Eclipses v1 0, p.23
Eclipses (v1.0), page 23
He took the stairs two by two, running faster now as he heard strident cries from Hilde coming from somewhere in the upper story of the house. He followed the sounds to his own bedroom and found Beth seated at the edge of the bed in a flimsy nightgown, one hand firmly on Hilde, the other on Marc.
“Quickly out,” she said, getting up, her voice amazingly calm and clear over Hilde’s screams.
Marc’s eyes were wide with fear, his dark hair tousled from more than sleep, but Aram could see the boy was unhurt. Hilde, however, was another matter. One of her slept-in braids was dripping blood over her pink pajamas.
“Hilde,” Aram said, as his little daughter held out blood-covered hands to him.
“It’s just a cut,” Beth said, firmly pushing past him toward the door, dragging the children with her.
Aram swept Hilde up in his arms, certain that she couldn’t walk in her present state of panic, and turned to see that Beth and Marc were already in the hall. She had grabbed a robe from somewhere and was slinging it over one shoulder as she walked, Marc taking clipped little steps at her side as he looked right and left at cracked walls and fallen plaster.
The closest exit was through the kitchen, but one glance told Aram the entire veranda had caved in on the patio, barring the doorway. He went through another hall to the foyer, where the door stood open. The porch had pulled away from the steps and left a gap of several inches. He stepped onto the stones and discovered those looser than the porch, but they held. At the base of the steps, Maria was there, looking terrified but wanting to help him with the still screaming Hilde.
“It’s nothing serious,” he assured her, refusing to give up the child to the frail old woman. He grabbed Maria’s arm and ushered her along to the center of the lawn where some of the technicians and Megan had gathered, all of them aware that there might be more shocks at any time. There was no danger of falling masonry or trees in the center of the lawn.
“Is everyone all right?” Aram asked.
“All safe and accounted for, now that you’re here … except Alexi.”
“He would be down at the settlement this early,” Aram said. “Does anyone know . . He had only to lift his eyes to see that the dam had held, but something was very wrong down in the reservoir. Water was spilling over the top of the dam, washing around parked electric cars and rising higher as _ he watched. The wharfs at the edge of the settlement were gone, and boats and houseboats were tossing on choppy water, striking one another and butting up against the dam. A few of the boats were under power, making slow but steady progress away from the place where wharf debris and broken boats looked like so much straw clogging the end of a gutter. At first Aram didn’t understand. The reservoir level had been low for many years and only this year had begun to fill again, yet in a few minutes time it had risen and topped the huge dam. The engineers had already opened the spillways to lower the pressure, for he could see much more water than usual in the silvery river on the down-valley side of the dam. Then he saw the muddy stain spreading in the crystal-clear reservoir, radiating out from where the steep slopes of the mountain had slid over the banks. The face of the land had changed; there was a raw and ugly scar where once there had been young forest; even half the apple orchard was gone without a trace. A cloud of dust was swirling above the valley, looking like yellow fog in the early morning light.
“RECOM tower’s down,” someone commented.
“Half the damn mountain’s gone,” Beth said.
“Settlement looks all right … chimneys down, but the buildings look all right.”
The settlement had been built on bedrock, like the mansion, and every building designed to withstand the shaking of a strong earthquake. But there were dangers inside the buildings: fallen ceilings and fixtures, tall furniture and breaking glass. Even from here he could see that some of the solar collection panels on the roofs of the settlement had been wrenched from their mountings and crashed to the yards and streets below.
Hilde’s hysterical sobs had given way to whimpering and trembling. Aram held her close and whispered words of love and comfort in her ear. Then Beth was there, taking Hilde. The robe was completely on now and Marc was holding tight to her pocket.
“I can’t do anything dressed like this,” Beth said. Her feet were bare and the Yobe was a luxurious, flowing one. Aram realized she was suggesting that she would go down to the settlement if she could.
“Don’t go back into the house, not even to get your boots.”
