"Can you make it out, Randy?"
"Just water."
MacAllister blinked his light and looked expectantly seaward. There was, Nightingale thought, an element of play in his manner. He was enjoying this.
A reply came back, another complicated series.
"I can't tell what's doing it," Nightingale said. "It looks as if the light's in the water." He stared at it. "We should record it."
MacAllister nodded. "It almost seems like a fishing boat out there trying to talk to us."
The ground shook. Somewhere below, a piece of rock broke off and fell down the face of the cliff into the bay.
Nightingale caught his breath, moved well back from the precipice, and waited for more shocks. When none came, he directed his scanner to record. At his signal, MacAllister blinked a couple of times, and again the lights flashed. One. Followed by two. Followed by three.
Nightingale felt a chill run down his back.
"Your squid can count," said Mac. "Do you think that intelligent life might have developed at sea?"
Well, it had back home. But it had taken a long time to recognize because it was nontechnological. Dolphins and whales were clever. And squids. But they didn't take to mathematics without prodding. "It's had a long time to evolve," Nightingale said.
Mac flashed once.
The answer came back: Two.
Nightingale pushed Mac's lantern down, and raised his own. He sent Three.
It answered: Four.
He looked through the glasses again. "My God," he said. "We're going to come back with this story and no answers and people are going to scream."
The ground trembled again, more intensely this time. "Randy," said Mac, "this is not a good place to be right now."
"I know."
MacAllister took his shoulder. "Come on. Before we both go into the pond."
Nightingale nodded, pointed his lamp at the light source, and blinked again. Once. Good-bye.
The offshore light blinked back. Twice.
"They're still counting," said Nightingale.
"How you guys doing?" Kellie's voice, sounding cheerful and relieved.
"Okay," said Nightingale, who could not take his eyes off the bay. "Good. I thought you'd want to know. We'll be in the air in a few minutes."
Thank God,
"They're good babes," MacAllister told him on the private channel.
XXIV
Good fortune is less a product of talent or energy than it is a matter of timing. Being at the right place when the watermelon truck flips. This is how promotions happen, and how fortunes are made. Arrive at the intersection a minute behind, when the police are on the scene, and everything is undone.
— Gregory MacAllister, Lost in Babylon.
Hours to breakup (est): 63
Kellie looked down at Bad News Bay and sucked in her breath. The entire lower coastline had gone underwater, and the cliff top along which they'd walked was now not much more than a promontory.
"What do you think?" asked Hutch. She was referring to the diagnostic, and not the state of the bay.
"I don't know why the Al is disabled. Probably general degradation."
"Okay. What else?"
"We've got problems with temp controls. Onboard communications are okay. Capacitors are at max, but we've only got twenty-one percent That's all they'll take, apparently. Sensors are out. Forward dampers are down. We're getting a warning on the electrical system."
Hutch made a face. "Not imminent shutdown, I hope?"
"Negative."
"Okay. When we get time I'll take a look at it. We've got plenty of spare parts on board."
Normally, the pilot would run the diagnostic herself, but normally the AI would be operating the spacecraft. Hutch was busy.
Kellie ticked off a series of other problems, mostly minor, others potential rather than actual. "We wouldn't want to do a lot of flying in this buggy. But it should get us to the tower."
Hutch leveled off at two thousand meters, informed Marcel's surrogate they had no sensors, and with her help set course. The surrogate asked whether there was any chance they could ride this lander back to Wendy? As it was at the moment?
"Negative," Hutch said. "We can lift off and set down. We can even hover for a bit. But take it to orbit? That's not going to happen."
Kellie took a minute to call Nightingale. "How you guys doing?" she asked.
"Okay."
"Good. We're overhead." Then, to the surrogate: "Allie, do we have time to pick up the rest of our crew?"
She nodded and throttled up. "Negative. The plain is flooding as we speak. Lots of water."
In the illumination cast by Jerry Morgan, the countryside was ghastly. Kellie saw the area where Chiang had died, and thought she could pick out the spot where the hovercraft was located. They soared over the dragonfly river.
Marcel came on the circuit. "Hutch," he said, "there's a lot of water cascading into the valley. A lot. The tide keeps getting higher, and a long section of ridge has simply collapsed."
It would continue to do so as Morgan moved across the sky. To the south, they saw roiling smoke.
"Volcano," Marcel said. "They're erupting all over the globe tonight."
"What's the situation at the tower?"
"The water hasn't gotten there yet in any quantity. But it won't be long. Run your afterburners."
"Afterburners," said Hutch. "Aye." A joke, of course. She was already at maximum thrust.
Marcel continued: "The tower's in a wide plain. There's a funnel of sorts that empties into it from the north. The water's coming through the funnel. When it hits the plain, it spreads out a bit. That's kept us out of the soup. But it won't contain things forever."
"Any guesses on time?"
"How long's it going to take you to get there?"
"Twenty minutes."
"It might be enough," he said. "You'll want to hit the ground running."
"Mac."
"Yes, Priscilla."
"Mac, be careful. We'll be back as quickly as we can." "We'll be waiting." "You and Randy'll be okay?" "We won't be if you don't get those batteries." "Capacitors, Mac."
"Bear with me. I was never much of a technician. But by all means go get them. We'll leave a light on for you here."
Marcel came up again. "Hutch." And she read everything in his voice, all the futility and despair and exasperation that had been building for days. "You might as well break it off. Go back and-"
"What do you mean, break it off?"
"Just what I said. You don't have time to do this."
Kellie cut in. "Goddammit, Marcel, we can't just break it off. We've got nowhere else to go here."
"We're working on a backup plan. Forget the capacitors."
"What's the backup plan?"
"It's complicated."
"That's what I thought," said Kellie. "Give it to me in a couple of words."
"We're going to try to take you right out of the sky."
"You're what?"
"Pick you up in flight. I can't explain now."
"I'm not surprised."
"We're building a device that might work."
"Marcel," said Hutch, "what's your level of confidence in this scheme?"
He apparently had to think about it. "Look. Nobody's ever tried anything like this before. I can't promise success. But it's a chance."
"Right." Kellie stared at Hutch. "Go for the tower."
Hutch agreed. "I think we better get the capacitors." She leaned forward in her chair as if she could urge the spacecraft to more acceleration.
"Hutch-" He sounded desperate.
Kellie shook her head. Get there or nothing else matters.
They were already at full throttle, had been since leaving the river.
"How much time do we have?" asked Kellie. "Before the water reaches the tower?"