To a three-dimensional vision of hell.
“Christ de tabernacle!” Rogi gasped, backpedaling in dismay.
But the surveyor only laughed, beckoned for them to follow him inside, and shut the door. The holographic representation of the tectonic environment beneath Caledonia’s crust filled the entire room, so that an observer seemed at first to be immersed in flaming chaos. Only gradually did the scene take on a sense of order and even stark beauty, with semitransparent streams of fiery scarlet, vermilion, and yellow forming dynamic three-dimensional patterns that one could examine at close range, from any angle.
At the other end of the room a platform with shallow steps running along its entire length was barely visible through the simulation. Narendra Shah MacNabb led his guests through the midst of the conflagration and up onto the platform, where it seemed as though their heads broke through the illusion’s surface and into open air. They became giants, looking at the southern shore of Clyde landmass and the adjacent sea. Then, as they moved down one shallow step at a time, they effectively descended beneath the lithospheric crust and into the depths of the planet. Clyde grew a massive root, solid in the top 30 kilometers or so and stiffly molten to a depth of about 160 kilometers. The entire continental lithosphere was embedded in the much thinner oceanic lithosphere that formed the floor of the sea.
“The fiery, moving portion of the model below the lithosphere,” MacNabb said, “represents an upper part of the planetary mantle called the asthenosphere. It behaves more like a liquid than the more rigid lithospheric mantle that generally stays coupled to the continent. The swirling areas in our model asthenosphere are convection currents—greatly accelerated in the simulation, of course. Note that they’re very complex. The individual convection cells change shape and also exhibit changing velocity in response to heating and cooling and alterations in the density of the circulating material. Now let’s move down the rest of the steps and inspect the asthenosphere immediately underneath Clyde. Very soon now, the simulation is going to demonstrate the catastrophe scenario.”
They took up a position just “south” of the continent, where they were able to look up through the semitransparent root.
“The umber-colored area with the deep crimson lower portion represents the Clyde craton and its associated lithospheric mantle. We’re right on top of it here at Windlestrow Muir. The craton is the southerly, most ancient part of the continent, which was presumably formed when Caledonia first solidified some three billion years ago. The lighter-colored continental regions around the edges and to the north are younger rocks that accreted to the craton throughout the aeons as the landmass slowly grew.”
“Largish craton,” Jack observed.
“Callie’s continents have grown much more slowly than those of more Earthlike worlds,” said MacNabb. “But never mind the reasons for that. Look lower now, into the asthenosphere right in front of us. Notice how that very large convection cell beneath Clyde is losing stability—actually fissioning while we watch! (Of course the event actually took place over a period of several million orbits.) Now look down here. Ascending amidst the turbulent area is an elongated thermal anomaly that looks a bit like an inverted fiery raindrop. It’s less dense and much hotter than the surrounding area of mantle.”
“A plume!” Rogi exclaimed.
“No, a diapir,” Dorothea Macdonald said. “A rising blob, not a persistent upwelling stream.”
“Exactly,” the surveyor agreed. “We’ve speculated that the diapir resulted from the remobilization of very ancient, so-called ‘fertile’ mantle material that never previously surfaced and outgassed. Whatever its origin, it contains a high percentage of volatile material—mainly carbon dioxide and water. Now watch what happens when it reaches the lower boundary of the lithospheric mantle at the hundred-sixty-klom depth.”
The rising portion of magma, colored a brilliant golden-yellow in the simulation, reached the stiff mantle of the cratonic root and halted, spreading out and partially penetrating the crimson. After a moment the ascending diapir pinched off from below and its matter formed a reservoir at the deepest part of Clyde’s lithospheric mantle.
“At this point,” Narendra Shah MacNabb said, tapping his portable keypad, “I’ll speed up the simulation. In actuality, the high-pressure reservoir of volatile magma remained lurking in place for an unknown length of time.”
“Just peacefully cooking up diamonds,” the Dirigent said, “as carbon-laden diapirs are accustomed to do.”
The surveyor nodded. “It stayed relatively dormant until natural changes in the ordinarily stiff and resistant lithospheric mantle allowed it to resume its ascent.”
