Steady state, Nansen thought. Repetition, except when something goes wrong and the robots make repairs. A full carrier takes the freight away and dumps it, while another arrives for more. Through millions of years?
The din hammered in his skull. He felt suddenly as if he were falling down a chasm. Tensing every muscle, he hauled his gaze free of the hypnotic flash-flash-flash.
Cleland’s word’s clattered. “Yes, yes, the pyramid, it holds the magma pump, electromagnetic or however it works, but here’s one of the outlets, and maybe before the stuff’s left to weather the pyramid processes it for calcium, phosphorus, potassium, or maybe erosion and biology do that well enough, but here’s the thermostat, safety valve, renewal —”
He doesn’t sound like himself, Nansen thought vaguely. What’s the matter with him? He recalled the planetologist’s controlled excitement of days — weeks? — ago:
“Plate tectonics keeps Earth alive. It frees the elements that life locks up in fossils, and releases others like potassium. It raises new rock to take up carbon dioxide as carbonate, and takes the old rock down below before the carbon dioxide is too depleted. This planet the Tahirians are converting, it’s got to have that cycle or the atmosphere will never be right for them, but it doesn’t have subduction. Also, I suppose, with a shell enclosing it, they don’t want enormous shield volcanoes. But then they’ve got to bleed off the core energy; and they can use it for more of the geochemistry they need, eventually for stabilizing the air and regulating the greenhouse. I think they’re making a start on doing all this artificially, and in the long run making it natural, self-operating for the next couple of billion years. They’ve drilled clear down to the core. The mills of God!”
Today:
“Science in action,” Cleland chanted at the lava well and the machines. The ground drummed, the wind hissed, the lights flickered and flickered. “Oh, what’s to learn!” He rocked forward across the stone field.
“Something’s damn wrong,” Brent groaned. “I’ve got a headache to kill me.”
“And I — vertiginoso —” Nansen looked to Emil and Fernando. They stood calmly, innocently, untouched.
Cleland kept going. Did the Tahirians show concern? They glanced from him to the captain. Leaves stood stiffly in their manes. They twittered.
“Cleland!” Nansen shouted. “Come back! That’s dangerous!”
The planetologist tripped on a lump. He fell, rose, lurched on toward the channel where the trees flashed.
“Hey, is he out of his head?” Brent cried. A fire fountain leaped briefly up from the pool.
“I… don’t know — Cleland, Cleland!”
We’re giddy, muddled, like drunks. What to do, what to do? “Go get him,” Nansen begged the Tahirians. They stared back, obviously worried but baffled, unwilling to take action . . . because the man must know what he was doing. . . .
He doesn’t.
The knowledge burst over Nansen. He swung around, seized Brent by the shoulders, wrestled the engineer about until they both stood sideways to the lava stream. His brain still gibbered, but it became an undertone. Listen,” he said fast. “Those lights combine to flicker frequencies that cause something like an epileptic fit — in humans. I remember reading about it. He’s lost all judgment. He’s going for a close look, and probably he’ll fall into the channel, the lava. I can’t explain to our friends and ask them to go after him.”
“Shit in a whorehouse!” Brent exploded. He pulled away from Nansen’s grasp. “I’ll fetch him.”
“No. I will.”
Brent glared. “Like hell. You’re our captain.”
“Yes, I am.” And the commander sends no man into danger he would not enter himself. “But you work with machinery, You can better gauge distances and angles. I’ll go blind, eyes shut. Else the lights might take me, too. You call directions. Don’t look at them more than you absolutely must. Can you do that, Mr. Brent?”
The other man snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”
“Very well.” Nansen wheeled. Before the lights could touch him again, he had squeezed his lids together.
Cleland was already near the channel bank. He slipped and stumbled in the chaos of scoria. It got worse the farther he went.