“Negative.”
“All right. Got a better idea. Tie me in with the Jenkins library.”
The Goompahs along the beach were pushing and shoving. Some were starting into the water, others were running off in all directions. Well, she was sure beating hell out of the Protocol.
“Done,” said Bill.
“Okay. Let’s have the 1812. Lots of volume.”
“Which movement did you want?”
“The part with the cannons. Fire off the cannons.”
It exploded, drums, guns, bugles, and cavalry charges. It thundered across the water, and of course she was only listening to a rendition from her wrist unit. It would also be filling Digger’s shell.
“You’ll deafen him.”
“Can you hear it, Bill?”
“Yes.” The lander moved forward, a bit farther out to sea. Slowed. Edged sideways. Retreated a bit. “He should be right below you.”
“Have you found him?” asked Whit. “You’re getting half the town out here.” The lander was being buffeted by the wind, and hundreds of Goompahs poured onto the beach.
“Can’t help that.” She dropped into the water, kicked down, and heard the muffled chords of the overture. She swam toward the sound and saw his shimmering form ahead. A leg. She found his knee and juggled him while she decided which end was up. Hard to tell in the green depths. Then she got hold of his vest and headed for the surface. Meantime she switched off the lightbender. And she could see him. His eyes were closed, his skin was gray, and he looked not good.
“Bill,” she said, “kill the 1812.”
She got in front of him, caught the control on his left wrist, and the safety on his right shoulder, and shut off the e-suit.
He didn’t look as if he was breathing.
“Bill, reactivate the lightbender. And set down in the water. Try not to sink.”
The lander vanished again, save for the open hatch. She and Digger were visible from the beach. Another shock for the home folks.
“Julie, I’m reluctant to put the lander in the water. I can’t see where you are.”
“It’s okay. We’re clear.”
“Julie,” said Whit, “do you have him?”
“I’ve got him.”
“How is he?”
She heard the lander touch down, saw the water press down. It looked as if a ditch had opened in the sea. “Can’t tell yet.”
“Is he alive?”
“I don’t know.” She looped the line around his waist, wrapped it around the hatch, and secured it so he wouldn’t sink. Then she scrambled into the airlock, stayed on her knees, and dragged him in behind her.
He had a heartbeat, but it was faint. She started mouth-to-mouth.
IT WAS AN up and down day for the Goompahs. They’d been inspired—there was no other word for it—by the miraculous rescue of Tayma. But then the lander had appeared, a sleek gray thing floating in air, and then the humans had shown up, first Julie, and then Digger, both coming out of nowhere. Whit knew that the human physiognomy spooked the locals, but he’d hoped that, under the circumstances, they would adjust. They didn’t. They howled and either ran or stumbled off the beach. A few stopped to help Tayma, who looked completely disoriented. In the end all had retreated to what could only be described as a respectful distance.
Whit stood watching the piece of airlock and lander’s interior, rounded off by the open hatch hanging above the waves.
“Got a pulse,” said Julie.
“Is he okay?”
“I think so. Is this the way you guys always behave?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m new in these parts. By the way, when you get a chance, you might want to close the hatch.”
She looked out at him, and the spectacle narrowed and vanished.
That brought another series of grunts and pointing from the Goompahs. Tayma, meantime, supported by a half dozen friends, limped away.
HE WAS BREATHING again. It was shallow, and his pulse was weak, but he was alive. She called his name, propped him up and held her hands against his cheeks and rubbed them until his eyes opened. He looked confused.
“Hi, Digger,” she said.
He tried to speak, but nothing came.
“Take your time,” she said.
He mumbled something she couldn’t make out. And then his eyes focused on her and looked past her at the bulkhead. “What happened?” he asked finally. “How—here?”
“I pulled you out of the water.”
“Water?” His hands went to his clothes.
“What’s your name?” she asked gently.
“Dunn. My name’s Dunn.” He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down. “She okay?”
“Tayma? She’s fine. You saved her.”
“Good. Thanks, Kellie.”
“Kellie? Do you know who I am?”
“Kellie,” he said.
“No. Kellie’s with the Hawksbill. Try again.”
ARCHIVE
(From the Goompah Recordings,
Savakol, Translated by Ginko Amagawa)
I’m no public speaker and I don’t like being up here. If you want to know what happened today at Barkat Beach, I’ll tell you what I saw, or what I thought I saw. And I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about explanations.
I went because I’d heard the keelots were going to be there, and that they would perform the kelma. I went with Quet. We were standing near the front, close to the water.
They went through the ceremony without any problems, and Tayma started out into the ocean. She was praying as she went, and had gotten about ten or fifteen paces when something began to chase her. I don’t know what it was. Something in the water but we couldn’t see it.
She didn’t notice it, but just kept going. We were yelling for her to look out, but she probably thought we were trying to persuade her to come back.
We could see it was going to catch her, and everybody screamed louder. A few cleared out. What happened next is hard to describe. But there was a big fight and then a window opened in the sky. ”
chapter 38
On the surface near Hopgop.
Friday, December 5.
