had made dutiful excuses for Geohazard’s failure to predict the horrific event.
But Emilia knew that she and her team had little to apologize for. It simply wasn’t possible to detect every seismic disturbance or volcanic eruption before it happened; in fact, it was something of a miracle that their company could predict any of them.
Precise earthquake prediction was particularly difficult, and only an eclectic mix of orbiting cameras and ultra-sensitive in-ground seismic instruments allowed the company to do better than its government-run predecessors.
Today, Geohazard Laboratories felt sufficiently confident to provide ‘event likelihood warnings’ on a sliding scale of probability, and the company had predicted accurately four out of the last five earthquakes rated above Magnitude 6. That was just as well; in recent times the annual number of non-climatic hazardous events such as earthquakes and volcanic activity had more than doubled.
After a half-hour climb, Dr Knight stood 430 feet higher up on Mount Māriota, just 200 feet below the smoking edge of the volcano’s recently enlarged crater.
She had donned a silver heat-resistant protective suit with integral Teflon-Mylar boots. Her head was encased in a wide-visored, airtight helmet. Two hours’ worth of compressed, oxygen-enriched air was strapped to her back, and four miles of micro-tubing circulated a sodium-based coolant around the suit’s inner lining.
This close to the mouth of the still-active volcano, the ground temperature reached ninety degrees Celsius, and the sulphurous mineral air, corrosive as battery acid, was capable of stripping the lining from unprotected human lungs.
Emilia got down on all fours, raking gloved hands through the smoking debris of pyroclastic rocks and cinders.
‘I’m still getting ground trembles at about three-point-seven every four or five minutes,’ Steve Bardini announced suddenly in her ear.
Her assistant, with four technical support staff, was still in the company’s temporary monitoring station that they had established on the outskirts of Apia, but within the confines of Emilia’s helmet it felt as if he were sharing the suit with her. She hastily turned off the image of him projected in front of her eyes – the better to focus on what she was looking for – but he still shared her view, could see all that she saw. It was comforting that he could monitor every measurement recorded inside Emilia’s suit, including her respiratory function and other vital signs.
Two remotely controlled miniature helicopters hovered one hundred feet above: one directly over the mouth of the volcano itself, watching out for ‘hot ballistics’ – sudden volleys of lava shot out of the chimney – and the other directly over Emilia’s own position, its down draught helping to disperse the smoke around her. They too had cameras feeding images back to the Apia control centre. Without a climbing partner physically beside her, this long-distance support team provided the virtual equivalent.
‘You know it’s not stable yet,’ Steve warned her once again, tempted – but not yet ready – to call his boss off the hot mountainside and back to safety. Emilia had been determined to undertake a brief preliminary site survey, but had promised to remain no longer than forty-five minutes.
‘Look at the colour of these,’ Emilia said, almost to herself, weighing two small rocks in her gloved palm. ‘They’re extremely heavy – do you recognize this material? It looks like it’s
phreato-magmatic.’
‘Looks almost chondritic,’ Steve observed. ‘That’s from very deep.’ He paused. ‘You haven’t got long now – check your coolant level.’
Moving slowly, like an early moon explorer, Emilia stood up and dropped her two samples into a large collection net clipped to her belt. She glanced up towards the smoking lip of the crater.
‘Emilia, no!’ Steve’s voice was insistent, but she was already heading higher, searching for any material that would have been vomited up during the very last of the volcanic surge – stuff that would have arrived with least force, material originating from the very bottom of the deep magma chimney.
She was now surrounded by ‘vog’ – a thick, foul-smelling miasma composed of sulphur dioxide and microparticles of volcanic ash. Visibility was less than ten metres at ground level.
‘You’ve got over twenty-two degrees internal,’ Steve’s voice warned her unnecessarily as she approached the crater’s edge. Her suit’s system had already displayed a warning icon on Emilia’s visor.
