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Nothing they could do here, at least,the Colonel corrected himself. But my career is finished.Court-martial and death by firing squad awaited him. It all seemed distant and unreal.
"Colonel Langsdorf!" A voice came through the radio. "This is Boomerang Two!"
"Recall, Boomerang Two," Langsdorf said. "Land at the encampment, and prepare your aircraft for evacuation."
"Sir! Sir . . . you've got to see this! Open one of your monitors for a video feed!"
Langsdorf turned his main monitor on. After flickering with static for a moment, it then cleared to show the image transmitted by a camera in the belly of the little spotter plane circling high above. It took Langsdorf a moment to figure out what he was seeing. It looked like a geyser, a column of steam and boiling water mounting in a white pillar toward the sky. How very curious, he thought. Then he caught sight of buildings at the pillar's base, and the scale of the thing made itself clear. Langsdorf sucked in a sharp intake of breath. "Boomerang! What is that thing!"
"Those buildings you see . . . that's part of the ruins of Freeport! I'm east of the mountains, circling above our encampment. That geyser started up a few seconds ago!"
"It's . . . huge ..."
"The water jet reaches two thousand meters, Colonel! There's steam shooting up farther than that! The geyser is four hundred meters across the base!"
The ground was definitely shaking under the Warhammer'sfeet, and there was a growing, subsurface, almost subsonic rumble that transmitted itself through the ground and into the body of his 'Mech. "But where is it coming from?"
"From the ruins of Freeport. It's as though a huge body of water underground started turning to steam! It started coming up through a spot on my map that looks like some sort of dam or flood-control equipment, down where the river bed meets the dry sea floor!"
Langsdorf watched the explosion of steam and water mount higher into the sky.
The Yehudan Sea was returning to the light.
35
Rachan screamed. The pain in his leg was unendurable as the ground shook and rumbled with accelerating fury.
He had not seen the records of the Star League's underground facility's building, had not seen the survey plots of the huge system of pipes that the League engineers had built beneath Freeport in order to drain the eastern half of the Vermillion River and open the cavern into the mountain.
The water had been rerouted, cha
For three centuries, a small sea had existed at the core of the Nagayan Mountains. In a geologically active area, this could have created considerable problems, but fortunately, no large magma pockets or other thermal sources existed in the area. The area had once been much hotter, too, the site of considerable tectonic activity as the continental plates that had bumped and forced the Nagayan Mountains up from an ancient ocean continued to grind together. But the area had been quiescent for millions of years.
For three centuries, the Star League base's fusion pile had remained quiescent as well, providing the trickle of power necessary to keep the library's memory alive, and to be ready to open the Eastern Gate when the proper code was received. There was always the possibility, however, that someone would come who did not know the code, and would simply blast down the Eastern Gate rather than use the computer to unlock the door. Even a wall of granite weighing ten million metric tons could not keep out a determined invader. Major Keeler, the engineer who had created the whole system, knew very well that a few properly set charges of plastic explosives or a determined application of heavy lasers would smash the wall down, or burn through it.
He had, therefore, set other monitoring devices to watch over the integrity of the Eastern Gate, and other places throughout the complex. If the gate were ever smashed or the library destroyed, it would mean that it was not Star League perso
Deep below the mountain, the fusion reactor was generating heat normally found only at the core of stars. As it grew hotter, an underground sea turned to steam, and an eons-old balance of geological forces was overturned.
The crust of the planet moved.
* * *
Rachan could know none of this, of course. All he could tell was that the rumbling from beneath the mountain was louder now, with quake-loosened stones splattering down from the ceiling of the cavern in the darkness. The stones grew larger, as head-sized rocks broken fresh and jagged-edged from swaying cavern walls smashed to the ground around him.
Desperately, one hand clenched in agony around his shattered leg. Rachan began to drag himself toward the opening in the wall. A searing, claustrophobic fear possessed him in the roaring darkness, throttling him with the same intensity as the fire searing his leg.
A new sound ground through the dust and dark, the sound of stone splitting. As light burst suddenly down upon the ComStar Precentor, he looked up and shrieked.
The Wall across the mouth of the river-carved cavern had been severely weakened when Rachan ordered that its support struts be cut. It had been weakened further by the movements of the Archer.The earthquake shattered the last of the aligned-crystal steel braces, and sent ten million tons of granite toppling into the cavern opening.
The roar of tortured rock continued long after it had cut off the man's single, sharp scream.
* * *
The DropShip fleet accelerated at 1G, outbound from Helm. Under acceleration, Grayson could walk normally on the 'Mech Bay deck, talking to the tired and dirty men and women gathered there. All were exhausted, yet suffused with the flush of victory.
Lori and Alard King walked with him. As they approached a group of refugees, a ComStar Adept named Larabee stepped forward, his robes still bloodied from the fight in the Star League cave.
"Adept Larabee," Grayson said. "I heard that it was you who found Alard King and brought him to the ship. I was busy seeing to the boarding operations and hadn't heard the full story. I wish to thank you personally."
The Adept took Grayson's hand and shook it. "My pleasure, Colonel. I was on my way toward your ships anyway, in a transport hovercraft. I found your people— King and five of your soldiers—making their way down the slope of the mountain."
"Ha! It was more like we were clinging to the side of the mountain, waiting to die," King said. "The quake was going full-force then, and we couldn't even stand. He saved us, Colonel. I know damn well he saved Janice, that young corporal in charge, because she would have bled to death if we hadn't been able to get her back to the ship in time."
Grayson looked the Adept in the eyes. "I ... I don't agree with what ComStar was doing on Helm, Larabee, but that doesn't lessen the importance of what youdid, for me . . . and for my people. I appreciate it."
Larabee studied Grayson's face for a moment. There was still an i
"Yes?"
"I don't want you to judge the Order by the actions of one man."
"Rachan?" Grayson shook his head. "We'll probably never know the whole story. It's possible he was working alone."