MARGE AND JULIE descended beside the rainmaker they’d brought down the previous night, ready to go to work.
They’d rehearsed often on the way out, and they fell to with a minimum of wasted effort. The rainmaker was already centered among the eight trees that would serve as moorings. Marge did a quick measurement among tree trunks to determine a flight path for the helicopter. When she was satisfied she had it, she released the anchor cables. Julie meantime dropped a feed line in the stream, attached it to a set of four sprinklers, and inserted the sprinklers in the ground around the chimney. Then she connected the line to the pump.
Next they attached the cables to the trees, arranging the slack so that, when the time came, the chimney would be able to rise evenly to a height of about ten meters. Then they disconnected the vertical lines that held the package together. And that was it. It looked like a wide, sky-colored cylinder, made of plastic, open at top and bottom.
“Ready to go?” asked Julie.
Marge nodded. “Yes, indeed.” She was proud of her rainmakers, but trying to look as though this were all in a day’s work.
“Bill,” said Julie, “Get the landers and the helicopter ready.”
“They are primed and waiting.”
Marge planted a pickup on a tree trunk so they could watch the action on the ground. When she’d finished, they got back into the hauler and Julie took them up, directly over the top of the chimney.
They did a quick inspection, and Marge pronounced everything in order. “Let’s go,” she said.
Julie descended gently until they touched the top of the chimney. “That’s good,” she told Bill. “Reconnect.”
Marge felt the magnetic clamps take hold.
“Done,” said Bill.
Marge started the pump. On the ground, a fine spray rose into th
e air and descended around the rainmaker. “That’s not really going to make the clouds happen, is it?”
“It’ll speed things along,” said Marge.
Julie grinned. “The wonders of modern technology.” She swung round in her seat. “Here we go.”
She engaged the spike, the vertical thrusters fired, and they started up. The top of the rainmaker rose with them, extending like an accordion.
“You ever have a problem with these things?” asked Julie.
“Not so far. Of course, this is the first time we’ve tried to use them off-world.”
“Should work better than at home,” Julie said. “Less gravity.” And then, to the AI: “Bill, let’s get the first lander aloft.”
The interior of the chimney was braced with microscopically thin lightweight ribs, and crosspieces supported the structure every eighty-six meters. A screen guarded the bottom of the chimney, to prevent small animals from getting sucked up inside. (Larger creatures, like Goompahs, would be inconvenienced if they got too close, would lose their hats, but not their lives.)
As they gained altitude, the omega rose with them. For the first time, Marge could see lightning bolts flickering within the cloud mass.
“Four hundred meters,” said Bill, giving them the altitude.
There was an external support ring two hundred meters below the top of the chimney. The first of the four landers, under Bill’s control, rose alongside and linked to the ring.
“Connection complete,” said the AI. Both vehicles, working in concert, continued drawing the chimney up.
Marge could see lights in Hopgop, on the east along the sea. The big moon was up, and it was moving slowly across the face of the omega.
“Seven hundred meters,” said Bill.
The ship swayed. “Atmosphere’s pushing at the chimney,” said Marge. “Don’t worry. It’ll get smoother as we go higher.”
“The other landers are in the air.”
It struck Marge that the cloud looked most ominous, most portentous, when it was rising. She didn’t know why that was. Maybe it was connected with the disappointed hope, each evening, that it wouldn’t be there in the morning. Maybe it was simply the sense of something evil climbing into the sky. She shook it off, thinking how the Goompahs must be affected if it bothered her.
“I have a question,” said Julie.
“Go ahead.”
“When it’s all over, how do we get them down? The chimneys?”
“When the omega hits, we push a button, and the omega blows them into the sea.”
Julie frowned. “They won’t drag? Cause some damage on the ground?”
“I doubt it. In any case, it’s a necessary risk.” The construction materials were biodegradable, and within a few months there’d be no trace of the chimneys anywhere.
They were getting high. Hopgop looked far away. Overhead, the stars were bright.
“Twelve hundred meters.”
Near ground level, a second lander moved in alongside the chimney and tied onto a support ring on the opposite side from the first. “Second linkup complete,” said Bill. “All units ascending.”
At twenty-two hundred meters, the third lander joined the effort, connecting with a ring at right angles to the other two. Marge was sitting comfortably, reassuring Julie when the hauler occasionally rocked as the weather pushed at the chimney. Julie had never done anything like this, and when she put on goggles and saw the chimney trailing all the way to the ground, her instincts screamed that it was too much, that the weight had to drag the hauler out of the air. It came down to Marge’s assurances against the evidence of her eyes.
“Keep in mind,” Marge said, “it’s the same thing you brought down out of orbit. It’s no heavier now than it was then.”
“Except now it’s unrolled.”
“Doesn’t change the mass. Relax. Everything’s going to be fine.”
At thirty-seven hundred meters, they began to slow. By then the fourth lander had joined the support group, and they were approaching the chimney’s extension limit. When the pickup they’d left behind showed them they had exactly the situation they wanted, the anchor lines pulled tight, and the base of the chimney off the ground, they halted the ascent.
