by Kathy Tyers
Lindon jabbed the polarization control for the nearest window. A plume of ugly gray cloud billowed past Axis in the northerly wind. He started activating alarms to bring in the rest of the CA committee and its office staff.
Two terrannums ago, they had lived under concern that the removal of overburden might liquefy rock under Axis Crater. They had expected it to happen sooner than this if it was going to take place, and people had slowly relaxed.
Office staff arrived before the other CA Committee members. For white-faced personnel, he reviewed procedure. “We’re not evacuating yet, but this is a full evacuation watch. Track-trucks ready to go within ten minutes. Port Arbor is out of the question—the activity’s in that direction. Send some northwest to Hannes Prime, some west to Center. Anyone unable to get on a truck should head southwest on the wild with emergency supplies and await pickup. The children will go first, supervised by crèche parents. But before that happens, we have to know if a single volcanic vent has opened, or more. Also precisely where they lie and the severity of the activity.” He shifted on one bare foot. “Evacuation orders, if they come, will come from this office.”
Once the staff filed out, he opened a line to the airfield to request a pilot. To his surprise, one copter was already off the plantation. Checked out to—could this be right?—Trev LZalle. “Controller?” he asked. “Is anyone on duty?”
On the line he heard footsteps, then: “Tate here. What’s that smoke?”
―――
Trev tossed another pirated halfer leg bone, then watched with delight as all four of Dutchy’s fat little cousins pounced at once. Three tugged it one way as the other chased, jumping and growling. He guessed he shouldn’t try to tame the creatures—and they looked plump enough!—but Dutchy had refused the bottle when Trev finally offered it, and he had to feed some animal some thing.
This early on Dropoff it was still light—barely. The sun hung low, almost at the horizon. He’d have to head back soon.
Lower Infinity Crater’s norther tore at his parka. He adjusted his goggles, which was tricky in long gauntleted gloves. He’d love to stroke all that coarse blond fur. Would they attack if he tried? Surely they weren’t hungry anymore.
Maybe next time. Meanwhile, Dutchy needed Pops. He pivoted on one foot and started to walk south, back to the Mathis hovercopter. The odd gray cloud he’d noticed fifteen minutes ago on the horizon looked bigger. Had to be his imagination.
Ever since it snowed, he’d seen nothing in the sky fatter than a Veneran mare’s tail, but that looked like the granddaddy of all storms. He’d intended to return to the spot where he and Yukio saw the prospector’s smoke before he went to bed tonight, but maybe he’d better get the copter back to Axis before bad weather grounded him. He broke into a run.
The cockpit radio chattered as he yanked open the hatch. “. . . please respond, Trevarre LZalle.” Three seconds of silence. “This is an emergency, please respond, Trevarre LZalle.”
Without pausing to shut himself in, he jumped onto the seat and shouted, “I’m here.”
“This is Axis ground control. LZalle, we have a volcanic event under way near Axis Plantation. Two recon pilots are getting ready to take off, but we have you triangulated close by. Would you do a flyby before it gets dark? Repeat, would you do a flyby?”
Then that was no storm. He stared out the hovercopter’s windshield. He wasn’t as familiar with this model as with the Mathis twin-engine, but this was a chance to insinuate himself into the colonists’ good graces in the biggest possible way. “Yeah,” he snapped. “Hang on while I shut the hatch.”
Eps Eri shone red near the right-hand horizon, sinking lower into a close purple haze. For him to see those clouds at all, they must be incredibly high or incredibly close.
Three minutes later, he crested the sandhills between Lower Infinity Crater and the billowing cloud. “Yah,” he shouted into the microphone pickup, “I can see two, three vents in a line. Hardly any lava, just smoke blowing away from me—no, wait, the left-hand one’s spraying red at the base.”
“Confirm, left-hand vent shows lava activity, others throwing ash. Is that the east vent, LZalle?”
“Yeah. The farthest vent from Axis.”
“Can you estimate their distance, one from the others?”
“Uh . . .” There ought to be instruments for that on his panel. “Gahh, I don’t remember how.”
“Touch the control that says Triangulation.” That was a new voice. “Then sweep both points with your cabin mouse.”
