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had their Alexandrian campaigns, their Napoleon and
Nelson, their civil wars. Now, everything they ever cared about is to be lost
forever. That's a disaster of quintessential proportions. And I think it's
worth coming to see. Don't you?"
"I suppose you're right, Mr. MacAllister. Do you think anything like this
could happen to us?"
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He laughed. "I'd like to think so."
"Surely you're joking."
"I'd be pleased to believe that when the time comes for us to make our exit,
we will do so as gracefully as the inhabitants of this world. I mean, the
blowguns tell us all we need to know about them. They were undoubtedly every
bit as perfidious, conniving, hypocritical, and ignorant as our own brothers
and sisters.
But it's all covered up. The disaster gives them dignity they did not
otherwise earn. Everybody looks good at his funeral.
"We're not even sure what they looked like. Consequently, we'll remember them
with a kind of halo shining over their ears. People will speak of the
Maleivans in hushed voices, and with great respect. I
predict that some fool in Congress or in the Council will want to erect a
monument in their honor. When in fact the only thing we can be sure they
achieved was that they made it to oblivion without getting caught in the act."
During the course of his life, Nightingale couldn't recall having ever hated
anyone. Other than
MacAllister. In the moment that the editor had asked Nightingale to step
inside the tower, he had searched his mind for the correct riposte, the
cutting remark that would slice this walking pomposity into his component
parts.
But nothing had come to mind. You buffoon, he might have said, and MacAllister
would have flicked him away. Windbag. Poseur.
The pilot of the Star lander walked past him with another pile of sticks.
"Chair," he said.
"Okay."
"Hutch said I could have it."
"Okay."
In the end he had meekly complied with the request and stood away from the
scan's line of sight. But he really couldn't do his job properly, stowed
inside the tower, couldn't see everything he needed to, especially
couldn't see the strip of trees from which the biped cat had emerged. So he
came out every few minutes, in a small act of defiance, walked about for a
bit, and then retired back inside.
He was following the conversations in the tunnels. Toni, hauling chunks of
inscribed stone to the surface, announced that she'd found a coin. "What
kind?" Nightingale asked, excited. "What's on it?"
He was standing outside watching the trees. Watching Wetheral.
"Just a minute," she said.
And while he waited, the ground moved.
It rolled beneath him. MacAllister and the woman in the lander stopped talking
and turned to stare at him. Wetheral paused midway between the tower and his
own spacecraft and stood with the chair held absurdly over his head.
The earth shrugged and threw Nightingale flat into the snow. He heard
frightened cries on the allcom, watched the Wildside lander begin to lean over
on one tread until the tread collapsed. The earth shook again, briefly. The
ground and the sky seemed to be waiting. More was coming; he knew damned well
more was coming.
He thought about retreating into the tower. But that would be stupid. Why put
rocks over his head?
Instead he moved out away from it, but had gone only a few steps when another
shock hit. Big one this time. He went down again. A ripple ran across the
landscape. The snow broke apart under Wetheral's feet.
The pilot tried to run, absurdly still holding the chair. The ground ripped
open and he fell in. Disappeared.
His lander tilted, and it, too, slid into the hole.
All this was accomplished in an eerie silence. If Wetheral had protested,
screamed, called for help, he'd been off-channel. Now a roar broke over
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Nightingale's ears, like an ocean crashing into a rocky headland, and the
world continued to tremble. The earth shook and quieted. And shook again. An
enormous stone block slammed into the snow a few meters away. He looked up,
saw that it had broken off the roof, saw also that the tower had begun to lean
to one side.
The hole into which Wetheral and his lander had fallen widened. Gaped. It was
becoming a chasm.
MacAllister was sitting in the Wildside lander staring at him, or maybe at the
tower, with his eyes wide.
Now, thought Nightingale with a sense of grim satisfaction, let's see how it
goes with you.
Marcel came on the link and was demanding to know what was happening. Chiang
reported collapsing walls. A cloud of dust rolled out of the tower. Hutch was
on the allcom telling everyone to get outside.
Kellie, who'd been on the upper level, climbed through a window, saw him, and
dropped to the ground.
It was a long fall but she seemed unhurt. "Did they come up yet?" she asked.
Hutch was still on the link, saying something. He needed a moment to make it
out.
"Randy, you there?"
"I'm here," he said. "I'm with Kellie." Just then Chiang staggered out through
the entrance.
"Over here," Kellie told him.
Nightingale caught a glimpse of their lander. It had taken off, was in the
air, trying to get away from the quake. "MacAllister's stealing the lander,"
he said.
"Talk to me later. Where's Toni?"
"Don't know. Still inside."
"How about Chiang?"
"Chiang's here. He's with us."
"Toni?" said Hutch.
Nothing.
"Toni!"
Still no answer.
"Isn't she below with you?" Chiang asked her.
"She was headed topside."
Nightingale was knocked down again at the same moment that he heard a distant
explosion.
Hutch was still calling Toni's name.
As she moved through the tunnel with her artifacts, Toni was acutely aware of
the considerable weight of rock, dirt, and ice overhead. Given her choice,
she'd have taken permanent guard duty, preferably at the top of the tower.
She was on her hands and knees, the slabs slung in a pack around her
shoulders, thinking about Scolari.
He was alone in Wildside with Embry. She had no reason to be jealous, but she
felt a stab anyhow. It was hard to imagine that they had not been together
these last couple of nights.
She was trying to decide how much responsibility Hutch bore for her loss when
the quake came.
The floor shook. Dust rained down on her, the room sagged, and a crossbeam
crashed down directly in front of her. The room continued to tremble, and she
threw herself flat out and put her hands over her head.
Her lamp went out. She tried crawling past the fallen beam but the room kept
moving, tilting, and then a terrible grinding began above her. The overhead
grated and rasped and screeched. Something cracked, loud and hard, like a tree
broken in two. Or a backbone.
A weight fell on her, driving the air from her lungs, pinning her to the
floor. A darkness, deeper and blacker than that in the chamber, rushed through
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her. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't call anyone.
Somewhere, she heard a voice. Hutch's, she thought, but she couldn't make out
what she was saying.
Her last thought was that all her plans, her new career, Scolari, her return
home, the child she hoped one day to bear, none of it was going to happen.
She wasn't even going to get off this goddam world.
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