"Escape From The Crater"

Escape From The Crater

by Carl L. Biemiller

Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

Kim eased the Adam into her offshore mooring, popped the hatch and got a line on the buoy where the dinghy still bobbed in the cool breeze spilling down the slopes of the circling mountains.

“Why did Genright want the oarfish?” mused Moses.

“Maybe he likes pets,” said Kim.

“You think that’s the reason?”

“Frankly, no, and if you think real hard you might guess the reason”

The old Kirl blew reflectively through his whiskers.

“My elite guard, which doesn’t think well of our guests, are going to be challenged to a contest of unusual fishing skills?”

“I didn’t say it. You did.”

“Then I shall have to warn them in advance.”

“You can’t. If there’s any plot you’re in on it, and you’re honor bound to silence. Besides that, you started all this contest business anyhow.”

“The old Kirl looked sad.

“Just as I think you’re honor bound not to use any of those weapons which can bore through solid rock against my people?”

“Survival,” said Kim succinctly. “Orders from Headquarters, all that.”

“I know all about orders. I give them. I can change them. Or,” he paused, “I can sometimes cause them to be changed.”

“There’s Toby Lee and the Major. I’ll go pick them up. You want to hang around?”

“I want to consult with my people first as to their opinions of the Major’s reactions to our history. I’ll return shortly, young Forerunner, if I may.”

Kim didn’t bother to answer. Moses had ended his remarks with a nimble scamper and a chunking splash. He left an arrowhead of wake as he headed up lake in the direction of the cavern. Kim went below, checked and stowed the recorded data from the tunnel trip, leaving videos for handy scanning. He thought Genright and Tuktu might want to see their oarfish performances. They were special, as Tuk and Genright were special. He felt a pang of loss against the day when the Service might split them all up for other duties. What brought that on, he wondered?

“Yo, the Adam!”

It was Toby’s voice from the shore. He poked his head out the hatch.

“Right with you.”

Major Bruce Bell looked vacant, thought Kim. There was no other way to describe him. He had a small smile for Kim, but it looked like a reflex. Otherwise, he seemed like an evacuated body, as though the Major had stepped out for a while and let his automatics run the works until he returned.

Toby looked a mite wan too, but her glance was direct, and she shook off his reaching hand as a help into the dinghy.

“How was it?” asked Kim.

“I want out of this uniform and into a nap,” said Toby. “And the Major is a bit stretched out and needs a touch of rest.”

“Like that, eh?”

“Like that.” She gazed past his head at the Adam, as though seeing it for the first time. “Where’s the rest of the crew?”

“Well you could say fishing.”

“What else could I say?”

“A little food and a little nap first. Too much daylight in these parts and not enough sleep. Major Bell, you’re ordered into a bunk for an hour or so of rest.”

“I’m fine.”

“Want to keep you that way too.”

Kim brewed a tart tea from a gel capsule of powdered sea urchin. “Need a high-protein intake,” he said. They sipped it. Then he and Toby Lee tucked the cryo into a net bunk, where he grinned at them and went peacefully to sleep.

“You’re next Warden Lee,” said Kim. “Stand up.”

His hands were quick and skillful as he unzipped her uniform blouse, slid her skirt down over her hips, where it fell in a pool of fabric on the floor.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Commanders see to the comfort of the crew.”

He took a small bag from a locker, twisted a valve and watched it blurt into a two-man mattress, which he placed in a corner near the curve of the com console. He walked across the deck and dogged the hatch. “Let ‘em clang and bang.” He led Toby Lee by the hand. “And move over,” he said.

“You’ll get your uniform mussed.”

“No, I won’t,” he said, and he didn’t.

She clung to him, warm and clutching.

“Want to talk about it?”

She nodded into his chest. “They watched it from their city in the heart of their mountain, which they’d stocked and populated, all of them, men, women, and the children. The pictures came from all over the world, just pictures, for there was no sound. Some even came from what they called satellites in the sky. Did you know there were people who lived in the sky, in space?”

Toby shivered and Kim smoothed her dark hair.

She spoke simply, as a child speaks.

“The world was bathed in violet light and blue-green vapors. Cities dissolved. Mountains crumbled. There were rivers of fire running into flaming lakes. Shorelines flattened and vanished beneath seas, which boiled. It was days before the pictures stopped, even though there wasn’t anything to see except mists churned by winds that were blue and orange and blinding white. Not all the pictures, though. Some they say for years. They came from those cameras and transmitters in the sky. They stopped too.

“The people thought they were alone. They knew of other hives planned, but they couldn’t be sure.

“This is all in the Kirl archives,” said Toby, dripping contented tears on his chest. “A lot about how they lived, those people, their art and culture, and their very great pride mixed with a very great shame is there. And there is much about skills and laboratory disciplines. They were neuromedico and psych masters, Kim, and they had stockpiled both machines and techniques.”

Kim nudged her. “About the Kirl?” he asked.