Trev found Triangulation, then the onboard computer’s small remote. “Yeah. Uh . . . sixty klicks from me, and it’s nine klicks between the eastern vents and twelve on the right.”
“Confirm.” The distant voices conferred, then the first spoke again. “Don’t get too close. Be sure and stay out of those ash clouds. We can see them from the CA building.”
Lightning snapped from one gray cumulus swirl, striking a small crater’s rim. Trev leaned hard on the stick. “No problem with that order.”
“Do you have a camera control below your throttle?” That was voice two again.
Trev checked his instrument board. “Confirm that.”
“Switch it on. You’ve got an anxious audience in the CA and Gaea buildings.”
He activated it, then swung the copter back toward the three vents, fighting the norther to hover steadily. “You’re not going to believe this, people. The hills closest to the vents are melting!”
“Yes, we do,” said a gruff new voice. “Water’s bound up in surface regolith all over this planet. Mudflow is the first thing we expect. Good pictures. How’s your fuel?”
His hands were starting to shake. “Half up.”
A woman’s voice, warm and deep, asked, “Can you see the Storm Sea pipeline from there? It’s not coming through on your pictures.”
Trev pushed the controls to gain some altitude. “Is that you, Ari?”
Brief silence, then, “I’m Defense Coordinator, Trev. Civil defense, too.”
“Oh.” He pushed down a vivid, distracting memory. “No, can’t see the pipeline.”
Evidently Ari turned aside, because her next words were unintelligible at first but got louder as she returned to the mike. “. . . panic about our seawater inflow just yet. Trev, can you remain in the area and let us observe, so long as there’s light? We’d like to recall our own pilots to prepare for the possible necessity of evacuation.”
Yes! They needed him now. “Sure,” he answered, “I’ll do it. Just recall me if things look dangerous, all right?”
“Certainly,” answered the gruff voice.
―――
In the large room outside his office, Lindon stood shoulder to shoulder with other committee officers and stared at pictures relayed from Trev’s cameras. Taidje FreeLand had arrived first, his steadiness reassuring. Kenn VandenNeill’s square jaw worked as he pursed his lips. Ari MaiJidda scratched her neck.
The sight of those mudflows wrenched his stomach. The triple vent would destroy hectares of painstakingly seeded regolith. For oxygenating organisms to establish an effective worldwide hold, 20 percent of the planet’s surface must be inoculated and maintained.
Supply flights might stop for a time, too. Axis Plantation had goods on hand for two G-years, which they hoped might be stretched to five, but that assumption barred sudden catastrophes.
If Axis was evacuated, Gaea’s terraforming would grind to a halt. So would Graysha’s investigation of the cooling.
Ari MaiJidda touched his shoulder. “Give the word and we’ll send the children to Hannes,” she muttered. “It will take one call and about ten thousand maxims’ worth of fuel.”
Bee and Sarai . . . and Crys, with her crèche. Lindon looked at Taidje FreeLand, who nodded.
Lindon swallowed, wishing he had time to squeeze the girls. Sarai would especially need reassurance. “Do it,” he said.
She stepped toward a desk.
It couldn’t be r
eal. Volcanoes erupted on vidis recorded light-years away and decades ago, and in his history texts: Pompeii, Krakatau, Rainier. Humans had lived in volcanism’s shadow for centuries—but not here. Seeing that shadow fall on Axis Plantation made Lindon wonder how they’d braved it.
A speaker beside the screen crackled, then came the gruff voice he recognized as Thad Urbansky’s. “Still nothing in our deep well but rumbles from the active site. If magma were forming under us, we’d have indication.”
Kenn VandenNeill sighed loudly.
“Put a twenty-four-hour watch on that,” said Lindon.
“Already have.”
“Why is this happening?” Lindon asked.
“Several theories. Redistribution of weight on magma reservoirs—by the new oceans—is one possibility. Our attempt to reactivate crustal subduction is another. Neither was predicted to cause volcanism so early on, though. It’s highly likely that early volcanism is due to our cratering. Crustal stresses from the splash phase.”
Lindon pursed his lips, then said, “Tell me these eruptions will be beneficial in some way. Please.”
