George took in the slack, and they lifted the chase into the shaft, and commenced to haul. Henry swam up with it, guiding it.
Richard stayed with the second unit. He brushed silt from it; ridges of individual characters passed under his fingertips. What a treasure it was.
But he was alone in the tunnel, and he felt the weight of the sea. The walls were bleak and claustrophobic. Tiny fish swam past his eyes.
The cable came back. He secured it quickly around the chase, creating a harness.
Above, George pulled the first one out of the shaft. They grappled with it for a few moments, casting shadows down the walls, and then it disappeared. George turned back. 'All set,' he said.
'Go,' said Richard. 'Haul away.'
At that moment, the water moved. Just the barest tremor, but a school of fish that had been watching darted away.
'Coming up,' said George. Richard pushed the chase into the shaft. It dropped a half meter, and then began to rise. He opened a channel to Hutch. 'You're not sitting on the surface, are you?'
'Of course I am. How else did you expect to get aboard?'
'Maybe not a good idea.' He floated up behind the artifact.
'We're getting shock waves. Keep an eye open.'
'I will.'
Richard delivered some final cliche some plastic reassurance that could not have helped her state of mind.
On Wink, Janet Allegri strode onto the bridge, walked up to Maggie Tufu, and, without saying a word, knocked her flat.
Melanie Truscott had watched with helpless fury as the white lamps blinked on. Seconds before detonation, she noted that one unit, at Point Theta, had not armed. Locking mechanism had failed. A ten-buck part.
'What do you want to do?' asked Sill.
Goddam Helm. Some of the Academy people would likely die. Worse, if they blew off one icecap and not the other, they might induce a wobble, and possibly cause a complete reorientation of planetary spin. Quraqua could be unstable for centuries. 'Tell Harding to cancel the hold. Proceed as planned.'
Sill nodded.
'When you get Helm, I want to speak to him.'
The design did not call for simultaneous explosions of all devices. The patterns of ice faults, the geometry of the underlying land (where it existed), the presence of volcanoes, the distribution of mass: these and other factors determined the sequence and timing of individual events. It is sufficient to note that all but one of the fifty-eight southern weapons detonated within a period of four minutes, eleven seconds. Blasts ranged from two to thirty-five megatons.
At the icecap, approximately eight percent of the total mass was vaporized. Formations that had stood for tens of thousands of years were blown away. Enormous sheets, like the one at Kalaga, fractured and slid into the sea. Millions of tons of water, thrown out by the blasts, rushed back and turned to steam. Mountainous waves rolled out of the white fury and started a long journey across the circular sea.
During the third minute after the initial detonation, a volcano buried deep in the ice pack exploded. Ironically, it was not one of those whose throat had been laced with a bomb. But it was the first to go. The others erupted according to plan. Hot rain began to fall.
Shock waves rippled out at five to seven kilometers per second, triggering earthquakes in their wake.
Hutch stood in the hold while the cable came up. The spacecraft floated beside the Temple shuttle. Carson stayed in his cockpit, as a precaution against the unexpected. The jolt that Richard had felt moments earlier in his tunnel had been indiscernible on the surface, nothing more than a ripple and an air current. But a second, more severe shock wave now arrived. Hutch was pitched forward.
Alpha filled with voices from the Temple.
'That was a big one.'
'Everybody okay?'
'Damn, I think we lost part of it.'
'Let it go, Richard.'
'Only take a minute.'
'Hutch, you've got a package.' It was Henry. 'Haul it in.'
She winched it up and the first chase broke the surface. An impossibly corroded box. But Hutch knew first- hand the miracles of enhancement. / hope it's worth your lives.
She pulled it aboard. Water poured out of it. She disconnected, and heaved the line back over the side.
'Okay, Richard, let go.' That was George. 'I've got it.'
The sea had turned rough. Water boiled and churned.
Sandy appeared to port. She swam swiftly to the shuttle, and Hutch pulled her in. 'By God,' said Sandy, 'we did it.'
'Not yet. Where is everybody?'
'Coming. A couple of minutes.'
'Okay. Listen, we're going to get a little crowded here. Things'11 go quicker if you're in the other shuttle.'
'Whatever you think,' Sandy said.
Carson tossed a line, and she dived back into the sea.
'Frank,' Hutch said, 'I'll pick up the rest of them.' She hesitated. 'It might be a good idea if you got some altitude.' She cast a worried glance toward a troubled horizon. 'Watch for waves.'
Most of the undersea lamps had gone out. Only the red trailmarkers still burned bravely within the murky recesses of the wrecked Temple.
They carried the second chase out into the clear water of what used to be the nave, where the cable from the shuttle was waiting. Richard's hair was in his eyes, and he was exhausted. He felt the drag of the sea. Undertow. Odd that it would be so strong on the bottom.
'Negative, Hutch,' Frank told her. 'Nothing yet.'
'Okay. What scares me is that I can see the top of the Temple.'
'What? That's under five meters of water. At low tide.'
'Yeah? Well, I'm looking at it.' She switched channels. 'Hey, guys, move it. We got another tidal wave coming.'
'How close?' Henry's voice.
'Probably a couple of minutes.'
Richard broke in: 'We're coming as fast as we can.' He sounded exasperated. And maybe resigned.
'Hutchins?' It was Truscott. 'What's happening down there?'
'I'm a little busy right now.' There was a visual signal, but she did not put it on the display.
'I've ordered two of our CATs to assist. But they're four hours away.'
In a less stressful moment, Hutch would have recognized the concern in Truscott's voice. But not today. 'That'll be a little late, thanks.' She broke the link. Looked again through her scopes. Sea still calm.
'Hutch?' Carson again. 'I see it.'
Cold chill. 'Where?'
'Twenty-five kilometers out. Coming at, uh, five fifty. You've got three minutes.'
'You guys hear that?'
'Yes—' George's voice.
'Forget the chase. Get up here.' She trained her scopes on the horizon. Still nothing. 'Frank, how big is it? Can you tell?'
'Negative. Looks like the other one. Small. You wouldn't notice it if you weren't looking for it.'
'Okay.' She watched a stone wall break the surface. 'Water's still going down.'
George pulled in several meters of slack. The others held the chase while he secured it. Twice around. Loop crosswise. Reconnect with the cable. Don't lose it now. When he fin-
ished, Henry pointed toward the surface. 'Let's go.'