“I know about earthquakes, Aram,” she said quietly. “RECOM’s down. We may need medical help, and a comm-screen disaster team won’t do. One of us should go back long enough to use the short-wave radio.”
Aram shook his head. “I’ll find a radio down in the settlement.” He took one last look at the yellow dust cloud, already thin and settling on the mountain, then hurried to the cars, wondering if the roads would be intact enough to drive over.
Beth had cleaned the gash in Hilde’s head with a first-aid kit off a cycle parked in the driveway. She had bled profusely, but it seemed to Beth that head wounds always did. At least it was a clean cut and had closed easily with a strip of tape. It had been harder to cut away a patch of Hilde’s hair around the wound than to actually close and cover it, for Hilde had struggled and cried every minute. Once that was over, the little girl had snuggled into Beth’s arms, and Beth pulled Marc close, too, and talked quietly to them about earthquakes. They were subdued and frightened and confused, no doubt wondering how their big, comfortable house could have betrayed them so.
Beth sat with them in the grass, Maria alongside and a live-in technician who had been recovering from an illness stretched out nearby. They all were looking down at the settlement. Some big trees were down, and maybe some of the supple smaller ones, too, but at this distance they couldn’t make out the shapes of more slender trunks or even of people. The muddy water had stopped flowing over the top of the dam, and there wasn’t much in the way of boats to see atop the calming surface. Those that had escaped damage were anchored by the high shoreline above the settlement, and those that hadn’t escaped had disappeared.
Beth’s heart pounded wildly as she thought of Shelley for the first time. Would it have been possible for him to get from the houseboat and across the wharf before it collapsed and was swept away? She thought of the swiftness of the devastation, of her own abrupt awakening to Hilde’s terrified screams and the roar of noise coming from the earth itself. She had ridden out the earthquake in her bed, which had moved halfway across the room in seconds. Within minutes after the earthquake, she and Aram were outside with the children, and the landslide that had swamped the reservoir was over. Deep inside, she knew Shelley could not have made it to the safety of the settlement; she only could hope that he’d stayed on the houseboat and that it had remained afloat.
After an hour of waiting for aftershocks, Beth was too restless to sit still. She left the children and, over Maria’s protests, returned to the house for some clothes and food. The birds’ sudden flight from the courtyard trees alerted her to the second quake just as she left the house, and she counted herself as lucky that she had just draped her clothes over her arm and not stayed in the house long enough to put them on. Beth felt a single, violent heave accompanied by a horrible moan that welled out of the south. A big dust cloud arose behind the northern escarpment and some boulders were on the move, but nothing more happened. She retrieved her boots from the cracked courtyard pavement, then brushed her scraped toes. It seemed she was always barefoot during earthquakes, and she felt an urgent need to put on her boots, as if her feet being covered were a talisman against yet another quake. She dressed on the spot.
With her clothes on, boots on her feet to protect her from broken glass and debris, Beth left the children in the care of Maria and the technician and went to the settlement.
The big trees that had fallen were old and brittle; none of , the younger trees was disturbed. No windows in the settlement had escaped being broken, and red roofing tiles lay shattered everywhere on the ground; but amazingly the buildings were all standing, and only a few were listing or badly cracked. Beth took heart and hoped that injuries were few.
The worst injuries, Beth learned later, had occurred indoors where sleeping occupants had been struck by everything from picture frames to chandeliers. Cuts and abrasions were rampant and broken bones a real problem to handle without computer diagnostic capabilities or even a real doctor. It wasn’t just the lack of medical aid that made them all feel the absence of the computer; there was great confusion from lack of communication. There was no way to check the whereabouts and well-being of loved ones and friends except by word of mouth. Beth counted herself as lucky to have seen Alexi riding down the dirt road on a truck, and Aram, with a nasty cut on his forearm, had passed through the clinic where she’d been helping.