“It’s outgassing volatiles we would’ve had to bring in from asteroids. Ashfall will also provide soil nutrients.”
Graysha’s alto voice answered next. “It will also be excellent enrichment for bacteria, what organisms it doesn’t heat-kill.”
It felt good to hear some optimism in those voices. “Thanks. Dr. Lee, are you on?” Lindon asked.
“I am,” came the Gaea head’s smokier alto.
“Would you recommend upgrading the evacuation?”
“You might consider sending away nonessential adult personnel, those whom you don’t need for life support.”
Lindon picked up his pocket memo. Plant and animal production could largely be put on autofeed and self-water, but complications—calving, lambing, robotic failure—might cruelly decimate the colony’s food supply.
He could send away concrete production workers, artisans, light-manufacturing personnel. “Taidje,” he said softly, “put a second evac group on alert.” He handed over the pocket memo, then nibbled a corner of his lip. Volcanic activity was figured in atmospheric simulations as a cooling factor. Dust clouds increased albedo and prevented sunlight from penetrating to warm the ground.
Why now, he groaned silently, with CFCs already depleting? Tons of imported water only increased the possibility of cloud overproduction, and now additional water vapor belched skyward. Taken together, they foretold an icy apocalypse.
Something changed on his screen. LZalle’s voice whooped. “Hope you’re seeing this, people. What is it?”
A dark flat cloud surged downhill from the central vent and fanned out like water. The hovercopter rose sharply, then tilted to observe again. Urbansky’s voice rumbled from the other speaker. “Pyroclastic flow—superheated ash, mixed with steam and other gases. We can be glad we’ve got crater walls between us and the active zone.”
Lindon backed away from the screen. Others elbowed into the place he vacated. He sat down on a desktop and folded forward, hands pressed over his eyes. Protect us, he prayed. Don’t let this be the end, already. He remained hunched over a minute longer, then realized he still had one bare foot.
―――
Melantha Lee sniffed at the message glowing on her screen. How like Flora Hauwk—though she sat sixty degrees across the Eps Eri system—to panic. Hauwk had ordered her to poll Gaea employees immediately and see if they wished to wait out the volcanic event at another orbital locale, such as Copernicus. Had USSC evacuated Earth when Rainier surged down during abnormal wind conditions and took out Seattle?
On the other hand, she was tiring of Goddard’s little problems: alarmist colonials, an atmospheric imbalance she was no longer certain could be controlled, and now volcanism.
She drafted a calm, brief reply in her mind, then revised it twice on screen before sending it off.
Neither immediate nor long-term danger indicated at this point,
and we are monitoring no seismic activity beneath us. I shall query other staff regarding possible temporary relocation outside Axis Crater. It might be wise.
Melantha
Hearing the order given to evacuate Lwuite children, Graysha ached for the sundered families, then reconsidered. These children, already living communally, would not be so terrified by separation as nuclear habitant families.
She hopped down off her stool and refilled her coffee cup, half wishing she’d snatched up Emmer when she dashed back to work. Never before had the break room held everyone who worked on the floor yet been so silent. The rancid odor of nervous sweat smelled almost as strong as the coffee. There would be no sleep tonight. Paul’s techs had scooted off for their crèche at word to evacuate. Varberg sat brooding in his deep chair, fingers steepled in front of his face, thumb ring catching rays of the overhead light. Paul leaned against a wall, staring into the darkening northeast. Apparently calm, Jirina sat at an auxiliary monitor.
For two days, Graysha had thought of little else but CFCs and the fear that Ari’s colonists might arrest her. Now this—the realization that Goddard itself was imminently dangerous. “Anyone else for a refill?” she called softly.
Negative grunts. Holding her steaming cup, she ambled over to peer at Jirina. “Don’t you ever panic?”
The black woman shrugged. “Heat doesn’t bother viruses, and they positively love poison gas. Only puts their host population down. They just go dormant. My job grinds on.”
Behind Graysha, the screen bleeped. Dr. Lee’s voice came on. “Attention, floor heads. Please survey your employees. If the adult colonists evacuate Axis Crater, do your employees wish to leave or stay on duty?”
