Marsquake! Page 4

  Sam wrestled the helmet of his suit off. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. A little frozen, but okay.” It was dark, but the control panel of the airlock was working, and it showed yellow on the corridor side. That meant there was oxygen on the other side, though the corridor connected to spaces that opened to the Martian surface.

  They stepped into the corridor and joined a cluster of others who were heading back into the colony. “You have a blowout?” Cassandra Agate asked Sam.

  “Bad one. You?”

  “No, but I’m worried about the loss of power. Lights are gone, and the temperature will drop.”

  Someone way up ahead cheered feebly, and light washed over them. The dome into which the corridor fed still had light and power, from the look of it. They straggled in, two dozen people with the frightened look of refugees, all of them talking at once.

  Harold Ellman met them, his own face tense, his perpetual scowl touched with sharp worry. “Everyone okay? Town Hall. Emergency briefing in ten minutes. Sam, you all right? Sean?”

  Sean was surprised to see the concern on the man’s face. Ellman never had a kind word for the Asimov Project, and more than once he had hinted that he thought Sean was here only because of his connection to Amanda Simak—that on his own, Sean would never have made the grade.

  But Sean swallowed hard and said, “I’m all right, Dr. Ellman. We lost the dome, though.”

  “Tech is getting lights and heat back as soon as they can. Town Hall, everyone. Hurry up.”

  Town Hall had been one of the earliest domes on Mars. Years before, when Marsport was still in its first phase, that dome had suffered a blowout, a deadly one. The dome had been repaired and strengthened—in fact, it was made into a double dome and was probably one of the safest places in the colony. Now it was packed with what seemed like half the population of Marsport.

  Sean spotted Jenny and hurried to her. “You okay?” he asked.

  She had been crying. “No! They won’t let me check on Lake Ares!” She balled her fists. “It’s not a major risk for a blowout, but if that dome loses heat, everything in the lake will die!”

  “It’ll be all right,” Sean said. “We lost—”

  “Attention, please! Attention!” It was Dr. Simak, her voice amplified and her image appearing on every viewscreen. “We have just experienced a major quake. I am happy to report that we’ve had no fatalities, and the injuries we’ve heard about are not life threatening. However, we have had a major blowout in the dome of Greenhouse Seven, meaning we’ve definitely lost ten percent of our projected winter crops. Until further notice, no one is to enter a reddoor area. We have to check out all surface-access connections to make sure they are secure. Our water supply appears to be unaffected, though we may have to do some pipeline repair.”

  The murmurs of concern were rising on every side. As if aware of that, Amanda said loudly, “Our core domes seem to have come through without major damage, although air leaks have been identified in two hangars and some primary corridors. Emergency repairs on these are already under way, but the coming weeks will require a thorough inspection of all domes, and if weak areas turn up, they’ll have to be repaired and strengthened. If ever we’ve had to pull together, we’ll have to do so now.”

  “What if we have another quake?” someone shouted.

  Amanda glanced up from her notes, and Sean realized that two-way communication was on. Amanda said, “I don’t know who asked that—someone in Town Hall wanted to know what happens if there’s another quake, for those of you listening to this elsewhere. The engineers have already thought of that possibility. We are looking into fallback positions and emergency shelters in case seismic activity continues. I’ll let you know more as I learn more, but in the meantime”—her voice almost broke—“in the meantime, realize that we are all in this together. Let’s get to work, people.”

  Lake Ares was all right. Nineteen people had broken bones, contusions, and cuts. Greenhouses 1-6 restored power in time to prevent losses; dome 7 was a total loss, but 8-10 had suffered only partial losses, and that was due mainly to the cold. Reports came in by the hour.

  This time, the seismologists said, the epicenter of the quake had been much closer—closer and to the south of the colony. “Looks like an actual quake this time, one caused by the movement of fault lines,” Chris told everyone. “There’s an ancient geyser field twenty kilometers south-southwest of Marsport. We see some outgassing going on there—not water vapor, but carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and some other gases. Our best guess is that a deep pocket of magma has shifted very slightly, sending heat up through some of the fault lines. We’re hoping that the situation has reached a point of stability now.”