When the air-lifted relief teams arrived, they brought with them the news that severe earthquake damage extended along a line one hundred kilometers long from east to west and forty kilometers on either side of what appeared to be a hitherto unknown fault. The community around Calib’s Dam had been much farther from the epicenter of the earthquake than at least two other communities. One of those was completely covered by millions of tons of earth and rock that had fallen on it when half a mountain collapsed. The other community, built right over the fault, had escaped burial by landslides, but practically every building was flattened or badly damaged. The death toll would be high in those places.
It was late that night before any realistic count of their own dead came in. Twelve bodies had been found below the dam, where they’d apparently been swept over in the aftermath of the landslide that had displaced what eyewitnesses called a wall of water. Three more were retrieved from the water, boaters or folk fishing caught along the wharf. Shelley was not among the victims, nor was his name on any of the lists of survivors.
In the haunting light of Hunted Moon, Beth rode silently up the mountainside with Aram and Alexi, determined not to cry or speak of her concern over Shelley. Aram must know that she was worried, if he gave the matter a thought, but he had chosen to say nothing. She supposed that in the face of the disaster he had little room to be hurt or angry anymore, and it seemed cruel to add her problems to his. So she didn’t cry and she didn’t speak, not even in the days that followed during which no word came of Shelley. And whenever the earth trembled; as it did for many months, though not violently, she thought of Shelley. But she knew he had perished.
BOOK FOUR
Chapter 23
It was sunset and shadows cloaked Beth as she followed the stone path. Peripheral stones were moss covered while the center ones were polished by the footsteps of three generations. When Beth reached the mansion’s huge porch, she paused to look beyond the gardens at the reservoir. It was reddened by cloud reflections and edged with blue mountains. For thirty years, Beth had not tired of the almost nightly splendor. The reflections touched her silver hair, setting it aflame until she turned and went through the double doors and the fire was doused by artificial light.
Beth bent over to unlace her boots, moving her long bones and knobby joints with lissome grace. She set the boots on a rack and hung her knapsack on a peg. A door slammed. Startled, Beth turned.
Alexi stamped through the hall toward the foyer. His dark hair was mussed from agitated fingers and his gray eyes were narrow slits. “Damn him,” Alexi muttered when he saw his mother.
She looked up at Alexi and shook her head slightly while her teeth clasped her lower lip. She didn’t need to ask how Aram had received Alexi’s proposal.
“He didn’t take it seriously for even one minute,” Alexi said. “Since his grandfather or father didn’t do it, he won’t, either. You’d think he’d never had an original thought.” “You know that’s not true,” Beth said.
“The old way is best… no, not best-—it’s the only way! The old fool.”
“Alexi!” Beth’s tone was sharp.
Alexi sighed through clenched teeth. “I’m sorry, Mother, but this isn’t just a matter of policy. There are a million lives at stake.”
“I’m well aware of what’s at stake but I’m also aware of your damnable temper. How quickly did you lose it?”
Alexi shook his head, shoved his hands in his pockets and took several deep breaths. Then he nodded at Beth. “Almost immediately.”
“The old fool and the raging madman. You made a three-ring circus out of a scientific presentation.”
“Me? Where the hell do you think I got the temper from? He shouts longer and louder!”
“Aram’s anger is always righteous,” Beth said quietly. “Righteous? I made a perfectly reasonable proposal—” “You made a preposterous proposal. It is, you know. It’s never been done; it’s preposterous.”
Alexi’s eyes widened. “But you agreed it was sound …” Beth sighed. “It is, Alexi. I’m just trying to illustrate Aram’s viewpoint. I see things differently because I haven’t three generations of Serensunar roots.”
Alexi held up a protesting hand. “Don’t give me the lecture about carving out an empire. I just heard it.” He gestured toward the hall.
“The point is that the fantasy your ancestor had on Earth is a reality here. It’s Aram’s reality. You ask him to risk it on a new fantasy and he’s generations removed from the dreamer. His refusal is pragmatic.”
