“Saturday morning now,” Sumi said.
They stood in a shuddering cherrypicker as Burt slowly guided the crane around the top of the globe. He held a palm-size machine with a coil of wire looping from it out in front of him, the debugger bleeping every ten seconds.
“You say you do this once a week?” she asked.
“You bet,” Burt said, his brows furrowing as he watched the meter register on the debugger. “Seven in the A of M every Monday of every week.” He turned the meter away from the globe, pointing it back toward the labs.
“Every Monday?”
The man looked up at her through a hedgerow of facial hair, reacting warily to the question, Sumi smiling pleasantly to allay suspicion.
“Starts things out fresh for me,” Burt finally said, “gets the routine going. I like the Foundation to run smooth as an engine, smooth and predictable. Guess that’s what Doc Crane appreciates about me.”
“I think he appreciates you for many reasons, especially because you’re dependable.” Sumi hated that she was going to have to come through every Sunday night and remove whatever she planted. Her arms hung loosely at her sides. Ten transmitters were stuck to her hands, one to each finger and thumb tip.
“How so?” They finished the circle. Hill hit the down button, and the gondola swayed silently toward the floor.
“Crane’s not here. You could have put off the sweep until Monday. No one would have been the wiser.” The gondola shuddered slightly as it reached ground level. They climbed out, Sumi walking over to admire Patagonia on the globe, her hand resting on the Malvinas Islands. She could feel Hill’s eyes on the back of her head, tearing at her.
“Couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do it. Being foreman for Doc Crane is the best damned job … the best damned time I’ve ever had in my life. I’m embarrassed to tell you how much he pays me. Hell, he gives me a bungalow on the mountain free of charge … and it’s just as good as his. I’ll tell you, Sumi, when Crane sides with a man, he sticks with him. That means something to me. He’s done the same for you. How do you think you got moved up to Senior Grant Advisor? A Nobel Prize opens a lot of doors. Crane went and talked to the Board for you.”
At his words Sumi’s hands tightened involuntarily. Damn! She accidentally left three transmitters on the globe, two on Gran Malvina and one on Isla Soledad. The size of dust motes, they’d never be seen, but the transfer activated the units. She hoped Hill wouldn’t turn the debugger on again in here. She coughed, turning to him. “Did that not also benefit Dr. Crane?” she said quietly. “My new position certainly enabled him to get grants, and quickly.”
“And what the hell’s wrong with that, Mr. Chan?” he said, now offended and reverting to formality.
Sumi looked at the floor, and despite all rationalization, she was ashamed.
“Here,” Hill said, handing her a dorphed lemon drop. “Even out.”
“Thanks,” Sumi said, tossing the thing in her mouth as Hill turned and walked toward the west wing of labs and storerooms. She’d have to be selective as to where to plant successfully in the west wing. She wanted the places Crane frequented the most.
The dorph took hold quickly, her mood stabilizing as she caught up with Hill, but there were some things even dorph couldn’t cure. One of them was the bitter sting of guilt.
“You want to slug down a couple when I’m done here?” Hill asked as they walked, and she knew he was suspicious. “The view’s pretty goddamned spectacular from my porch. On a really clear night, you can see the Late Show on the side of the Moon.”
“You’ve got a deal, Burt. But may I suggest that we do our slugging from a special bottle I’ve got in my suitcase?”
“A man after my own heart,” Hill said, and Sumi wondered how far they’d get pumping each other for information.
Hill touched his wrist pad. “GET OFF YOUR WIDE LOAD ASSES AND GET BACK TO WORK!” his voice boomed, graveyard-shift welders, programmers, and housekeepers jumping up and hurrying to their workstations.
“Crane usually takes you on his trips, doesn’t he?” Sumi asked.
Hill frowned, genuine concern on his face. “Yeah. Don’t like it when he goes alone.” He shook his head. “Hope somebody reminds him to eat.”
Sumi looked at her watch. “I should imagine that he’s in-country by now.”
The man laughed. “By now he’s in-country and running the whole goddamned show.”
At that exact moment, Lewis Crane stood up to his knees in the midst of a nightmare of ash and mud in what had once been the coastal city of Le Precheur, Martinique, screaming in lousy French, “Silence, s’il vous plait … silence!” to the townspeople who were trying to dig their families out of the mud.
The mountain still rumbled and lightning flashed overhead as Lanie planted her sensors into the side of Pelee, banging the poles in herself with a ball peen hammer.
They were on the eastern face of Pelee; lava flows still bubbled over the southern face. Light and heat reached through the dense curtain of ash that hung over everything. It was sometime before morning; but day or night didn’t matter here. It would be perpetual night until the next big rain washed the ash from the skies. Farther to the south, Fort de France was in flames. Liang Int people were blowing buildings with dynamite trying to re-establish firebreaks.
Though Crane had been pumping data through the SISMA net, he knew it would be days before the international community mobilized to send aid, days before the citizens of Le Precheur had anything but their own meager resources to depend upon. But he also knew that local resources were the heart of all disaster management, local citizens taking care of their own. The fade-away time, the mortality rate for people trapped in collapsed houses under tons of mud, was fifty percent at six hours. Every minute beyond that increased the percentage. Le Precheur already had been buried for nearly eight hours. His guidance was essential if they were to take any of the victims back from the belly of the beast.
“Ecoutez donc!” he called out. The area resembled a junk yard of broken mortar and skeletal wooden beams thrusting out of a sea of oozing mud. “S’il vous plait!”
This whole chain of islands was volcanic in origin, all born of the fire of the earthquake. They’d been called the West Indies at one time, then the European Community had gotten Martinique from the French and called it For Sale. Liang had owned it outright, alone with its citizens, for a number of years.
The living ran helter skelter all around him, some digging into the mud with their hands, others using construction company earth-movers. They screamed and cried while their buried loved ones fought for breath.
A man, crazed, talking to himself, hobbled past dragging the remnants of a bed through the pumice-laden sludge. He was covered with soot and caked mud—like all of them.
Crane moved to the man, bumping him away from the bed, the man continuing on without it, oblivious. Crane pulled a lighter from his pocket, flicked it, then tossed it onto the bed. Flames rose immediately. He turned and motioned for the trucks of equipment he’d had ferried from the landing strip on Dominica Island to the north.
Five huge trucks literally plowed into what had once been the town square, Crane yelling at the drivers to start beeping their compressed air horns. They did, raising an ear-splitting din that turned all eyes toward the man beside the burning bed.
“Ecoutez donc!” he screamed again; this time the dazed and distraught people listened. “I am here to save you,” he shouted in French, “but you must listen to me. You are making too much noise. You cannot hear the cries of the survivors. You must stop talking. You must shut off the bulldozers; they will only bury your loved ones. My trucks are full of picks and shovels. Get those. Dig where you hear voices—we must all be quiet and listen. If you hear a voice, verify it with someone else, make sure of the location, then dig carefully. Those trapped in the rubble will die if you don’t do what I say. The men should dig. Women and children should help carry away the debris. Use wheelbarrows, planks, doors, anything you can pile up with mud and rock. Move quickly, but silently. Medical personnel are here to help with those who have been hurt. If you find an injured person, don’t pull him from the wreckage until a doctor has checked him out. You are good people; you will understand the wisdom of my words.”