Because of its partially protected position the sea escapes the rough handling of open ocean storms, but typhoons sweeping it in the season radiate their havoc from its axis and dash immense destructive waves on the shores of the many islands around its perimeter.
Inside the Banda a cluster of islands rear their craggy summits towards shrouds of cottony mist. Some of these islands, collectively known as the Lucipara group, are inhabited.
The gentle but hardy Sino-Polynesian folk, whose presence in this territory dates back to man's first attempts to explore the world beyond his shores, gather fish and fruit without effort and sustain their existence peacefully as they've done since pre-history.
Other islands here are desolate, however, for all attempts at animal and vegetable life to cling and flourish on their hostile stone precipices have been defeated. Moss, mollusks and sea-birds populate them and practically nothing more. It therefore must have puzzled these primitive denizens to see erected, on one of these forbidding isles, a scaffolding of steel very much resembling an oil rig. The island was nameless, though navigational charts numbered it if for no other reason than to prevent ships from cracking their hulls against its rocky facade.
But from the activity going on in the vicinity of the rig, the island might have been thought of as a super-civilized one. A handful of helicopters stood parked on the gentle but barren slope to the west of the rig, while on its east stood two strange igloo-like structures. These had been constructed out of aluminum frames covered with light canvas sprayed heavily with foam.
The foam, upon hardening almost instantly, provided airtight protection against the elements, yet was porous enough to permit ordinary bandsaws to slice doors and windows out of it.
These had been covered with transparent plastic.
Closer examination of these huts disclosed banks of highly sophisticated electronic gear, powered by generators and batteries. On slowly-moving charts the needles of half a dozen sensors and recording devices traced straight or jagged lines whose significance was opaque to the rather belligerent Orientals who guarded the machinery jealously, Sten-guns at the ready.
It was a partially cloudy after noon, but the clouds swept through rather than over the island, creating a miserable mist that caused the knot of men standing around the rig to pull their tropical shirts away from their chests, as if the saturated cloth threatened to shrink on them and crush their rib cages.
The individuals watching the operation of the drilling gear were for the most part Orientals, grim-faced and furtive. From time to time one or another would look over his shoulder, as if he were doing something wrong and expected pursuers somehow to materialize unannounced.
Others shifted uneasily from foot to foot, appearing nervous about the safety of the machinery before them. They glanced frequently at the helicopters, reassuring themselves that their choppers were ready to bear them off instantaneously and without a hitch when the right moment came.
In this crowd of sallow, stolid men the short, redheaded white man stood out almost ludicrously. He was just five-and-a-half feet tall, matching the height of most of his Oriental colleagues. But unlike them, his head bore close-cropped orange-red hair and his skin had the milky white complexion that frequently accompanies hair of that color. He was about fifty, thin almost to emaciation, and wore olive drab Bermuda shorts and shirt.
His face, like theirs, was unsmiling, but instead of expressing objective scientific curiosity he seemed almost to dread the experiment unfolding before him. The fact that one of the members of the crowd trained a Sten on the base of his spine might explain his decided lack of enthusiasm over the project.
TWO
THE ONLY PERSON with any semblance of amusement in his countenance was a stocky Oriental, quite tall for his race, who observed both rig and captive with a kind of smugness. His almond eyes dilated with satisfaction as he contemplated the event unfolding before him, and he seemed to carry no doubt whatsoever that success was within his grasp.
He was a barrel-chested man, with powerful arms and a squat neck that seemed to be all tendon. He wore white slacks and a bizarre Hawaiian shirt of red and green design, almost the only evidence of color on the entire island.
The rig they watched had the pyramidal shape of a typical drilling device, but was considerably shorter. There were no pipes, however, and no drill heads. Nor were there tubes or other apparatus to collect or store whatever it was these men were drilling for. And instead of conventional machinery, gas driven motors and water pumps and the like, a small cubical device stood over the shaft.
The device was about four feet square and encased in grey metal. From one side emerged a bundle of wires and electric cables that fed into a generator unit housed in one of the foam huts. And in the belly of this box was what seemed to be a zoom lens not unlike that of a camera.
Amid the sounds of waves pounding the rocks, and sea birds calling stridently to one another, came the throaty murmur of the generator and a sinister humming of the device itself. From time to time the mist surrounding the rig would be pierced by a bright shaft of purple light radiating from the lens, after which the air would be filled with an intense odor of ozone that hung in the heavy mist and rankled the observers' nostrils.
As this strange operation progressed, the stocky Oriental in the Hawaiian shirt moved through the little crowd and stood by the side of the redheaded white man. Silently they watched the process, but at last the Oriental addressed his companion.
"Forty-eight hours have come, Dr. Dacian, and forty-eight have passed."
"I said forty-eight, give or take a few hours. The exact length of time depends on the structure of the mantle, and the composition of the stone at the critical level. We have no way of knowing these facts except by inference. That is, if the beam penetrates and destroys the stone at a certain rate we know it's working on a certain material, and so on.
"We can also deduce the density of the mantle roughly, by relying on two factors. One is the changing relationship of echoes rebounding from the solid rock of the mantle and the molten mass of magma underneath it. The other, of course, is the increasing temperature as the drilling operation destroys the rock that stands between the magma and—us."
"I understand all this," said the Oriental, "except for one thing. If you cannot determine accurately the critical moment, how do we know that you might not err on the side of lateness rather than on that of earliness?"
Dr. Dacian smiled, for the first time that day. "My dear Kae Soong, since my invention was intended only for approaching the lava beneath man's feet, rather than striking into it, I have to confess again that I am not sure. As I've shown you, the machinery in that hut"—he nodded towards a small foam igloo to the left of the generator house—"is monitoring all developments, and is programmed to signal us as the drill approaches a heat level of volcanic intensity.
"From my experience and knowledge in geology, which I assure you is considerable, I think I can determine with ample room for error the crucial level. But because there are flaws in the earth's mantle which are impossible to detect with the relatively crude instruments at our disposal, it's possible that we could break through far earlier than we'd expected."
The Oriental frowned, "In which case—"