“Bill,” said Julie, “activate the helicopter and put it in position.”
Bill acknowledged.
The helicopter was a gleaming antique unit, a Falcon, which had become legendary during the long struggle with international terrorists during the later years of the last century. CANADIAN FORCES was stenciled on its hull. It was equipped with lasers and particle beam weapons, but of course none was functional.
Bill started the engine and engaged its silent-running capability, which wasn’t really all that silent. When it was ready, he lifted it a couple of meters into the air, navigated it between the two trees Marge had selected, and inserted it directly beneath the base of the chimney.
“Ready,” said Bill.
“Okay.” Julie was doing a decent job hiding her qualms. “We want the blades turning as fast as possible, but we don’t want it off the ground. We just want to move the air around.”
“Ground idle,” said Bill.
“Yes. That sounds right.”
The blades picked up speed. The helicopter strained upward and Bill cut back slightly. “Perfect,” Marge said.
“What next?” asked Julie.
Marge smiled. “I think from here we can just relax and enjoy the show.”
A column of warm moist air moved skyward. Up the chimney. More warm air rushed in to fill the vacuum, and gradually the flow took over on its own. Bill had to cut the blade rotation back again to keep the Falcon from lifting off.
“Moving along nicely,” he reported. And, finally: “I believe it is self-sustaining now.”
Marge gave it a few more minutes, then Julie directed Bill to move the helicopter away. “Be careful,” she added.
Bill brought the Falcon out, squeezing past the same two trees. When it was clear, he gunned the engines, and it lifted off into the steady winds that were racing around the chimney. It fought its way into the sky and turned west toward Utopia.
Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks
The ship is asleep.
Digger seems to be okay. We were worried for a while that there might be some brain damage. He still doesn’t have his memory back completely, can’t recall how he got into the ocean, or even being on the beach. But Bill says that’s not an unusual result in cases like this. I guess we’ll know for sure in the morning.
I haven’t been able to sleep. It’s not so much that I’m worried about Digger, because I think he’ll be okay. But watching a creature that one thinks of as rational try to end its life for the most irrational of purposes. I cannot get it out of my mind. Knowing that it happens, has happened to us, and seeing it in action. It gives me a sense of how far we’ve come. Of what civilization truly means.
— December 5
chapter 39
On board the AV3, west of Hopgop.
Saturday, December 6.
“LEVEL OF CONVECTION is sufficient,” said Bill.
“All right.” Marge rubbed her hands together. “Now we do the magic.” She glanced out at the sky. The chimney, which they’d been supporting for several hours, was all but invisible to the naked eye. Julie had noticed that the drag on the AV3 had lessened, had in fact all but disappeared. “Cut them loose,” she said. “Cut everything loose.”
“The landers, too?”
“Everything. Send them to Utopia.”
Julie knew how it was supposed to work. But this kind of operation flew in the face of common sense. And she had a bad feeling about what would happen when she released her grip on the chimney. Ah, well. “Bill,” she said, “do it.”
The AI acknowledged. She felt the clamps release the chimney, watched the status board light up with reports that the four landers had simultaneously turned loose, heard Bill say that the action was completed. And all her instincts told her
that the elongated structure they’d so laboriously hauled up several thousand meters would now collapse, crash down on the countryside and, God help them, maybe on Hopgop.
Marge was smiling broadly. “Let’s take a look,” she said.
Julie took the hauler around in a large arc so they could see. The chimney was constructed of stealth materials. When she looked through the goggles, it was voilà all the way to the ground. It was standing on its own, a great round cylinder extending down through the clouds, supported by no visible means.
She knew the theory. Surface air is warmer, heavier, and more humid than air at altitude. It wants to rise but generally can’t do so in any organized fashion, or in sufficient volume to create clouds unless there’s substantial pressure or a temperature gradient. Nightfall and pressure fronts provide that in nature.
To do it artificially, a chimney was needed. Once it was in place, the warm air started up on its own. It kept moving up because there was no place else for it to go. They’d put the Falcon at the base to provide a fan, to help things along. Once the system got going, the chimney became an oversize siphon, perfectly capable of keeping itself inflated.
At the moment, warm moist air was spreading out from the top of the rainmaker. It would shortly begin to create clouds.
“We just have time,” Marge said, “to get the next package and run it down to the Sakmarung site so we can be ready to go tomorrow night.”
That would leave enough time for Julie to get back to the Jenkins and pick up her two caballeros, who’d be looking forward to another day of planting their projectors and getting ready for the big show. She wasn’t entirely sure Digger would be able to go back down, and in fact she thought he should stay put. Since Whit was too inexperienced to go down alone, that meant both of them should take a day off.
But Digger had insisted the night before that he was okay, that he would be able to go back in the morning. Then he’d passed out, helped along by some medication. It occurred to Julie that she should let Kellie know what had happened.
“Better to wait,” said Marge.
“Why?”
“Wait till you get back to the ship. Make sure he’s really okay. She’ll want to know, and you won’t want to be telling her you think he’s fine.”
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