Suddenly a rock that had looked like a firm toehold shot backwards from under her right boot. Emilia fell heavily onto her shoulder, then cried out in pain as the bottom edge of her metal air cylinder dug sharply into her lower back.
‘Emilia?’ Steve’s tone betrayed serious alarm.
She stared up at the small patches of blue sky she could see revealed in the immediate vortex of the spinning helicopter blades. It felt as if her spine had cracked.
‘Emilia!’ Now he sounded almost frantic.
‘OK, I’m OK,’ she managed, as she sucked in deep breaths. ‘Nothing broken,’ she gasped, trying to sound more certain than she felt.
She closed her eyes to focus on the pain. After a few moments of fighting down bile, she realized that it wasn’t as bad as she had feared.
‘I’m OK,’ she repeated.
‘I can’t see any signs of suit rupture,’ reported Steve inside her helmet. Emilia nodded as if he were speaking to her from across the room.
She heaved herself over onto one side, then, gradually up onto her hands and knees. The worst of the pain was definitely subsiding. Lifting her head, she gazed up the remaining stretch of mountainside, across a terrain of smoking rocks immediately around the crater’s rim. Suddenly she spotted a fragment that looked unlike anything she had ever seen before. It was about twelve inches across, with jagged convex surfaces that caught the light and glinted a dull silvery-yellow. It lay on the very lip of the crater.
‘Look, Steve!’ she urged her former boyfriend, who was still checking his read-outs. The instruments indicated no threat to the integrity of her suit, but the exterior level of background radiation was now rising sharply.
Emilia propelled herself higher still and she was suddenly looking down into the vast smoking crater. She estimated it to be about half a mile across, a central basin filled with swirling columns of high-temperature gasses. For a moment she imagined that tongues of fire could still be seen deep in the abyss.
‘Come down now!’ ordered Steve, finally asserting his authority as Expedition Controller. The integral Geiger counter in Emilia’s belt had started to hum continuously.
She reached out her right hand to pick up the unusual rock, but its slick surface slipped from her fingers. As she tried again, she felt its heat, even through her thick, protective gloves. Once more, the sharp-edged rock sample slipped away.
‘It does look unusual,’ agreed Steve in her ear, now paying closer attention to her find.
‘It’s almost glowing,’ gasped the senior geophysicist.
‘We’ve got an RA spike!’ warned Steve as the Geiger counter’s song rose angrily inside Emilia’s suit.
Unclipping a pair of large specimen tongs from her belt, she reached out with two hands, extended the calliper arms fully, grasped the rock and lifted. The Geiger’s song shot into the treble.
‘My God!’ she exclaimed. ‘This feels heavier than lead.’
Suddenly the rock slipped out of the callipers.
‘Come down now,’ ordered Steve once more. Her stress indicators and vital signs were approaching dangerously high levels. ‘We’re getting over sixty rads.’
‘Hold on,’ grunted Emilia. She knelt carefully and got her arms under the peculiar glinting rock.
‘Nearly got it . . .’ She forced herself to her feet, the hot sample held tight against her chest. Dropping the rock into the collection sack on her belt, she straightened up carefully and gingerly tested her back.
‘Unbelievable!’ shouted Steve. ‘Do you see what that weighs?’
In the sole of each of her boots were gravity meters, strain gauges and weighing scales. Now they had automatically calculated the weight of the new sample Emilia had added to her load.
‘It’s over forty pounds!’ exclaimed Steve.
‘I’m on my way down,’ shouted his boss over the shrill scream of her Geiger counter.
Chapter Five
It was raining heavily in San Francisco. Such precipitation wouldn’t have surprised any of the city’s residents in years gone by, but the region’s weather was now closely managed and this particular Thursday evening was scheduled to have been dry and fine. Consequently, the freak rain was proving to be a source of considerable annoyance.
All over the city and the greater Bay Area, carefully planned sports events, outdoor concerts, barbecues and countless other social pursuits were being spoiled. The networks were jammed with locals complaining to TV stations and government offices. This evening was supposed to have been sunny and hot!
