Survivalist - 23 - Call To Battle (19 page)

John began to emerge from his coma and was revived. Paul and his wife, Annie, Michael and Natalia took The Sleep as well so they could all be together someday in the future.

The future was here. Michael and Natalia at last became lovers in the period between John’s and Sarah’s near deaths and their returning to The Sleep. Paul and Annie postponed having a child. John awakened. Sarah did not.

John was alone.

John stubbornly believed that Sarah would someday be restored to him, while the rest of them-Michael, Natalia, Annie, Paul himself-hoped. If belief in something could make it so, then Sarah would be restored. But how would she be? What damage had the projectile lodged in her brain really done? How much could the brain’s natural recuperative abilities and the curative side effects of The Sleep be counted upon to save her?

Through knowing John Rourke, Sarah, Michael and Natalia, Paul Rubenstein had learned of another kind of love beyond that of child for parent, husband for wife; it was the love that true friendship is. And he loved John and Sarah too much as his friends to see one unintentionally inflict grief and suffering upon the other. If Sarah were restored in body alone but not in mind, Paul never questioned for an instant that John’s devotion to her would be unfailing. The thought of John Rourke spending the rest of his days caring for the mindless husk of a human being that had once been a living, vibrant person, made Paul Rubenstein tremble with rage and disgust.

And the thing of it was-as he held his wife Annie’s hand so tighdy for a moment that she said, “Ouch!” and then leaned up only to kiss him softly on the cheek-he would do the same for Annie and she for him, refusing to believe that the person inside the body would never come back, was gone forever, was dead while yet clinically alive.

“This world sucks sometimes,” Paul said to his wife, his voice a low, rasping whisper.

“Thinking about dad, aren’t you? Dad and mom?”

“Were you reading all my thoughts?” Paul asked her. A peculiar result of the cryogenic sleep for Annie was that it had heightened her mental powers, scary sometimes. She could read the minds of people she loved during periods of intense emotion and/or stress, could empathically experience their pain, their suffering, whatever danger they might be in. “Were you?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Annie whispered, leaning her head against his shoulder as they ascended the steps. “But, I love you, too.”

Paul touched his lips to her hair, held her for an instant before they went on.

Then they continued past Michael and Natalia and into the science building, John Rourke walking ahead of them, alone.

His audience was as mixed a group as he could ever have imagined. There were government officials wearing expensively tailored business suits or understated high-fashion dresses, naval officers in their dress white uniforms, miscellaneous civilian women in trendy rniniskirts or floral print sundresses with enormous flowing skirts, police officials wearing everything from uniforms to casual sportclothes to seedy-looking street attire, the young and old, the important and their aides who someday themselves might well be important, personal representatives of the President of the United States (who was at Mid-Wake) and the Mayor of Honolulu and the Governor of Hawaii, Her Honor and His Excellency in personal attendance. Scientists, male and female, from every discipline within the university were present, too, but the scientists were in the minority. Everyone had a Sigma Security Clearance and, for one reason or another, a need to know.

The only group not represented was the press.

And that was for very good reason.

Thorn Rolvaag, his palms slightly damp, gripped the sides of the rostrum and began. “I’m Doctor Thornton Rolvaag, Regents’ Professor of Vulcanology here at the University of Hawaii. What is said here tonight will be learned-unavoidably-by everyone in the islands within days at the most, perhaps only hours. But, until then, I am instructed by various persons to tell you that the information I will share with you tonight cannot leave this room. After what Tm afraid will not be a very brief statement and may, at times, be a bit abstruse-scientists aren’t always that great at simplifying things—Fll answer any questions that I can.” Rolvaag cleared his throat.

“Being half Icelandic, perhaps I have vulcanology in my blood. And the study of indigenous volcanic activity in these islands is not really all that much removed from the study of the volcanoes of my ancestral homeland. There are several classifications of volcanoes, and those of Lydveldid Island and Hawaii are coincidentally of the same type. They are shield volcanoes.