In the simulation, a tiny thread of magma began to travel upward from the reservoir’s top.
“That ascending queue seems to have begun to move only about ten years ago. What we are about to see now is an extrapolation that will be valid if no CE modification is accomplished … That is, if human intervention proves impossible.”
The crimson part of the cratonic root swirled in minute turbulence. Instantly the thin filament of golden magma enlarged and pushed upward at an accelerating velocity. It smote the underside of the umber cratonic crust, broke it, and burst forth at the surface. In moments, the reservoir contents were drained. The observers stood silent for a moment, and then the Tri-D simulation winked out, leaving them standing in a featureless empty room.
Rogi spoke hesitantly. “What happens on top when the thing blows? Aside from a shower of diamonds, that is.”
“Imagine,” MacNabb said gently, “the eruption of fifty Krakatau volcanoes—but because of the adiabatic decompression of volatiles in the magma, the eruption would be cold, not hot. What we call a diatreme.”
“There would be stupendous earth tremors,” Dorothea Macdonald said. “Clyde itself would be devastated, of course, but that’s not the worst of it. Airborne ash, carbon dioxide, and vapor would pollute Caledonia’s atmosphere and render it nearly opaque to sunlight for an indefinite period. A Great Die-Off would very likely ensue. The planet would have to be abandoned.”
The surveyor opened the holographic chamber door and held it politely. “I hope the brief simulation has been of use to you, Director Remillard,” he said to Jack. “Detailed information on the volatile-magma reservoir is available in the survey data bank, and of course I myself will be entirely at your disposal if you should decide to attempt a modification.”
Jack hesitated, reluctant to ask the obvious question. He had no doubt that Dorothea Macdonald already knew the answer. “I wonder if I might I ask you for a snap opinion, Dr. MacNabb—quick and dirty.”
The chief surveyor gave a small shrug.
Jack took the E18 carrier from Rogi and hefted it casually. “I know you’re familiar with the conventional type of CE geozap modification. We now have eight grandmaster operators available, and I’ve brought experimental CE equipment that will boost their metapsychic output by a factor of three hundred—as opposed to the older-style helmets that augmented a hundred times. You know the volume of the reservoir and its constituents. In your opinion, will we have enough creative energy available from unconcerted joint output to bleed off the volatiles and sink the magmatic residue back into the asthenosphere?”
Narendra Shah MacNabb knit his brow in a courteous imitation of earnest thought. Finally he looked Jack straight in the eye and said, “Not a prayer.”
The Dirigent of Caledonia, looking very small in a bulky white sweater and a pair of tartan trews, was a little late for supper. She and the newly arrived CE operator from Okanagon, a slender black woman named Tisha Abaka, came to the table in the scientists’ mess where two chairs had been saved for them. They plumped down after minimal vocal greetings to Jack, Rogi, and the CE operators and fell like wolves upon the roast lamb with rosemary-anchovy sauce, bashed neeps, and butter-drenched baked potatoes. Everyone else seemed equally hungry and the conversation was entirely telepathic.
DOROTHEA MACDONALD: If Director Re
millard can check out the crew on the new E18s tomorrow, we may be able to initiate Neelya Demidova’s attack scheme the next day.
JON REMILLARD: This is the plan predicated upon the deployment of individual operators exconcert?
DOROTHEA MACDONALD: Yes. Neelya, would you please show us the finalized version?
NEELYA DEMIDOVA: [Image] This would be the first phase—a final recon of the southern side of the reservoir, done by Jim MacKelvie in the small driller. As chief CE geophysicist of Caledonia, he’s best qualified to determine the optimal point for lateral drainage of the magma into the Sgeirean Dubha subduction region south of Clyde. The ancient island system associated with the sinking oceanic plate there has the potential to form a back-arc basin if diverted magma interferes with the old arc structure and ruptures it. Once the small driller has established the optimum attack pattern—this might take a day or more—the rest of us in the four larger machines will join Jim for the diversion. The result will be a new slow-growing island arc. There would still be devastating volcanism over a period of decades, but it could be coped with, whereas the present situation is cataclysmic and quite hopeless.
TISHA ABAKA: I’ve never heard of such a thing. We’ve never tried anything like it on Okanagon, that’s for damn sure.
