Undersea City (7 page)

And as the hour got closer to twenty hundred, then passed it, the man I followed began to act nervous, agitated. Several times he turned and looked back toward me; more than once he actually started in my direction. But each time he changed his mind. And it was not only me he was worried about, for he kept looking overhead, staring about him at the walls, the buildings, the people.

Something very great indeed was on his mind.

I could not imagine what it was—until a terrible moaning sound seemed to fill the dome. It came from somewhere beneath us, far down—so far that it was a distant cruel howling that made no sense.

Then the floor moved crazily under my feet, and it began to make a great deal of sense indeed.

Seaquake!

Bob’s forecast had been right indeed! I heard screams from the people around us, saw the old Chinese turn and begin to run toward me.

Then I caught a glimpse of something big and jagged sailing down from the deck-roof toward me; I tried to leap out of its way, but I was too late, too late; it reached me; I was thrown a couple of yards away; and the lights went out for me.

There was a roaring in my ears, and I tried to sit up.

Someone was holding my head. I opened my eyes groggily; it was the ancient Chinese; his eyes were neither haunted nor dangerous, only sad. He looked at me; then, gently, put my head down.

By the time I managed to push myself up again he was out of sight. A medical corpsman rushed toward me. “Here, you!” he cried. “Are you all right?”

“I—I think so,” I mumbled; but he was already examining me. Overhead a great flat voice was blaring out of the emergency public-address speakers:

“This is a Quake Alert. Repeat, this is a Quake Alert! Routine precautions are now in effect. The safety walls are being energized. All slidewalks will be stopped. All safety doors will be closed at once. Do not attempt to pass the octant barriers! Repeat, do not attempt to pass the octant barriers!”

“You’re all right,” said the corpsman, getting up from beside me.

“That’s what I tried to tell you,” I said, but he didn’t hear me; he was already on his way to look for other casualties. I stood up, a little wobbly, and looked around. The Troyon-tube sign of a little delicatessen had come plunging to the ground and had caught me—fortunately, just by one corner. A few inches farther, and—But it was all right.

The great flat voice of the speakers was blaring:

“There is no reason for panic. Only slight damage has been reported. Only minor injuries have been reported. These safety measures are purely precautionary. Please remain indoors until the alert is lifted! Repeat, please remain indoors until the alert is lifted! The public ways must be kept clear for official use.”

There was no help for it; the octant barriers were down; I was marooned where I was.

It was nearly two hours before the alert was lifted—too late for me to do very much with what time remained of my pass.

All around me the people of Krakatoa Dome were responding to the challenge of the quake. It didn’t seem to scare them; it hardly seemed to interrupt their lives. Of course, such minor quakes were common here—since the dome was, after all, located in the great quake belt that runs all the way from Mexico, through the West Indies and Southern Europe, through Asia Minor, to the East Indies. And the engineers who designed Krakatoa had known that better than I; the dome had been designed to stand them.

But this quake—this one was something special.

This was the one that none of us had forecast—except Bob Eskow.

I went back to base with a great many questions on my mind.

But the station was sealed off.

It was because of the quake, of course. Lieutenant Tsuya had one of the geosondes out, and it was too dangerous to do so without activating the Edenite shields between the quake station and the rest of the base and the dome itself—especially with a quake so recent and the chance of another. It made sense; but it was no help to me.

I wanted to see Bob.

I went to sleep in spite of myself—my aching head made it difficult for me to stay awake, though I wanted to be there when Bob came back from the station.

But when I woke up, Bob’s bed had been slept in, but he was already up and gone; and Harley Danthorpe was sitting on the side of it, looking at me with a strange expression.

“Eden,” he said, “I have to hand it to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

He chuckled, but there was a look of respect in his eyes—yes, respect, and something else, too; something I couldn’t quite trace. It was as though he were giving me his grudging admiration for something—but something that, after all, he found a little disappointing. “Talk about the inside drift,” he said, shaking his head. “Boy! You and your uncle have the rest of us capsized.”

I got up and dressed. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, and left him to go to the mess hall.

When I got back, Bob Eskow was there…and, queerly, Danthorpe was looking at him with exactly the same look he had given me!