“Later,” she said. “The Kirl were later, as soon as they knew the mountain was sinking, and that the city would die, and they knew almost to the hour when it would die, and everybody in it. Kim, they were so brave. They made humanness a religion, and no sacrifice was too great for it. They even used their own babies in some experiments. And, Kim, there was a giant, burning man named Albert Preston Kirl, the greatest of their biochemists, and in the pictures his eyes are exactly like Moses’.”

“Let’s go to sleep now, Warden Toby Lee.”

“The Kirl were sort of an atonement, sort of a rebirth of man without sin or shame, like in the Bible Commanders Torrance and Jensen gave us. And you ought to read it.”

“Sleep. That’s an order.”

She bit his chest. “I could give some orders too,” she said.

They slept, although Kim thought for a long time before he slipped over the edge and joined her.

Major Bruce Bell snored. And the sun was still high over the world outdoors. An hour stretched into two and inched toward three.

They were awakened by voices, clumpings and spaced thuds.

“I am not going to live in a shield suit,” cried Genright.

“We know you’re in there.”

“Snacking or sacking.” yelled Tuktu. “We’re lonesome.”

“A lake full of Kirl and you’re lonesome. I am not lonesome. Just open the hatch. Hey, Moses is here too!” screeched Genright.

Kim and Toby rolled off the mattress, which was deflated with a valve twist and hung away. They pulled on zip suits and hung away uniforms. Kim checked the cryo, who was still asleep, and then opened the hatch.

Genright, Tuktu, and Moses, each in his fashion, spilled into Adam, awakening Major Bell. Unabashed, Tuktu and Genright stripped out of their wet suits and donned work boat zip coveralls as they stowed away gear. Somehow, units of interior space worked into enough all-around room.

“I suppose you want to eat now?” asked Kim, and his voice accused Tuktu and Genright.

“We had a fine meal,” said Genright loftily. “Lake trout fillets, broiled over a laser rod, lightly salted with mineral scrapings from a friendly rock, and watercress from a cheery cove.

“Where’s the one-fish school?”

“Safe and happy. We fed him too. Mussels, which we also ate.”

“We beat off that goofy Tube Steak too,” added Tuktu. “He wanted a taste of our friend.”

“That wouldn’t have hurt him,” said Moses, his flat voice emphatic. “I thought I might have an interest in your friend, and looked him up in some Kirl data. In case you didn’t know, that long ribbon tail section and also his long mane-like dorsal fin are part of his natural defenses. Predators often bite off great sections of the oarfish, and while they are eating, the rest of the fish escapes to live very well minus his missing sections.”

“Tube Steak wanted the whole thing, not a section. Anyhow, Big Red is safe, all of him. We thought all of him would be more impressive,” said Genright.

“He’s sort of wrapped in a net, resting,” added Tuktu.

“What is this?” demanded Toby Lee. “Kim told me you were fishing.”

“I said, ‘you could say fishing,’” corrected Kim. “Hey, Major, are you hungry?”

“May I have more of that tea?” asked Major Bell.

“And a slab of my algae cake,” said Genright. “I’ll join you, and so will we all. We have to keep eating that stuff, otherwise the hydro yeast I keep growing may engulf the world. Moses, would you like to get crumbs in your whiskers?”

Major Bell’s voice was soft, but it was edged.

“When do you teach your troops respect, Warden Rockwell?”

“From the time of their first conditioning for training,” said Kim, his voice equally soft, but rock hard. “And how does that concern you?”

“He saw the Kirl history with me,” said Toby simply.

The cryo’s face crumpled and stiffened. He turned to the Kirl. “It is an epic, sir,” he said. “It made my own reality seem smaller. My utmost respect to you and your people, sir.”

“Well, if it isn’t disrespectful, I’m going to snack some,” said Tuktu.

“And, Moses, would you like to get crumbs in your whiskers?” asked Genright.

“About a million, I’d say,” said The Kirl.

“A million crumbs?”

“No, about a million to one that you’ll survive to maturity,” said the old leader. “And, Major Bell, thank you…”

“And we’d like to hear your own history, if you feel up to it,” said Kim. “Nobody’s going anywhere until tomorrow, at least.”

“Yak while you snack,” Genright muttered, his mouth already full of cake.

Major Bell laughed. “I give up,” he said.

“Just give,” smiled Toby Lee.

“Well, as I told you, I’m Army, was Army…ah… Army of the United States, then one of some two hundred nations in a world of maybe six billion people. I command, commanded, that is, a Vulcan Unit, apparently somewhere in this area. I am, was, a geologist…”

“Whatever you were, you are,” said Kim. “Circumstances changed. You didn’t.”

“… an engineer, an expert on volcanoes and earth-core phenomena, those pertaining to heat energy as a useful source of power for electricity and other things.”

Major Bell’s voice was thoughtful as he rolled back time. He spoke simply, remembering that he spoke to strangers. “The Army was in charge of all energy sources and power supplies. It reported to the National Council, which ran the entire society with military and civilian representatives from various sections of the country. The Council was a new form of government set up after the old one broke down in the Conservation Rebellion and the Welfare Wipeouts.”

