'Frank, how deep is Seapoint?'
'At high tide, which we are approaching, it's thirteen meters. Should be enough.'
Carson reported to Andi. She sounded frightened.
The shuttle was running before the wave, close down on the water to facilitate measurement. 'I just thought of something,' said Hutch.
'What's that?'
'The monkeys. Are they on the beach at night?'
'They're going to have to worry about themselves, Hutch. But no, they aren't. Usually. Some come down, occasionally, after dark, just to watch the sea. When a study was done of them several years ago, it was one of the characteristics the researchers found most interesting.'
The Towers came up on the monitor.
Behind them, the wave was a whisper barely audible over the roar of the sea.
They wheeled through the Towers. The tide was out. Hutch remembered that big waves were supposed to do that, suck coastlines dry and then deliver the water back in.
The wave rose, and mounted, and entered the shallows. It was not breaking; rather, the sea seemed to be hurling itself, dark and glittering and marble-smooth, against the ancient Towers and the rocky coastline beyond.
Seapoint. Wednesday; 0320 hours.
Radio and laserburst transmissions were relayed to Seapoint through a communications package mounted on a buoy which floated serenely on the surface directly above the cluster of sea domes. It was now forwarding the shuttle's images of the oncoming wave. Those images were displayed below on eleven monitors, in five different locations. But the one that had everybody's attention was located at the main diving port, a room of substantial size, with a large pool in its center. This was the chamber through which heavy equipment could be moved into the sea. It was advantageous under the present circumstances because there was no loose gear nearby, no cabinets, nothing that could injure anyone. Moreover, the pool was bordered by a handrail, to which they could attach themselves when the time came. There had been considerable discussion as to whether they wouldn't be safer seated in chairs with their backs to walls that faced the oncoming wave. But the sense that there might be a need to get out quickly overcame all other considerations.
They had sealed off the pool by closing the sea doors, after testing once to determine that the weakest among them (thought to be Maggie Tufu, who thereby became irate) could open them manually.
The atmosphere then became almost that of a picnic. The images of the oncoming wave revealed a disturbance so essentially moderate and quiescent that none could take it seriously. The men, for the most part, made it their business to look bored throughout the exercise, while the soft laughter of the women echoed across the pool.
Nevertheless, Richard saw that neither the boredom, nor the laughter, was real. Stiff, somewhat unnerved himself, he strolled among them, trading uneasy banter. And, when it seemed appropriate, giving assurance he did not feel. 'I've seen worse at Amity Island,' he told Linda Thomas. It was a lie, but it made them both feel better.
With several minutes remaining, the sub checked in. 'No problem here,' Tommy reported. He could not resist admitting that he had ridden over the top of the surge. If the sub had survived that, the wave couldn't be too serious.
As it approached, all eyes followed it on the screen. The images were the standard shaded blues of nightlight, and there was no audio, which combined to dampen the effect that Hutch and Carson were experiencing from the shuttle. Maybe it was just as well.
One by one, they took their places along the guardrail, used belts and lines to secure themselves to it, activated their energy shields, and began breathing from their airpacks. Richard watched the wave shut off the sky. Someone, Andi, noticed that the water level at the Towers had dropped.
The wave charged across the last kilometer. White water showed along its crest.
They could feel its approach in the bulkheads. They braced themselves, knelt on the deck, gripped the rail. Then the chamber shook, the lights dipped and went out, and the voice of the beast filled the night. The pool erupted and the screen went blank.
Someone whimpered, and there was awed profanity. A second blow fell, heavy, immense, delivered by an enormous mallet.
Richard was thrown against his belt and banged his ribs. Beside him, Linda cried out. Tri was somehow torn loose and flung into the water.
But nobody was seriously hurt. The shocks continued, with generally decreasing fury, for several minutes. The lights came back. They were startled that it had been so severe after all, but relieved that they were all alive, and they started to laugh. It was nervous, tentative laughter. And Henry released his death grip on the guardrail, and gave them all a thumbs-up. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said. 'Congratulations.'
LIBRARY ENTRY
They came in the spring of the year to tell me you were dead. They spoke of war and pride, and how you'd laughed at fear,
And called my name. All the while the sea grew black and still. Now you lie in a distant land, far from the summer day When we left our tracks on the foamy sand— Yet in the deeps of the night You call my name, your voice in the roar of the tide.
— Fragment from Knothic Hours
Translated by Margaret Tufu Cambridge University Press, 2202
10
On board Alpha. Wednesday; 0610 hours
During the course of an hour, three sea waves struck the Temple site. The first carried away the rear wall of the Temple, blew off the roof, and destroyed the colonnade; the second, which was the largest of the three, demolished two of the Knothic Towers, and buried the Lower Temple; and the third ripped one of Seapoint's domes from its moorings and deposited it two kilometers inland. Several sets of living quarters and a holographic display center went with it. Perhaps worst of all (since the Temple and the Towers were down to their last few days anyhow), an avalanche of sand and loose rock blocked shafts and passageways throughout the excavation site. The military chapel disappeared in the debris.
But they hadn't lost anyone. There were contusions and bruises to go around, and more discouragement. But they were alive. And Karl Pickens summed up one point of view when he suggested they would do well to take the hint and abandon the operation.
Hutch, listening in the shuttle, agreed. She and Carson were coming in from another sweep of the area. They'd been all the way out to the impact site. The sea was covered with ice, but there were no more tsunamis coming. Carson sat wrapped in alternating moods of gloom and outrage. Henry sounded tired and washed out on the circuit, as if it didn't matter anymore.
The floatpier was gone, of course. And Priscilla Hutchins flew above the last of the Towers.
Melanie Truscott's message had been delivered.
Art Gibbs and George Hackett met them with the sub, and they spent the next hour transferring cargo. Without the pier, the task was considerably more difficult. Midway through the operation they dropped a case, and watched it sink slowly out of sight. It was, of course, not beyond recovery, but there was no time to go after it. All in all, it was an awkward, slow business.
George was surreptitiously watching Hutch, and she enjoyed his mild confusion when she talked to him. Amid the gloom generated by Henry's people, he alone managed to retain his good humor. 'You do what you can do,' he told her, 'and forget the rest. No point getting ulcers over things you can't control.'
But there were moments when he seemed distracted, and he eventually confessed that he would have liked to see things end under better circumstances. 'We're always going to wonder what's down there,' he said. 'These