I didn’t want to talk in front of Danthorpe, not about the wizened Chinese, not about anything for which I was afraid Bob might not have a good explanation. I only said: “I’m glad you got back.”

Bob shrugged and met my eyes calmly. “You shouldn’t have worried about me, Jim.”

“Worry about you! Bob, do you know what would have happened if Lieutenant Tsuya found out you were AWOL?”

“Hush!” cut in Harley Danthorpe, grinning. “You two sharks ought to watch what you say! Come on, you two. How about letting me in on it?”

I looked at him, then at Bob. But clearly Bob was as mystified by what Harley was talking about as I.

“Come on!” he coaxed again. “You, Bob! Why not tell me how you got the inside drift on the quake last night.”

Bob shrugged. “I made my forecast, that’s all.”

“Oh, sure! And you hit it right on the nose—
that's
all! When Lieutenant Tsuya and the rest of us missed it entirely.” Danthorpe squinted at him shrewdly.

Bob said stubbornly, “I didn’t have any inside drift. I just read the instruments and applied the principles of seismology. I wasn’t certain the quake would happen.”

“But it happened all right,” Danthorpe nodded. “Oh, yes! You’re a real shark, Eskow!”

He squinted at me. “And Eden here is another, eh? You know—” he sat back on Bob’s bunk and lowered his voice confidentially—“you know, I was talking to my dad about the quake. Of course, I couldn’t discuss what we were doing here—you know that. But somehow, the—uh—subject of quake forecasting came up.” He winked. “And Dad says that there would be millions in an accurate forecasting system.”

“Of course!” said Bob earnestly. “But the money’s the least part of it, Harley. Think of the lives! A dependable forecasting system could prevent tragedies like the one at Nansei Shoto Dome.”

“Sure, sure,” said Harley Danthorpe. “But the money’s what I’m talking about. You know, a smart operator wouldn’t have to wait for a major quake. He could make a killing in a little one—like last night’s.

“In fact,” he said after a moment, looking at me with that curious expression, “my dad says one trader did.”

There was a pause.

Bob broke it. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

Danthorpe grinned. “Ask him,” he said, pointing to me. “Ask him about his uncle.”

I was totally mystified. “My uncle—Stewart Eden, you mean? But I haven’t seen him in a long time. You don’t mean that Uncle Stewart’s here in Krakatoa Dome, do you?”

Danthorpe shrugged. “I don’t know if he is or not,” he said. “But I know what my father says. Your uncle’s broker was busy in the market yesterday—selling securities short. He
knew
there would be a market break today! And I guess he knew there would be a quake, to cause it.”

He stared at me again, with that curious sort of respect in his eyes. “For your uncle,” he said, “it was a million-dollar quake!”

It took my breath away.

I knew that my Uncle Stewart had investments in all sorts of enterprises down deep. I knew that he was sometimes wealthy, and sometimes nearly bankrupt—that
was
the way he lived. Long before he invented edenite he had been playing a dangerous game with the sea, matching his brain and his money—and often his life—against all its hazards. Sometimes he had won. Why, all the sub-sea domes were evidence of that! But, just as often, the unconquerable sea had beaten him.

But this—making money out of disaster! I could hardly believe it.

If nothing else, it took my mind off Bob Eskow. “Come on, Jim,” Danthorpe was insisting. “Where is he? Is he in Krakatoa Dome?”

I could only tell him what I knew of the truth. “The last I heard of him, he was in Marinia. Thetis Dome, I think. I don’t know where he is now.”

“Sure, sure.” But Harley Danthorpe seemed disappointed. “Too bad,” he said. “My dad is anxious to meet him.”

Bob grinned tightly. “I bet he is,” he said in a voice that rasped. “I bet he’d like to be able to make a few millions out of quakes himself.”

It was not a pleasant remark, but Danthorpe nodded shrewdly. “Of course. They’re both working the inside drift. They ought to be working together.”

I doubted that my uncle would want to work any kind of drift with old Barnacle Ben Danthorpe. But I didn’t say anything—didn’t have much of a chance, for that matter, for just then Yeoman Harris came into our quarters.