Varberg erupted out of his chair. “Who objects to leaving with the Lwuites?”
Messier . . . He had to be remembering those catastrophic floods. Hastily she prayed that this emergency would not trigger his old desperation. She could think of nothing binding her to an empty Axis Crater, and she said so. No one else spoke.
“Fine,” Varberg said. He leaned forward. “Lee?”
“Listening.”
“Microbiology floor will leave. And can’t we get that LZalle kid off the vidi net?”
Staring at Varberg’s back, she found she could pity him. How many friends had he left on Messier?
Mentally, she started packing. Three changes of clothes and her few personal belongings wouldn’t take much time to throw together.
Ten minutes later, the elevator doors swished open. Dr. Lee stepped off. All the curl was gone from her gray hair.
Varberg wheeled around. “Don’t tell me. The other floors voted to stay, so we’re staying, too.” Graysha saw his right hand tremble.
“No,” Lee answered. “Seismology and Meteorology remain on alert. If they see any danger signs, we’ll all start to evacuate. Vice-Chair FreeLand is allocating transportation.”
The big man’s cheeks lost their color. “Wait for danger signs? We can’t risk that!”
Melantha Lee dipped her chin, then looked sharply back up at Varberg. “Prevailing northerlies are blowing gas and ashes past us on the east. Don’t worry, Will. We’re fine. If the winds shift, we’ll start loading trucks.”
Varberg rocked from one foot to the other, then said, “I’m going back down with you. I want to talk with my wife.”
Lee and Varberg strode toward the elevator. Graysha uneasily poured another cup of coffee. She’d learned plenty about volcanism in the past half hour, and now she tried to project her imagination half a kilometer down into bedrock. Long weighted, it had been partially cleared when ejecta blew out of the crater. If unweighted and adequately heated from below, solid rock could melt. Liquefied, it might stay in place, but it also might start to ooze upward.
At any sign of upward channeling, Thad Urbansky—suddenly elevated to supreme importance in the Gaea building—would give the order to evacuate all personnel, livestock, and gene stores. Varberg’s concern made s
ense. How much warning would they have if the ground shifted?
The hand that dropped on her shoulder smelled like lime. “Exciting.” Paul’s blue eyes sparkled.
Her skin crawled. “For this, we left a safe, warm habitat.”
“And won’t you have stories to tell your grandchildren?”
Her mind performed a wild four-way skip. Children. Gene-fix. Lindon’s dark eyes, apprehensive. Atmospheric cooling. “You tell your grandchildren. At the moment I think I’ll do some work. Call me if anything develops or Trev comes in. I want to congratulate him. He really came through.”
Paul’s hand slid off. “Did he have a choice?”
Probable
Cause
Will Varberg spent that long dark morning in his laboratory, sealing down instruments and setting refrigerators for cold storage. Lee had granted him permission to take his wife, Edie, out of Axis with a track-truck of Lwuite children. A good thing. He was leaving this world with or without permission, and Lindon DalLierx—who had sentenced him to spend extra months facing Goddard’s intolerable dangers—had been lucky to survive.
He checked his pocket memo. From its place under the packing list, Graysha Brady-Phillips’s research proposal peeped at the bottom of his monitor.
He couldn’t gibberish this one. He’d moved too slowly, and she’d managed to publish. Yet he had a hunch Graysha would be too busy with three volcanoes to worry about hypothetical organisms. His single freeze-dried atmospheric culture, carefully bonded into one seam of his favorite lab coat, was safe for the present.
Strange how his ethics had changed after Mahera’s death. He’d barely been able to live with himself for weeks after that accidental miscue. He felt better about it now. He never meant to hurt the man, but in the time it took MaiJidda’s ferrets to trace that memo, he’d come to realize everyone died sometime. Mahera’s turn would have come sooner or later.
So would DalLierx’s.
Despite Graysha’s interference, he would be absolved of the CFC matter, too. He’d been subtle, releasing those organisms on a cloud spray. With Melantha Lee’s approval—and her 5-percent cut of his salary—he’d inserted a suicide gene onto their DNA. Their growth would peak after two cold seasons, just about now, and then they’d all die off.