“Shield volcanoes,” Rolvaag went on, reminding himself as his eyes would drift to his notes, to keep it simple because he wasn’t speaking to scientists in the main, but to laymen, “have an angle of slope between three and eight degrees and at their summit there’s almost invariably a crater with very steep walls and a flat base.

“Where the difference arises between the volcanoes of Iceland and those of Hawaii is, putting it simply, in size. Icelandic volcanoes range from a litde over three hundred feet in height to well over three thousand feet, with base diameters correspondingly twenty times the height.

“Hawaiian shield volcanoes are the largest on earth, possibly the largest that have ever been. Kilauea on Mauna Loa, for example. When one considers the portion of Mauna Loa which is underwater, it has a height ten times greater than the largest of the Icelandic volcanoes-roughly thirty-three thousand feet, or about six miles. Its base is two hundred and fifty miles in diameter. Hawaiian volcanoes have an average angle of slope which is no more than six degrees and the summit is most often a plateau, quite expansive.

“To put this into perspective,” Rolvaag said, “consider how the Hawaiian Islands came to be. We’re all familiar with the concept of plate tectonics, how solid masses float across the earth on a plastic-like surface of molten material. Protoconti-nents-Pangea and Gondwanaland-existed at least twice in geologic history, only to break up subsequendy into their separate

land masses. The jigsaw puzzle was assembled, then broke apart. Some forty-three million years ago, the Pacific plate began moving in a northwesterly direction, creating the Hawaiian ridge and the islands where we stand. The youngest of these islands, and the most geologically active, is the big island, Hawaii.

“All shield volcanoes are formed almost totally of basalts, are rich in calcium, magnesium. Although the ancient peoples of Hawaii credited the eruption to the restless feet of the Goddess Pele, as scientists today we credit eruption to something perhaps just as unpredictable as a female goddess, the movement of magma and gas beneath the earth’s surface. When too much pressure builds up, there is an eruption. For the traditionalists who may be among us, I suppose it could always be theorized that Pele causes these buildups,” Rolvaag said, smiling.

“There are two types of lava with which we are concerned,” he said, continuing. “In Hawaii they are called pahoehoe and ‘a’a. Pahoehoe is fluid, moves rapidly, while ‘a’a is much rougher-textured and more violent in appearance.

“The temperatures below the ground can easily reach two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That’s not warm at all when compared to the sun, where it’s a balmy twenty-seven million degrees Fahrenheit.” There was a faint ripple of laughter. “Within the context of metallurgy, however, two thousand eight hundred degrees is considered the high end limit for combustion heating. What lava is, then, is wildly hot liquified metal, stating it most basically. Anything it touches, it destroys or covers over, sealing it.

“Plate tectonics, of course, are responsible for a wide range of phenomena, everything from mountain building to earthquakes to the crisis we now face. Doctor Betty Gilder and I, along with a staff of graduate students and in discreet consultation with other experts in the field from among the nations of the Trans-Global Alliance have confirmed, ladies and gentie-men, that Kilauea is about to erupt in a manner unprecedented in recorded history.” Murmurs went throughout the auditorium, some restless shuffling of feet, turning of heads. “What this means, in part at least, is that the big island, Hawaii, must be evacuated. Those plans, I understand, are already under way and the actual full-scale evacuation effort will begin within hours, hopefully soon enough. The evacuation will be locally announced-” Rolvaag checked the Steinmetz on his wrist. “It will be announced on the big island and initial efforts begun within die next ten minutes.

“Normally, ladies and gentlemen,” Rolvaag went on, his voice low, “our volcanoes could well be classified as “gentle giants,” capable of great destruction, indeed, but in modern times responsible for litde if any loss of human life. That will not be the case in this instance.

“When Kilauea erupts, we are predicting a violent burst of gas and ash, forming a cloud which may well obscure the sun for some time. We further predict a lava flow of such proportion and violence that the plateau will sink and the slope at least partially disintegrate, thus spilling both types of lava, pahoehoe and ‘a’a, more rapidly and in greater volume than ever experienced before in a populated area.