  “Yeah,” Mickey said grimly. “Let’s hope so. We’ll, I guess that scrubs our field trip.”

  Roger Smith frowned at him. “You lost your mind, Mick? It’s more important now than ever! Look, when they first began to build Marsport, before they had the first steel factory set up, before they could even think about building a dome, you know where the explorers lived? In lava tubes, that’s where! They’ve got natural insulation; you can make them airtight; you can live there indefinitely.”

  “You make it sound like a vacation home,” Alex said with a grin. “Not a bomb shelter.”

  Sean frowned. He did not remember it, but he had been told that when his parents died, they had been in a shelter—and that was where the rescue officers had found Sean, the only living person there.

  Alex continued. “But I guess you’re right. If we can use any of those lava tubes to store some emergency supplies, some oxygen tanks and pressure suits, even some food rations, we ought to do it. Worst comes to worst, we’d have something to fall back on.”

  “Who wants to live in a hole?” grumbled Mickey.

  “Better than the alternative,” Alex said dryly.

  Sure enough, plans for exploring the new lava tubes went ahead on schedule. Chris Wu and the other seismologists checked out the geyser field, kept wary eyes on their instruments, and very, very gradually seemed to relax as days went by and no aftershocks occurred.

  Sean’s work schedule was suspended as construction crews repaired the dome of Greenhouse 7, a long process that involved not just mending the hull breach but also reworking the electrical and plumbing systems. Greenhouse domes used a lot of water—and dome 7 could have cost the colony a lot of waste if its water system had been fully compromised. Luckily sensors had cut off the supply when the quake first started, so they had lost only the water actually in the dome at the time. Even so, the pipes had almost all been destroyed. In the bitter cold, the water had frozen almost instantly and its expansion had ruptured pipes all through the structure.

  Then, in the low pressure, the ice exposed by the burst pipes had sublimed. It didn’t melt—Martian ice didn’t behave the same way ice did on Earth. The ice simply turned directly to water vapor, shrinking away to nothing.

  Similarly, the electrical connections all had to be checked and reworked. The quake had caused short circuits, overloads, melted junctions. All of these had to be repaired or replaced, and that would take weeks. Since Sean couldn’t work at his job until then, he had some rare time off.

  But exams didn’t stop for anything—not even a major disaster. Sean’s grades suffered some, but so did everyone’s.

  “No wonder,” Jenny said disgustedly when she learned she had slipped a whole tenth of a point in biology. “We’re all on edge and upset. I can’t even sleep, let alone study!”

  Sean, whose own biology grade had tumbled by more than twice as much as Jenny’s, wisely didn’t comment. He knew how sensitive Jenny was about her grades. For a change Dr. Ellman had nothing cutting to say to Jenny or to Sean—or to any of his other students. He was an information systems coordinator, and that task kept him so busy that he didn’t seem to have time left over to worry about the Asimov Project kids.

  “At least the fights have stopped,” Alex said to Jenny and Sean one afternoon.r />
  “Everyone’s too scared to fight,” Jenny said. “It’s the way it was just after the Argosy left for Earth. Back then we knew we didn’t have a chance unless we all cooperated. Now everyone’s worried that even if we do cooperate, the planet will kill us.”

  “The problem,” Sean said slowly, “is getting everyone to cooperate even when things are all going along fine. How do you do that? People on Earth couldn’t manage it, and look what’s happened there.”

  “So are people just no good?” Alex asked. He was smiling, but his voice was serious.

  “I don’t believe that,” Jenny said quickly. “I think people can be mistaken, or some of them can be just plain mean and bullheaded, but if you talk about most people, I think most of us are good. Or try to be.”

  “Until we see someone who’s not like us,” Sean said bitterly. “And then our reaction is to kill them.”

  “I lost my parents too, you know,” Jenny said.

  Sean nodded. Jenny had grown up in a state-sponsored orphanage, where the kids were used as guinea pigs for sociological and educational testing. He couldn’t really complain that his loss was greater than hers, or greater than any other Asimov Project kid’s, for that matter. In some ways it was worse for those like Roger, who had clear memories of their parents. Sean couldn’t even picture his mother and father.

