The helo banked into the Valley, hurrying them to Mendenhall. “Lanie,” Crane said, pointing through the bay window, “come get your first look at your new home.”
She moved up beside him and he smiled when she gasped in surprise. The Foundation could be reached only by air. Built halfway up the 4,700-foot peak on a rocky outcropping, the Foundation sat in the center of a honeycomb of ruby laser lines, ranging beams set to specific targets that could detect the most minute earth movements. It was science at its most beautiful. Clear red lines against a starlit night.
As they slowly closed on the grounds, they could see Whetstone’s supersonic transport circle the mountain once, then dip to the long runway extending out from the working areas of the Foundation.
“My God,” Lanie said. “It does look like a mosque.”
“Told you,” Sumi said, then looked at Crane. “Five newsmen are on their way up here now.”
“How soon?”
“They’re right behind us. The only people who could get here on your time schedule are the ones who followed us from the docks. Okay?”
“It’ll have to be. Make sure they have landing clearance.”
“Why does the main building look like a mosque?” Lanie asked.
“Architectural Darwinism,” Newcombe replied.
“I don’t understand.”
They moved through the mesh of laser lines, zeroing on the pad near the main, stone building, massive and square, a large dome sitting atop it. “I built it like a mosque,” Crane said, “because I’ve never known a mosque to get destroyed in an EQ. Some of the Middle Eastern ones stood for a thousand years. Only the execution of the Masada Option could destroy them. The sixteenth-century Ottoman architect, Sinan, used a system of chain reinforcement to earthquake-proof all the public buildings of the time. It worked.”
The pilot set the helo down near the mosque, Crane immediately sliding open the bay door, then jumping out. The area was well lit and sprawling. The domed lab was three stories high and set off by itself in the open. A hundred yards away, nestled against the mountain, was the office structure, long and low, like a train. Above the offices, gouged into the side of the mountain, were a series of chalet-style cottages, Foundation residences, built on spring-loaded platforms. There were ten of them, connected up by a series of steel stairways and reaching perhaps a hundred feet above the Foundation grounds. The airstrip, a long glowing tube reaching into the darkness, sat on the other side of the lab. Whetstone’s jumbo jet sat perched in its center, its back bay already open, workers hurriedly loading equipment and medical supplies.
Burt Hill came running up as they stepped out of the helo, others landing all around him. “Doc,” he called, his full beard bushy, hanging to his chest. “We’re getting everything taken care of except the medical people. The ones you took to Sado aren’t ready to go back in the field yet.”
“I’ll bet,” Crane said, already moving toward the massive front doors of the lab. “Here’s what you do … call Richard Branch at the USC med school and tell him to send up stat a dozen of his top students. Tell him we’ll give them the best training they’ve ever had. Got that?”
“Got it,” Hill said.
Lanie had developed a soft spot for Burt on Sado, where his performance in the aftermath of the tragedy had thoroughly impressed her. Burt could have been any age between thirty and sixty, but his large, expressive blue eyes looked ancient.
“Oh, Burt,” Crane said, “there’s a truck full of picks and shovels on its way here. We’re going to need to be ready to bring it up.”
“We’ll roll Betsy out of the hangar first thing. What time you figure on getting out of here?”
“It’s nearly ten,” Crane said. “Ten-thirty tops. Move.”
“You want me to go?” Hill asked.
“Not this time, Burt. You stay here with Dr. Newcombe. Facilitate. The minute you get the chance, I want you to run a security sweep for surveillance gear. Do a class A sweep.”
“You’re not taking Burt?” asked Newcombe, angry. “What the hell kind of trip is this?”
“I’m not used to having my decisions questioned,” Crane said, searing Newcombe with a look.
“Get ready for it, then,” Newcombe said. “Because I’m not going to allow Lanie to—”
“You’re what?” Lanie said, grabbing Newcombe’s arm. Crane held back a smile as he watched the fire climb up her face and ignite her eyes. “You’re not going to allow me to go? Since when are you my parent, my boss, or God?”
“You don’t understand,” Newcombe said. “This is much more dangerous than Sado. The last time—”
“Enough!” Crane said, opening the large double doors with the Crane Foundation plaque set in bronze right beside. Nothing mechanical, nothing that could lock up in an emergency. “We’ll talk in the control room.”
Lanie followed the men into the labs in utter amazement. The Crane Foundation was the most incredible piece of property she’d ever seen, bar none. It was perched like an eagle on a dangerous precipice, daring Nature to challenge it—Crane shaking his fist in the face of God. But even the spectacle of the Foundation didn’t prepare her for the lab.
The lab was huge, wide open, its center and dome dominated by a three-story-high globe of the world. But it wasn’t just a map. In halos of showering sparks, workers on cranes and tall ladders were welding at the top of the shell. The sphere had terrain, complete with land mass contours and oceans. It was only partially finished, and in its innards she could see millions of tiny wires as well as now empty vacuum tubes and flasks, obviously placed to receive materials at a later date. A central core looked like a small blast furnace. Lanie understood immediately.
“You’re making the world,” she said, and was surprised to find her own voice raspy.
“This is all yours,” Crane said easily. “This is why you were hired.”
“Mine?”
“You’re going to duplicate the historical development of our planet, Ms. King, the current conditions on it—”
“You’re going to hinge your ability to predict on this?”
Crane’s eyes were hard and playful at the same time, a gambler’s eyes, Lanie thought.
“No,” he answered softly, “we hinge it on you. The globe will be your tool, but you’ll have help in forging the tool. Too much help, I’m afraid you’re going to think sometimes.” His eyes were dancing with deviltry and exuberance, and he took Lanie’s breath away. “Ah, those helpers. Now you’ll have botanists, biologists, physicists—”
Newcombe interrupted. “We can talk about this another time. We have something to straighten out right now.” His tone was harsh.
“Certainly,” Crane said, turning and walking off. Newcombe followed as if stalking him. Lanie trailed after, walking backward, unable to keep her eyes off the monstrous sphere that was to be hers—hers to do what with? She turned then and noticed that she hadn’t seen glass anywhere in the building. There was nothing on the walls that could fall and cause damage. It was straight stone top to bottom; small working labs full of seismographic equipment and computer gear had open doorways, no windows. Everything seemed to be bolted down, lighting provided by tiny, brilliant spots sunk in the block stone of the walls.
On the far side of the open room an entire wall a hundred feet long and two stories high was devoted to miniature seismographs that read out their peaks and valleys in both Richter and the more popular Moment Magnitude scales. There must have been several thousand of them, some beeping, some clanging bell-like. Lanie figured that the ones making noises were detecting the continual EQ’s, the louder bells the signals of temblors that had made it to the surface. Far along the wall one of the machines was wailing constantly, almost like a baby. It sent a chill through her—Martinique.