“We can expect a catastrophic quake within forty-eight hours,” Lt. Tsuya said stubbornly. “Possibly within twelve. The city must be evacuated.”
“Not ‘must,’ Lieutenant!” Danthorpe blazed. “You make the forecasts, that’s all! We’ll decide what ‘must’ be done. And take this as a starter—the city cannot be evacuated.”
There was a moment of silence.
Then Lt. Tsuya took a deep, even breath. He pulled a sheaf of notes out of his portfolio and consulted them.
“I have spoken to the city engineers,” he said. “Here is their report.
“According to them, the city was designed to survive a Force Nine Quake with an adequate margin of safety. They believe that, with the edenite safety walls in full operation, most of the inhabitants would survive—at least, if it were not overly prolonged in duration. But the dome will collapse under Force Ten.
“Our forecast, as you know, is for Force Eleven, possibly Force Twelve.”
Ben Danthorpe listened silently.
Then, without changing expression, he nodded. “I have exactly those figures in my own briefcase, Lieutenant,” he said. “Nevertheless, I repeat my statement. Krakatoa Dome cannot be evacuated. “Your Honor.” He turned to the Mayor. “Your Honor, tell him why.”
The mayor started slightly. He was a big, pink, perspiring man who seemed inclined to take his orders from Ben Danthorpe; he almost looked surprised at being asked to speak in this kind of a discussion.
But when he spoke, what he had to say changed things.
“My office staff has been working on the evacuation problem for many years, on a stand-by basis,” he said. “This morning I asked them to bring their findings up to date.
“It is a problem, Lieutenant! And I don’t think that a solution exists.
“Our total population is three-quarters of a million.
“The available sub-sea shipping could carry away no more than fifty thousand.
“We can set up an air-shuttle that would take another hundred thousand dry-side in two days—if we had two days.
“We can find emergency space for fifty thousand more up on the platform—maybe even a hundred thousand, if we stop the air-lift and stand them on the flight decks.
“But that leaves us with, at best, more than half a million. More than five hundred thousand men, women and children, Lieutenant, waiting down here to shake hands with old Father Neptune.”
Lieutenant Tsuya snapped angrily: “Why don’t you have a better plan? Didn’t you know that this might happen some day?”
“Lieutenant!” roared the mayor, his pink face rapidly turning red. “Don’t forget yourself!”
But Barnacle Ben Danthorpe cut in before the mayor’s explosion could get out of hand. “That’s only the physical problem, Lieutenant,” he said. “There’s also a psychological problem. Most of our people wouldn’t leave the city even if they could. This is our home. And most of them feel, as I do, that we don’t need any quake forecasters to tell us what to do.”
He turned back to the mayor. “Your Honor,” he said, “I move that we thank the lieutenant for his trouble, and send him back to his playthings.”
There was a roar of discussion at that; and an angry fight that lasted for more than an hour—getting into questions, at the last, of what had become of funds that had been appropriated for various quake control measures.
But ultimately the motion was passed.
We were sent back to our playthings—and to the knowledge that the life expectancy of every man in Krakatoa Dome was well under two days.
14
The Lead-Lined Safe
Lt. Tsuya was seething with concealed rage—not too well concealed, at that.
We marched silently out of the city hall, to the elevator landing platforms. “Sir,” said Harley Danthorpe timidly, “I hope you understand my father’s—”
“That’ll do, Danthorpe!” barked the lieutenant. “I won’t hear any excuses!”
“But I wasn’t excusing him, sir,” protested Harley, “He’s a businessman. You have to understand that.”
“I understand that he’s a murderer!” roared the lieutenant.
Harley Danthorpe stopped dead. “He’s my father, sir!”
Lt. Tsuya hesitated. “As you were,” he growled after a moment. “Sorry, Danthorpe. This business is getting on my nerves.” He glanced around him, and I knew what was going on in his mind. Here were the giant basalt pillars, the hurrying crowds of people, the elaborate, ornate offices and administration buildings of a huge and prosperous city. And yet, if our predictions were correct, in a matter of days—and not very many of them, at that—all this would be swept away. The thundering shrug of the sub-sea rock adjusting itself would topple the buildings and wrench the edenite skin off Krakatoa Dome; icy brine, steel-hard under three miles of pressure, would hammer in; in another week the benthoctopus and the giant squid would make their homes here in the wrecked, drowned ruin that had been Krakatoa Dome.
There was nothing we could do to prevent it.
And nothing the city itself would do to save the lives of all its people!
Suddenly—”Danthorpe!” rapped the lieutenant. Harley sprang to attention. “Danthorpe, get to a phone. Relay to the base commandant my respects, and inform him that the city council has rejected my recommendation. Suggest that he take independent action through Fleet channels.”
“Aye-aye, sir!” snapped Harley Danthorpe, and departed on the double for a phone.
“Not that anything can be done through the Fleet in time,” muttered the lieutenant, gazing after him. “But still, they may be in time to rescue part of the inhabitants.”
I said: “Sir, if there’s anything I can do—”
“There is, Eden,” Lt. Tsuya said strongly. “As soon as Harley Danthorpe gets back. We are all going to investigate the chance that these quakes are artificial.”
“Good, sir!” I burst out eagerly. “I’ll lead you to the sump, where I saw the MOLE. And we won’t have to drain it, sir. I’ve been thinking it over, and we can dive in thermosuits—”
“Slow down, Eden,” he commanded. He gave me a thin smile. “You’re making one mistake. I’m not going to begin this investigation in the drainage sump.
“I’m going to begin it in your uncle’s office.”
We dropped to Deck Four Plus, the three of us, as soon as Harley Danthorpe returned.
We didn’t speak; there was nothing to say. There didn’t seem to be much panic among the working people of the city. Radial Seven was still rumbling with heavy electric trucks. The factories and warehouses were busy; the air still reeked with the aromatic tang of the great sea’s produce, baled and stored.
I guided the lieutenant and Harley Danthorpe up the gloomy stairs between the warehouses at number 88. We marched, in clattering quick-step, down the hall to the door of Eden Enterprises, Unlimited.
I hesitated.
“Go ahead,” ordered Lt. Tsuya sharply.
I pushed the door open and we walked inside.
Gideon Park was sitting at a third-hand wooden table in the bare little anteroom, laboriously pecking out something on an old mechanical typewriter. He looked up, saw me, and almost knocked it over.
“Jim!” he cried. “Boy, we’ve been hoping you’d come!”
And then he saw that I was not alone.
His wide grin vanished. His black, friendly face became blank and impassive. He put the plastic cover over the old typewriter, concealing whatever it was he had been writing, and he stood up with a politely curious expression.