  “Well, we’ve got some time off after this week,” Alex said, yawning. “And from what I hear, the emergency repair work means the next school session may not begin until spring. So our summer vacation comes in winter this year!”

  “But we’re in the Southern Hemisphere of the planet,” Jenny pointed out. “That means that it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere.”

  “Maybe we can go to the beach,” Alex said.

  “I’ll pack my bathing suit.”

  “Shut up, you two,” Sean said, but he was grinning.

  Pavel Rormer, a short, thin man with a face that seemed to express constant disappointment, said, “Our explorations will take us away from the entrance to the lava tunnels, in the direction of this installation.” He pointed toward a holographic map of the Martian surface. “Areologists have drilled an opening into a primary lava tube here, just fifteen kilometers north-northeast of Marsport.”

  On the map a red light began to blink in an area of rolling hills. Marsport itself was a blue smudge, a spiderweb that had caught dozens of fat beetles. Except the beetles were domes, and the strands of the web were connecting corridors.

  “As you know, the initial settlers here used smaller lava tubes. Some of you may even have been in them.” Rormer’s pale blue eyes settled on Jenny and Sean, and the corners of his mouth jerked downward. Sean squirmed. When the Asimov Project kids had been ordered off the planet, he had led them on a serious game of hide-and-seek, and one of the places they had hidden in was a storage room deep underground, in one of the old settlement areas.

  He pretended not to notice Rormer’s stare, though, and concentrated on the map. It showed five short orange lines now, irregular in length, like five outspread fingers. They were on the outskirts of Marsport. Rormer gestured toward them. “These are very small. Millions of years ago, a much lesser volcanic eruption caused these. By contrast, the tunnel we will be exploring is huge. We will have to be very careful. The low gravity means that caverns on Mars can be much larger than ones on Earth, but even in low gravity, tunnels can collapse. We will regularly test the strength of the tunnels, and we will not venture into any that the quakes have damaged.”

  The lesson went on, with Rormer explaining in detail how various sciences—engineering, chemistry, physics, areology—would come into play as they explored the ancient lava tubes. He pointed out that the type of lava that had flowed through these tunnels had been liquid and fast moving, but added that the tunnels were lined with hardened rock left over from the lava flows. “Very good stuff, this,” he said. “Impermeable to leakage, if we’re lucky. We could seal up sections and make them airtight. Have shelters if we need them. Expansion sites for the future settlements.”

  Sean studied the sad-faced scientist. Rormer was, in his own way, a man of principle. The trouble was that Sean thought all his principles were wrong. Rormer never actually said so, but he made it obvious that he did not highly value Asians, Africans, or Americans. Sean supposed that his ideal colony would be a settlement that would allow in only people Rormer himself approved of.

  And that was the whole trouble.

  When Rormer’s presentation was over, the thirty people who were in the exploration group with him asked a few questions, and then they took a break. Sean and Jenny went to an observation room and found a nook with a couple of chairs. All around them colonists were looking out over the landscape of Mars, dim on a cloudy day. No one paid them any attention.

  “Cheerful guy, isn’t he?” Sean asked.

  “I don’t like him,” Jenny said. “He’s supposed to be good at his job, though.” She rested her chin on her hand and stared at the viewscreen. “I’m glad he’s just in charge of the science projects. I’d hate to have Rormer leading us.”

  “I don’t think we’d be on his team in that case. Too American.”

  “I am. You were born in Britain.”

  “Born there, raised in America.”

  “He doesn’t like South Americans, either,” Jenny muttered. “What started the fight was his nasty comments to Lisa Lopez, and she’s as nice as they get.”

  “Well, at least nobody’s fighting now,” Sean said. It was true. Since the nine prisoners had been freed, they had at least managed to get along with everyone.

  “Right,” Jenny said. She snorted. “Wonder whose crazy idea it was to let those troublemakers out of jail early.”

  Sean felt his face turning hot. “Uh … well, as long as they don’t fight.”

  Jenny shot him a quick glance. “I’m sorry. It was Amanda, wasn’t it? I keep forgetting you’re her adopted son.”

  Sean shrugged, wishing he could think of a way to change the subject.