Alexi nodded. Beth sensed the gesture was to appease her. His huge dark frame and his formidable temper could intimidate almost anyone on Serensunar, but not Aram.
“I’ll contact Pola and Erik at Research City to discuss it again,” Alexi said. “We must find a way.”
Alexi’s fist was clenched and the expression on his face was one of determination. Beth saw and her own hands wrung in nervous response. “I know we must,” she said, wishing Alexi would try to understand Aram.
Alexi left the foyer and took the adjacent stairs two by two. Beth padded down the carpeted hall in her stocking feet, knocked at Aram’s office door and entered.
Aram sat, eyes closed, with his feet up on his desk and hands clasped over his stomach. One soft round eye squinted in Beth’s direction. Graying but still bushy brows raised and he smiled. “How was your day? Mine was awful!”
“All of it? Or just the part with Alexi?” Beth sat down in the chair next to Aram’s desk and was surprised to find how much her body welcomed it. Am I finally getting old? That thought fled as quickly as it had come.
“You saw him, eh? No, it started before Alexi. A delegation from the coast is coming here this evening.”
“A delegation?” Beth said, faintly amused. Aram was kindly assigning the visitors more status than was due. Coastal people were completely autonomous, splintered, really, not united in anything except coincidence of geography. The Research City computer was not programmed to organize political factions or programmed to represent them when they existed de facto as Aram’s Empire did. But when millions of contracts were well-written, as Aram’s were, the computer did unwittingly support philosophical ideals.
“Concerned citizens group,” Aram said more realistically. “But at least this group has managed to stay organized long enough to appoint representatives and finance their journey from the coast to the mountains. They deserve the courtesy of an audience with me for their effort.”
Aram did not smile at the pompous sound of his word choice, and Beth wondered if he’d even recognized it.
“They wouldn’t say what they want, but that, of course, is just to preclude my refusing their request before they arrive. Their mission is no secret. Probably be refugees with stories about how their children or parents are still sleeping up there.” Aram stuck a coarse thumb at the darkening sky outside the window. “Why don’t they go to Research City and ask the computer to open Spaceport? Why do they come to me?” Aram glowered.
Beth shifted as if to break up the scowl. The answer was known to both without voicing it for the thousandth time. There hadn’t been enough unlet contracts on Serensunar to warrant an authorized shuttle trip from the orbiters for more than ten years. Worse, no such condition would again occur unless drastic measures were taken on Serensunar. There were enough square kilometers for the million refugees still awaiting landing and debarkation, but there was not enough water to irrigate the land.
Sibernians recycled the water on their desert continent with Spartan discipline; but, even when they were able to claim every drop from the river, it was not their goal to use it for crop irrigation. Sibemia processed petroleum, not crops. It spun protein and textiles and building materials and only a very little of it was ever burned as fuel. They’d managed to destroy their coastal fishing with thermal pollution from nuclear power plants, but the oil spills from the off-shore drilling rigs would have done that in the next generation anyway. Their petroleum resources were vast—no one was sure how vast—but there was only that little bit of water. Their population could grow only within their ability to reclaim the river water for human consumption. They controlled population growth by requiring prepaid water contracts before conception. A child without a contract received no water and soon ceased to exist.
When the refugees from Earth began to arrive, it was up to the coast and the Empire to accept as many as they could. Then the saturation point was reached and Research City’s ever-practical computer closed down the spaceport. Interstellar captains, fearful of the effects of the long sleep beyond the original measure, began setting their ships down on the desert-plains side of Aram’s mountains. The badlands ran from the foothills to the uninhabited coast. When Aram would accept no more within his Empire—indeed, could not without breaching contract clauses of millions of his subcontractors—he allowed the refugees to pass through his mountains to the coastal lands, where relatives and other legitimate refugees greeted them with open arms. Coastal population swelled and Aram’s water contracts swelled with it… until he could commit no more water. He closed the passes and warned the still-orbiting refugee ships that his decision was final.