NEELYA DEMIDOVA: [cheerfully] Perhaps that’s because Okanagon is an older and more stable world with relatively few island-arc situations. Our poor little Yakutia is filthy with them! Of course, we’ve never had such a large, deep magmatic reservoir to cope with. The ones we’ve diverted were continental—at a depth of seventy kloms at the most—and only a tenth as large.
JAMES MACKELVIE: I’m not sayin’ I doubt ye, Neelya, and I agree your scheme seems to be our only chance … but look again at the horizontal component of the diversion! It’s nearly three hundred kloms under the sea from the south edge of the Clyde craton to the Sgeirean Dubha island arc. Ailsa and Tormod and I spent the day goin’ over the convection patterns in the intervening asthenosphere. We’re worried that we won’t be able to keep the diverted magma in a coherent blob, pushin’ it that far. Part of it’s bound to get away from us—especially if we’re not in metaconcert where we can react instantly to anomalies in the thin A/LM boundary zone beneath the oceanic plate.
TORU YORITA: My three colleagues and I did a similar analysis, also taking into consideration potential fracture zones in the intervening small piece of thin oceanic crust. Zannen desu! But in our opinion, the diverted magma is all too likely to ascend and break through the sea-floor before we can trap it beneath the more rigid island-arc structure.
MIDORI SAKAI: We’re not prepared to predict the effect of a huge submarine diatrematic eruption, but it would certainly be very nearly as disastrous as a continental one, with the added effect of a massive tsunami engulfing every continental shore.
AILSA GORDON: [looking up from hand-computer] It might even be worse if the erupting shit is ultrapotassic with a large water-soluble component. Then you might poison the sea as well as blotting out the sun with ash and vapor clouds.
NEELYA DEMIDOVA: [slightly huffy] Well, I offered the plan as a potentially workable hypothesis, that’s all.
INTENDANT GENERAL CALUM SORLEY: And we deeply appreciate your desire to help us, Neelya Alexandrovna. All of you … [looking around the table] … willing to risk your reputations and even your lives to aid Caledonia in a situation that the Milieu Science Directorate has officially categorized as hopeless.
YOSHIFUMI MATSUI: We have had to cope with official skepticism on Satsuma as well, Intendant General. Our entire corps of geophysical CE operators would have volunteered to assist Caledonia if it had been possible. Since it was not, we drew lots—and Midori, Toru, and I were the winners. We are honored to be here.
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: Even if Caledonia must be abandoned and a new Scottish planet established elsewhere, we’ll remember our friends.
NEELYA DEMIDOVA: We don’t want a memorial or a footnote in a history text. We want to do something!
TORMOD MATHESON: The greatest difficulty, lass, is our low level of creative strength. Even with Director Remillard’s E18 super hats—
JON REMILLARD: Call me Jack, for God’s sake.
TORMOD MATHESON: [nods] Even with Jack’s 300x CE helmets, our energy output exconcert is going to be too low to move the beastie with safety over that great distance. Now, if we could only tie all eight minds together in a new metaconcert config, Neelya’s scheme just might work. It’d still be iffy, mind ye, but at least there’d be a fightin’ chance.
TORU YORITA: HOW about it, Jack? Could you whip up a new program?
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: Toru, I don’t think you appreciate the difficulties of metaconcert design. I never anticipated asking CEREM for more than the loan of the new equipment. Jack volunteered to bring the hats when his brother reluctantly agreed to assist our experiment. But there was never any question of his doing a—
JON REMILLARD: Yes.
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: [incredulously] Yes? …
ROGATIEN REMILLARD: Hot damn! You really think you can do it, Ti-Jean?
JON REMILLARD: [apologetically] Not following Neelya’s plan, I’m afraid. There really is too great a probability that the volume of magma would escape if we tried to divert it metacreatively.
AILSA GORDON: What the devil else could you do but divert it?
JON REMILLARD: Alter its composition.
AILSA GORDON: Jack, pardon me if I seem rude. But you’re not a geophysicist. The magmatic components of the reservoir can’t be altered in any useful way. Not unless you can design us a metaconcert for the transmutation of elements—
JON REMILLARD: If the extremely volatile materials—the C02 and water—are segregated at the top of the reservoir, what’s left will be denser than the asthenosphere immediately below the cratonic root.