“Eden?” he demanded, peering around. “Where’s—Oh, there you are. Eden, you’re to report to Lieutenant Tsuya down at Station K—at oh eight hundred hours.”

I glanced at my watch. It was almost that already.

“On the double!” he said.

I hesitated. What did the lieutenant want with me? I looked hard at the old yeoman’s sea-battered face. His watery, bulging eyes didn’t tell me a thing. “Can’t you give me a tow?” I asked. “I’m adrift.”

He snapped: “Give you a tow? You cadets are more trouble than you’re worth already!” And he glared at Eskow. “You,” he muttered, “I’d give a lot to know what you were up to last night, when your pass was missing?”

Bob’s expression was innocent. “I thought you found the pass.”

“I did! But where was it when I
couldn’t
find it? You wouldn’t have, for instance, taken it, used it, and then put it back?”

Bob merely looked polite; but that was answer enough for me. But I didn’t have time to think about it. “On the double, Eden!” Yeoman Harris barked. “The tides don’t wait!”

And I hurried off to Station K.

Lieutenant Tsuya glanced up abstractedly as I came into the station, mumbled something, and looked back at his map.

He had been there around the clock. When he found time to sleep I had no idea; his pumpkin face was sagging with weariness, but his eyes were still bright.

He was working over a cross-sectional chart, with the crumpled layers of the earth’s crust carefully lined in under the Dome, stretching out and under the great downfold of the Java Trough. He painstakingly inked in a red fault line, and then looked up.

“Eden,” he said, “I hear you were hurt in the quake last night.”

The lieutenant didn’t miss much. “Not badly, sir. Just a scratch.”

“Yes.” He nodded and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “Krakatoa Dome was lucky,” he said. “If it had been a major quake, like the one at Nansei Shoto—”

He shook his head and closed his eyes for a second. “You didn’t forecast it, Eden,” he said, reaching back to knead the weary muscles at the back of his neck. “That’s no shame to you. I didn’t forecast it either. But Bob Eskow did.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lieutenant Tsuya said suddenly: “How well do you know Cadet Eskow?”

“Why—why—” He had caught me off balance. “We’ve been close friends ever since we were lubbers at the Academy, sir.”

“I see. And how do you think he was able to make that forecast last night?”

It was a good question. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good answer.

I should have known that the Lieutenant would ask that question; as I say, he didn’t miss much.

I said: “I can’t account for it, sir.”

The lieutenant nodded. “But you’d like to, wouldn’t you, Cadet Eden?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir!”

Lieutenant Tsuya said thoughtfully, “I have questioned him, and all I get out of him is that his forecast was based on the observations we all made together. It is true that the observations support his forecast—viewed in a certain light. It is all a matter of probabilities. I elected to consider the quake very improbable. So did you and Cadet Danthorpe. But Cadet Eskow—no. He considered it probable.” He leaned forward and looked at me searchingly. “And I wonder why, Eden. And so do you.”

I said nothing—but I couldn’t help wondering just how much this lieutenant
did
know.

The lieutenant said earnestly. “Eden, I am going to take you into my confidence. You know the Jesuit seismologist, Father Tidesley, I believe.”

“Yes, sir. I met him at the Academy.”

“And do you know his theory concerning the recent quakes in this area?”

I hesitated. “Well, sir, not really.”

“He believes that they are artifically caused!” said Lieutenant Tsuya grimly. “He believes that someone is touching them off—perhaps for the profit they can make in stock exchange speculation! What do you think of that?”

I said stubbornly: “I didn’t know that was possible, sir.”

He nodded. “Neither did I,” he admitted. “But now I’m not so sure, Eden. And neither are you. I know of your—researches last night, Eden,” he said. I know what you were doing ’bovedecks in the Dome.

And I know that there is some question about your own uncle.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. Then he seemed to reach a decision.

“Cadet Eden,” he said, “your own loyalty to the Sub Sea Fleet is unquestioned. I will not ask you to betray any confidences you may happen to hold. But—” he hesitated, then nodded, as if making up his mind—”if you would like to continue your, ah researches…why, I will be glad to facilitate them in any way I can.

“Specifically,” he said, “if you require another pass to do any further investigation, I will see that it is granted.”