“This sudden introduction of lava in such immense volume, and the upthrust and subsequent collapse of the undersea portion of the mountain will precipitate tsunamis and high tides of levels and strengths significandy greater than ever experienced in these islands. Earth tremors, to include those which may be felt on the ocean floor, will be experienced as far away as the Chinese First City and Port Reno in North America. Mid-Wake itself, as well as the Russian-American subsurface complex, largely a manufacturing area, will experience quakes. As of yet, the actual strength of these quakes cannot be predicted.

“You have been asked to come here, ladies and gendemen, in order that you be informed. I understand that each of you, in one manner or another, will be involved in the efforts which will be required to minimize as best possible the effects of this natural disaster. Now, I promised to try to answer any questions I could.”

There was a flurry of hands.

Rather than try to guess who was the most important, he went to the first hand he’d seen. “You, miss, in the print dress.”

The woman stood up. Tm Annie Rubenstein. I wanted to know if there is anything which could be done to divert the effect of the eruption, even partially? That’s probably a naive question, but my science is a little behind the times.”

One of the Rourke Family herself. Rolvaag had read accounts in old letters and the like concerning the involvement Rolvaag had with this girl; it was hard to imagine she had been born six and one-half centuries ago. “That’s a good question actually, Mrs. Rubenstein. A very good question. The lava has to go somewhere, of course, the pressure relieved; and there’s been a theory for some time that-with a volcano as immense as the one we’re discussing here-it might indeed be possible to find a point where a lava flow might produce significantly less damage and the pressure buildup might be relieved more gradually. I can’t go into all the details here, but I’d be happy to discuss the process in greater depth with you and anyone else interested at a later date.

“Suffice it to say, however,” Rolvaag continued, “this is only theoretical. The basic methodology would involve utilizing high-speed torpedoes or missiles which would be fired in series and essentially drill through the rock over one of the tubelike structures within the volcano through which lava flows. Puncture the tube and the lava will flow out at the site of the puncture. Do this with several of the larger tubes and it would be analogous to what would result with a human being, for example, if one suddenly diminished arterial blood flow. The eruption could essentially die.”

Thorn Rolvaag wondered if indeed it might work …

John Rourke sipped at a cup of coffee, his eyes focused beyond the rim of the cup, on the computer animation of the anticipated effects of the volcanic eruption. The video screen on which it was displayed dominated the far wall of the conference room, its proportions as large as the motion picture screens of the Twentieth Century.

Watching this animated holocaust brought back bitter memories, of watching video screens much smaller from within the confines of The Retreat more than six hundred and twenty-five years ago when the ionized atmosphere reacted to the heating of the sun and the skies caught fire in what came to be called The Great Conflagration.

If that was a disaster of truly Biblical proportion, this would be near to it in scope, although more localized.

John Rourke had never been one to just sit around and wait for the inevitable. Perhaps Fate could not be conquered, or perhaps it could. But Fate could be contested, at least. Annie’s seemingly naive question was provocative. In theory, at least, what Dr. Rolvaag said about tapping into the arterial flow of the volcano was fraught with promise. The technology available for such an attempt might not be equal, however, to the task.

Its logic was inescapable. Rather than let the volcanic matter pour out violentiy through one hole, relieve that pressure so the material would instead dissipate through a series of holes, and the volcanic matter would waste itself on the sea floor.

Something Rolvaag hadn’t mentioned bothered John Rourke as well. Would this eruption, unprecedented in recorded history, be so massively violent that it would in some manner or another affect the geothermal vent? Both Mid-Wake and what was formerly the Soviet Underwater Complex-and was now a Russian-American manufacturing facility-derived electrical power from it?

Without electrical power in massive kilowattage, the domed facilities would not be able to maintain the required air pressure and would have to be evacuated. Mid-Wake was the seat of the United States government, still the major repository for “American” culture. Thousands of persons would have to be gotten to safety; if there was insufficient time for that or an in

adequate number of vessels, thousands of persons would instead suffocate in their own waste air while those few who might still cling to life would be crushed as the sea finally collapsed the domed cities.