Engines Of God

He drifted, watching the sea and thinking about better days. After a while, he heard the shuttle return, and a few minutes later his sensors gave him an unusual blip at sea level. Range twenty-two kilometers. Decreasing very rapidly. "Andi."

"Go ahead, Tommy."

"I see it. Estimate speed five hundred. It just looks like a long wave."

"Thanks, Tom. Take the sub down."

"I'm forty kilometers out. And diving." But he waited on the surface. It did not appear dangerous. He'd seen bigger along the Carolina coast. He maneuvered the sub until he had the prow pointed directly at the surge, and then he moved slowly forward.

The blue line on his screens grew.

Lightning flickered silently overhead.

He turned on his spotlights, but he could see nothing except rain. The prow tilted abruptly, and he rode up. For a breathless moment, he thought he was going to be flipped. The sub pitched and righted itself and moved again through smooth water. "No sweat," he said, under his breath.

"Look at that son of a bitch," murmured Carson.

The wave raced in graceful silence through the night. In their lights, it was black and clean and elegant. "It's slowing down," said Hutch. "It's under four hundred now." It was also expanding: it was still a solid front, without a crest, but it had begun to uncoil. To grow.

"Shallow water, Hutch." They were both looking at the data displays. "They lose velocity as they approach beaches. Thank God for small favors."

"Frank, how deep is Seapoint?"

"At high tide, which we are approaching, it's thirteen meters. Should be enough."

Carson reported to Andi. She sounded frightened.

The shuttle was ru

"What's that?"

"The monkeys. Are they on the beach at night?"

"They're going to have to worry about themselves, Hutch. But no, they aren't. Usually. Some come down, occasionally, after dark, just to watch the sea. When a study was done of them several years ago, it was one of the characteristics the researchers found most interesting."

The Towers came up on the monitor.

Behind them, the wave was a whisper barely audible over the roar of the sea.

They wheeled through the Towers. The tide was out. Hutch remembered that big waves were supposed to do that, suck coastlines dry and then deliver the water back in.

The wave rose, and mounted, and entered the shallows. It was not breaking; rather, the sea seemed to be hurling itself, dark and glittering and marble-smooth, against the ancient Towers and the rocky coastline beyond.

Seapoint. Wednesday; 0320 hours.

Radio and laserburst transmissions were relayed to Seapoint through a communications package mounted on a buoy which floated serenely on the surface directly above the cluster of sea domes. It was now forwarding the shuttle's images of the oncoming wave. Those images were displayed below on eleven monitors, in five different locations. But the one that had everybody's attention was located at the main diving port, a room of substantial size, with a large pool in its center. This was the chamber through which heavy equipment could be moved into the sea. It was advantageous under the present circumstances because there was no loose gear nearby, no cabinets, nothing that could injure anyone. Moreover, the pool was bordered by a handrail, to which they could attach themselves when the time came. There had been considerable discussion as to whether they wouldn't be safer seated in chairs with their backs to walls that faced the oncoming wave. But the sense that there might be a need to get out quickly overcame all other considerations.

They had sealed off the pool by closing the sea doors, after testing once to determine that the weakest among them (thought to be Maggie Tufu, who thereby became irate) could open them manually.

The atmosphere then became almost that of a picnic. The images of the oncoming wave revealed a disturbance so essentially moderate and quiescent that none could take it seriously. The men, for the most part, made it their business to look bored throughout the exercise, while the soft laughter of the women echoed across the pool.

Nevertheless, Richard saw that neither the boredom, nor the laughter, was real. Stiff, somewhat u

With several minutes remaining, the sub checked in. "No problem here," Tommy reported. He could not resist admitting that he had ridden over the top of the surge. If the sub had survived that, the wave couldn't be too serious.

As it approached, all eyes followed it on the screen. The images were the standard shaded blues of nightlight, and there was no audio, which combined to dampen the effect that Hutch and Carson were experiencing from the shuttle. Maybe it was just as well.

One by one, they took their places along the guardrail, used belts and lines to secure themselves to it, activated their energy shields, and began breathing from their airpacks. Richard watched the wave shut off the sky. Someone, Andi, noticed that the water level at the Towers had dropped.

The wave charged across the last kilometer. White water showed along its crest.

They could feel its approach in the bulkheads. They braced themselves, knelt on the deck, gripped the rail. Then the chamber shook, the lights dipped and went out, and the voice of the beast filled the night. The pool erupted and the screen went blank.

Someone whimpered, and there was awed profanity. A second blow fell, heavy, immense, delivered by an enormous mallet.

Richard was thrown against his belt and banged his ribs. Beside him, Linda cried out. Tri was somehow torn loose and flung into the water.

But nobody was seriously hurt. The shocks continued, with generally decreasing fury, for several minutes. The lights came back. They were startled that it had been so severe after all, but relieved that they were all alive, and they started to laugh. It was nervous, tentative laughter. And Henry released his death grip on the guardrail, and gave them all a thumbs-up. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "Congratulations."

LIBRARY ENTRY

They came in the spring of the year to tell me you were dead. They spoke of war and pride, and how you'd laughed at fear,

And called my name. All the while the sea grew black and still. Now you lie in a distant land, far from the summer day When we left our tracks on the foamy sand— Yet in the deeps of the night You call my name, your voice in the roar of the tide.

— Fragment from Knothic Hours

Translated by Margaret Tufu Cambridge University Press, 2202