“We’re lost,” said Genright.

“Anyhow, we came into the Katmai area of the Alaskan Peninsula to tap the Aleutian Range and the Chigmits for heat and electricity to supply metropolitan Anchorage, about four million people then, and to service the big military reservation built under the mountains in McKinley National Park, maybe another two hundred and fifty thousand people. Country had always been volcanically active and earthquake prone, but we could stabilize much of that energy by bleeding off its geysers.”

“Didn’t you have atomic energy?” asked Toby Lee.

“Had it in many forms and used it too,,” said the Major. “But it was still a suspect power source. It was associated with bombs and death and toxic radiation in the minds of too many people who didn’t know any better.”

Major Bell paused. He looked grim. “After what I saw today, maybe they did, after all. But that was long ago.” He shrugged.

“Longer than you think, sir,” said The Kirl.

“Go on, tell us about your work in this area,” urged Kim.

“Yeh, because I’d like to leave this very same area before it blows up in my face again,” muttered Genright.

The Major went on, making them see the scope of his science as it was when it was his daily work. Geothermal energy was as old as man’s scientific curiosity. Born in the frictions of earth’s interior core and the decay of radioactive materials under the globe’s hard, outer crust, it boiled rocks into the ever-churning mineral stew called magma. It expressed itself in disaster—earthquakes, erupting volcanoes—and in wonders like geysers and hot springs; and in all the gentler benefits of useful heat.

They caught glimpses of the Major’s world, as he spoke, as a place of crises and stress and disruption held at bay by technologies unfamiliar to them. For not until the hydrocarbons, the fossil fuels, diminished in supply did the Major’s world exploit geothermal force, and even early forms of energy—tides, winds, and sunlight—as well as the primary energy born in the birth of the universe: atomic power.

Now and then the old Kirl nodded as though he knew much of what Major Bell spoke about, and remembered more, and it disturbed Kim as he noticed.

“No real mystery about what we did in this region,” said the cryo. “We sank wells, drilled tunnels, made holes. Where we hit steam made by underground water in contact with molten rock, we brought up steam and nozzled it into turbines which ran the electric generators. Where we found boiling hot water we brought that up and used it to dissolve some volatile liquid like isobutene into vapor, and the vapor spun the turbines to generate electricity. All simple procedures with a long history. For a hundred years, since 1904, a country called Italy had been lighting and heating its biggest city, Rome, with geothermal energy.

“But the work was hard, often dangerous, and the country was rugged in both climate and terrain. Despite an over crowded world, there weren’t too many people, comparatively speaking, jammed into Alaska. Even many of the old animals had survived in promising numbers.”

“Animals?” asked Tuktu.

“Bears, caribou, wolves, many others.”

“We’re lost,” said Genright.

“Go on,” said Kim.

“What can I say? There were about a thousand of us on the Katmai project when all of the seismic readings went crazy and a series of quakes really rocked the area. Most were evacuated by air, cargo blimps, helicopters, whatever we could get. But I had to keep a few volunteer groups in the field as long as possible to protect the utilities. Anchorage, the big base, all the towns couldn’t cope with disaster without power. And my group was caught…”

Major Bell ran a questing hand across his forehead.

“Enjoy your tea, sir?” asked Genright.

“Yes, thanks.”

“Well, it’s just made you ready for a nice sleep. I don’t like to spend time and worry making my patients well so some people can make them unwell with more strain than necessary,” said Genright defiantly. He flicked a finger at Tuktu. Together, they placed Major Bell in his bunk and tucked him in—quite asleep.

Toby Lee giggled.

“Thanks, Gen,” said Kim ruefully.

“I think I have something still more to learn about the practice of authority,” mused The Kirl, a dancing light in his deep, dark eyes.

“Well, Gen was right. I was stupid. I forgot the man’s still under strain, and maybe not all put together yet.”

“Gen was right. Gen was right. Genright! To me he’s a dum-diddle-um-dum,”said Tuktu. “And if my services are no longer required, I am going to relax with my eyes closed so I can’t see any more dum-dum today.”

“And I shall leave before Genright challenges the Kirl to a fishing contest,” said Moses. He turned to Kim. “Are you planning to move up-lake tomorrow?”

“As you now suggest, sir,” said Kim.

“No contest,” said Genright. “but maybe a small parade before your troops? Just me and Tuk and Toby and Big Red.”

“Again, who’s Big Red?” demanded Toby. “And why should I parade.”

“Regalecus glesne, a gorgeous oarfish, now dozing in his hammock, dreaming of his master, me. And because you’ll add dignity to the procession,” said Genright. “Parade starts at nine.”

“Suppose Big Red escapes? asked Tuktu. “I don’t think I tied my end of the nets very tightly.”

“Close your eyes forever, then.”

Chapter One	Chapter Two	Chapter Three	Chapter Four	Chapter Five
Chapter Seven	Chapter Eight	Chapter Nine	Chapter Ten	Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve	Chapter Thirteen	Chapter Fourteen	Chapter Fifteen

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