  But Jenny did that on her own. She said moodily, “You know, if everyone in Marsport had been brought up the way the Asimov Project kids were, as orphans, I think we’d all get along better. Stick to your own kind, Rormer says. Huh. Wait until you don’t have anyone to stick to, then see how you like it!” She sighed. “Any word yet on who the team leaders will be?”

  Sean shook his head. “Haven’t heard. I hope we get Mpondo, though. I’d hate to be stuck with Ellman.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair,” Jenny agreed. “Not after we’ve had to put up with him all through exam week.” She still had not forgiven Ellman for the little lecture he had given them about not letting extraneous matters distract them from study. Although, as Sean had pointed out, everyone’s grades had come down some, Jenny felt he was talking directly to her. Not even Nickie Mikhailova’s cheerful remark that her own grades had come down almost exactly one point, from a 3.99 to a 3.0, had helped. Nothing bothered Nickie, whose outlook was an odd mixture of fatalism and optimism. “Did terrible this term, so next term has to be better,” Nickie had said.

  But it was no use pointing out to Jenny that her drop in grades was far less than some other students’. She took everything personally.

  “I wish we could do more than just take pictures,” Sean muttered.

  Jenny sighed. “Not much for an adaptive-biology specialist to do,” she said. “And you don’t even have a specialty.”

  “Don’t start on that,” Sean said. Mickey still occasionally scolded Sean for not having settled on one course of study. Sean couldn’t help it—he was interested in everything.

  People all around them were standing up and moving, and Sean said, “Looks like we’d better get back to the briefing room. Wonder what we’re going to learn about this afternoon? The superiority of the Rormer family and how we should all be like them?”

  “Probably,” Jenny said with a grimace.

  They went downstairs and back to the briefing room.
The other twenty-eight team members came in singly or in groups, and they all found seats. Rormer was in the audience now, waiting with the rest of them.

  Then Amanda came in, and Sean’s heart lifted. He hadn’t guessed she would be a team leader, but if she were, he couldn’t ask for a better one. “Hey,” Jenny said beside him, but he shushed her.

  Amanda went to the lectern and then looked around the room. “Team Nine,” she said. “Very good. Well, I have you to address, and then one other, and we’ll be all set. Your group represents thirty out of three hundred explorers. I want you to do your jobs well, but take absolutely no chances. In the three weeks since the major quake, we’ve had only minor tremblors. Dr. Wu is concerned that the fumarole field continues to outgas carbon dioxide—hot carbon dioxide, at that—but we have no indication that anything like an eruption is likely. Still, caution is called for, and I’m sure you will bear that in mind. Each team has been assigned a leader, and it’s my job to introduce yours. I’m sure you all know him already.” She nodded toward the door.

  Sean turned and looked back, and then groaned. Beside him Jenny did the same, and then she touched his arm in sympathy and commiseration.

  Standing in the doorway, his arms crossed, his scowl as deep as ever, was Dr. Harold Ellman.

  CHAPTER 5

  “I Kate this, hate this, hate this.” That had become Mickey’s mantra, his endlessly repeated chant.

  Alex patted his shoulder. “It’s ice, man. Everybody’s got something that bugs him.”

  Mickey sat slumped at one of the tables in the dorm common area. He was staring down at his arms. “Marsport doesn’t bother me. The hangars don’t bother me. When we hid out in the storage areas, I was fine. Why can’t I stand to go in a stupid tunnel?”

  Sean said, “Tough break, Mickey, but Alex is right. Hey, nobody blames you. Claustrophobia is hard to fight.”

  “Not hard for everyone else,” Mickey said stubbornly. The teams had been training for a month now, and Mickey had washed out the previous day. They had entered one of the storage area’s lava tubes and had gone all the way through the modified part, through a recently installed airlock, and into the lava tube itself, a tunnel that, in cross-section, was a squashed oval about four meters in diameter from floor to ceiling, six meters side to side. It was big, nearly as big as a subway tunnel. The walls, hardened lava with a high iron component, glistened in the lights, black shading through the reds of oxidized iron, the greens of copper, and a hundred other colors. The way they had cooled made the tunnel walls and floor unexpectedly smooth, like the surface of a marble block.