Read The Wizard of Anharitte for Free Online Page A

couldn’t produce a flare like that in a million years.’
    ‘No oxygen,’ said Ren. ‘There’s not a liquid oxygen plant within sixteen light-years of Roget and it’s a dead certainty that oxygen is not imported.’
    A cry from a member of the fire team indicated that the situation was changing. Pictor Don returned to his post and saw the bright plume of flame above the building gradually diminish and finally become extinguished by the solidifying foam. The fire was out.
    ‘What happens now?’ asked Catuul.
    ‘First they extract the heat from the surface by cooling the mass with water. Then they progressively add alkali to the water and this slowly dissolves the foam. By control of what they spray they can stop the process at any point to allow the removal of potentially dangerous masonry or to inspect for signs of arson before,the evidence is too much disturbed.’
    The fire team was now spraying river water from its hoses, but such was the heat-insulating effectiveness of the cellular mass that very little of the intense heat still trapped below the surface was available to be carried away by the water. Pictor Don mounted a hydraulic hoist and climbed from it to the surface of the foam filling the building’s walls. The strength of the glasslike substance was such that his weight barely dented the surface. He scrunched over almost the entire area of the warehouse on a quick tour of inspection.
    He ordered alkali to be applied. About a thirty-centimeter layer of the foam was stripped from the surface by chemical leaching. Newly exposed fragments of the building were cooled with water and a second round of inspection followed.
    Then the emergency commander approached the edge of the building and called over the wall. ‘Get Tito Ren up here—and that Pointed Tail fellow.’
    Somewhat reluctantly Ren and Catuul Gras allowed themselves to be conducted to the hoist and raised to the top of the wall. There was something unnerving about stepping onto a layer of foam that had been a sprayable liquid such a short time before. The surface felt alarmingly fragile. Overcoming their fears, however, the two walked across the crunching surface toward Pictor Don. At a certain point he cautioned them to stop.
    ‘Mind where you put your feet in that area just in front of you. There’s a giant bubble in the foam reaching, as far as I can judge, right down to base level. That was the blowhole through which the last flame persisted. Unless I miss my guess, the root cause of the fire lies directly at the bottom end of that bubble. Does its position give you any clues?’
    Catuul glanced around at the fragments of outer wall visible above the foam, trying to verify his bearings. ‘We’re located over what was the inner storeroom.’
    ‘What was kept in there?’
    ‘The high-grade crude oil,’ said Ren.
    ‘In metal tanks?’
    ‘No. Wooden barrels. It’s the only way the native producers will package it. Wharfage facilities don’t run to the accommodation of tankers.’
    ‘Wasn’t there anything else?’ Pictor Don was completely unconvinced.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Ren. ‘I counted the barrels myself. We were going to repackage the whole consignment in spaceweight containers ready for shipment. And every single barrel was broached to obtain analysis samples, so I can guarantee that the store contained nothing but high-grade oil.’
    ‘Very well.’ Pictor Don’s voice still carried no evidence of conviction. He indicated that they should all return to the ground. The chemical stripping of the foam began again, with interruptions at intervals for repeated inspections. Finally Don called for Ren and Catuul Gras.
    The thickness of the foam had been reduced to a meter. The space around the blowhole had been completely cleared for a radius of several meters. Ren and his colleague were now able to inspect the area Pictor Don regarded as the base of the fire.
    ‘A drain—’ Ren regarded the charred and blackened area of ‘I’