Read Undersea City for Free Online Page A

inside drift. “I see, sir.”
    “Do you?” The lieutenant looked at him thoughtfully “Well, good. That’s why we have to forego the protection of edenite, here in the station. Seismic vibrations reach us through the rock. They would be canceled out by the Eden Anomaly, do you see? If our instruments were shielded, they couldn’t register.”
    “Yes, sir.” It was Harley Danthorpe again, but his voice was not quite so brash, not quite so prompt, and I saw him squinting uneasily at the dark glittering droplets of the sea that oozed silently out of the walls.
    “Our work here is highly classified,” the Lieutenant said abruptly. “You must not discuss it outside of this station.”
    “But why, sir?” I asked.
    Tsuya’s pumpkin-shaped face looked suddenly worn. “Because,” he said, “there is a bad history, connected with seaquake forecasting.
    “Some of the early forecasters were too confident. They made mistakes. Of course, they lacked some of our new instruments, they didn’t know many things we know now. But they made mistakes. They issued incorrect forecasts.
    “The worst was at Nansei Shoto Dome.”
    The lieutenant passed his hand nervously across his pale forehead, as though he were trying to wipe out an unpleasant memory.
    “I know a lot about what happened at Nansei Shoto Dome” he said, “because I was one of the survivors.
    “The Dome was totally destroyed.”
    He sat down again, looking away from us. “I was just a boy then,” said Lieutenant Tsuya. “My folks had moved down-deep from Yokohama when the dome was new. We moved there in the spring of the year, and that summer there were a good many quakes. They caused panics.
    “But not everybody panicked. Unfortunately.
    “My father was one who did not panic. I remember how my mother begged him to leave, but he would not. It was partly a matter of money—they had spent every yen they owned, in making the move. But it was also—well, call it courage. My father was not afraid.
    “There was a very wise scientist there, you see. “His name was Dr. John Koyetsu. He was a seismologist—the chief of the city’s experimental forecasting station. He made a talk on the city’s TV network. No, he said, do not be alarmed, there is nothing to be alarmed about. Be calm, he said, these are only minor seisms which have frightened you. There is no need to flee. There is no possibility of a dangerous quake. Look, he said, I show you my charts, and you can see that there can be no dangerous quake in Nansei Shoto Trench for at least a year!
    “His charts were very convincing.
    “But he was wrong.”
    The lieutenant shook his dark head. A grimace of pain twisted his lean cheeks.
    “That was Friday morning,” he said. “My mother and my father talked it over when I came home from school. They were very much reassured. But it so happened that they had made arrangements for me to go back to school on the mainland, and it was my mother’s thought that this was as good a time as any. Oh, they were not afraid. But my mother took no chances.
    “That night they put me on a ship for Yokohama.
    “The quake struck the next afternoon. It destroyed Nansei Shoto Dome. No one survived.”
    Lieutenant Tsuya stood silent for a moment, his dark eyes following the thin little river of black water that silently ran down the narrow gutter under the oozing concrete wall.
    Danthorpe stood squinting at him sharply, as though looking for the inside drift. Bob was watching the dark wet concrete with a blank expression.
    “That’s why our work is classified,” the lieutenant said suddenly.
    “Quake forecasting has a bad name. It prevented the evacuation of Nansei Shoto Dome, and caused many deaths—my parents among them.
    “The Sub-Sea Fleet is authorized to operate this station, but not to release any forecasts to the public. I hope that ultimately we can save more people than Koyetsu’s error killed. But first we must establish the accuracy of our forecasting