‘Damn!’ exclaimed Michael Fairfax as his foot shot from under him on a slippery wooden step. He almost dropped the packages he was carrying, the gifts he had brought back from New Zealand for his boys. He grasped the walkway’s wooden handrail, only just managing to maintain his balance.
When he had made arrangements with Lucy for this handover, the weather schedule had promised a sunny evening. It had seemed the perfect opportunity for an early dinner, especially at a bay-side restaurant with an outdoor deck.
But now the old wooden building and jetty were soaking wet and slippery underfoot. Michael stepped up onto the restaurant’s covered walkway and shook out his umbrella.
He heard a car horn. Then the boys were tumbling out of the back of his ex-wife’s large utility vehicle and running towards him through the rain.
‘Hey, Dad,’ called Matthew in a thirteen-year-old voice that in the space of just two words managed to oscillate between a piping treble and an uncertain bass.
‘Dad!’ shouted Ben, not quite six, as he too scrambled up the wooden steps and out of the rain.
Michael put one arm around Matt’s shoulders while he hoisted a squealing Ben under the other.
A hostess appeared in the restaurant doorway and smiled at this family horseplay.
‘We have a reservation,’ panted Michael, as he finally set Ben down on his feet. ‘We were supposed to be out on the deck, but . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the young woman. ‘I’ll find you a window seat.’
They were visiting the New Trident restaurant, one of San Francisco’s most treasured historic haunts. It sat on the shoreline at Sausolito, a small artistic community across the bay from the main city, where Michael had made his home since the divorce.
The restaurant’s interior had been lovingly restored: a late-1960s psychedelic trip with highly polished wood surfaces and floral designs from the original hippie period.
But none of these details mattered to the boys. The reason Michael had suggested this venue was the deck – the outdoor seating area which they all enjoyed but which Ben particularly loved. He liked it because it often provided close-up views of the high-powered offshore speedboats that set off from nearby to race out under the Golden Gate Bridge.
As the hostess promised, they were shown to a window table, but dark clouds covered the whole of the distant San Francisco city skyline and the mist was so thick that only the pulsing flash
of the lighthouse indicated where Alcatraz Island lay the middle of the bay.
Michael ordered sodas and snacks for the boys and a beer for himself. Then he scooped the presents up from the floor and into his lap.
‘I missed you guys,’ he said as he handed over the large packages.
Matthew tore at the giftwrap and extracted his present first. It was a single roll of wallpaper. The boy frowned, suspecting he’d been given something of mere utility.
‘Roll it out on the floor,’ suggested his father.
Still puzzled, Matt slid off his chair and unrolled a section of the long sheet.
The dark wallpaper was covered with glowing stars: it was an image of the night sky.
‘Hey, Dad, thanks!’ grunted Matthew, not yet fully appreciating all the features his gift had to offer. ‘That’s part of Cygnus,’ he added, pointing to a star formation on the paper sheet.
Michael grinned at his astronomy-mad elder son. ‘That’s just part of your present, Matt,’ he explained. ‘There’s another ten rolls that will be delivered to your home tomorrow. They’re all electronic, and when they’re put together you can create the whole night sky in your bedroom. The stars glow and move, like the real universe.’
Ben had temporarily stopped pulling at the metallic gold paper wrapped around his own gift to see what it was his brother had received.
‘Turn it around,’ suggested Michael. ‘It won’t tear.’
Matthew pulled at the long sheet of electronic paper, Ben jumping down from the table to help him, and the boys turned the sheet around to face the other way along the wooden floor. As they did so, the star patterns rotated. Matt realized what was happening.
‘Is it magnetic, Dad? The stars are changing their position.’
‘There’s a tiny cellular GPS receiver in each roll,’ explained Michael, delighted by Matthew’s obvious pleasure. ‘It always knows where it is. It just changes the display to fit.’