JAMES MACKELVIE: [awed] The laddie’s right. Degassed, it’d sink right back into the mantle!
AILSA GORDON: How the devil do you plan to effect the separation? We’re talking sixty kilobars of pressure, for Christ’s sake! And given that you do figure out how to perform the miracle—do you realize what would happen as soon as the volatiles began to bubble out?
MIDORI SAKAI: [mildly] The cork would fly out of the champagne bottle.
TORMOD MATHESON: [to Jack] Both Ailsa and Midori are right, you know.
JON REMILLARD: We would need not one metaconcert, but two. One to effect the separation, and another to delay the eruption until the process is complete. Then we allow the volatiles to outgas through a diatreme vent. There would be a rather powerful temblor, but the volatile ejecta would almost surely be essentially harmless to the atmosphere and the land.
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: Two metaconcerts. Of course! The eight grandmasters working together to effect the separation—
JON REMILLARD: And two paramounts in tandem to hold down the lid until the volatiles are allowed to blow. You and I, Diamond.
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: [inscrutably] I’d do it willingly. But I know nothing about CE operation and very little of metaconcert.
JON REMILLARD: I could teach you enough … and act as the executive [image] in the concert. You would handle the focus.
ROGATIEN REMILLARD: But—that’s the way Marc nearly got himself killed! Doing focus!
JON REMILLARD: Yes. But his mind hadn’t been accurately calibrated to fit the dual configuration. I checked with Orb last night: Diamond’s mind was calibrated by the Lylmik before they named her paramount.
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: Yes. [She smiles ruefully.] It was quite an experience.
INTENDANT GENERAL SORLEY: [beside himself with excitement] But, that means … if you two joined in … then Caledonia—
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: Might be spared after all.
TISHA ABAKA: Jack, how long will it take you to get everything ready?
JON REMILLARD: TWO days should do it. I’ll need an in situ analysis of the magma to complete the calculations. I’m afraid I can’t use the old figures. I n
eed to know what the composition is right now.
JAMES MACKELVIE: Tormod and Ailsa and I will take the small driller down at once. We’ll have the beastie vetted inside of fourteen hours.
JON REMILLARD: Training the lot of you—and the Dirigent—will take most of two days. [Rises from the table.] I’d like you to excuse me now. It would be a good thing if I got just a bit of sleep and studied up on igneous petrogenesis at the same time. I’ll get started on the preliminary metaconcert designs in the morning. If you all agree, we can start training when Jim and the others come back with the magma specs.
DIRIGENT MACDONALD: [also rising] Let me show you and Uncle Rogi to your rooms.
[Verbal adieux and expressions of enthusiasm as Macdonald and the two Remillards exit.]
NEELYA DEMIDOVA: [worriedly] I know Jack is the greatest mind in the Human Polity … but I hope he knows what the hell he’s doing. Genius or not, one can’t learn everything there is to know about magma dynamics overnight.
TORU YORITA: [sighing] Nor can a group of Grand Master Creators, and one brilliant young female Paramount, learn to perform perfectly in a novel metaconcert without long months of practice. But I think we are all going to have to try.
* * *
The rain was over, watery morning sun shone through the high cirrus veil, and quasi-Mesozoic birds with pink plumage squawked in the exotic heather as they gathered bits of vegetation to pad their subterranean nests. It was spring on Windlestrow Muir and the Dirigent asked Rogi to go for a walk with her to calm her nerves before the return of the small deep-driller.
The old man was suitably impressed with the multicolored foliage of the rolling moorland—mostly baby-blue and peach, softened by generous amounts of dark green. Large flowers resembling buttercups bloomed among the rocks and were visited by insectile fliers with transparent wings. The ground beneath the gnarled bushes was coarse, yellowish in color, and nearly dried out in spite of last night’s downpour. In the gullies and other eroded areas were drifts of wine-colored sand and heaps of light green and garnet stones. Sixty kilometers to the northwest, the Lothian Range loomed on the skyline as a saw-toothed shadow.