Marsquake! by Brad Strickland, THOMAS E. FULLER Read Free Book Online

week,” Alex said, yawning. “And from what I hear, the emergency repair work means the next school session may not begin until spring. So our summer vacation comes in winter this year!”
    “But we’re in the Southern Hemisphere of the planet,” Jenny pointed out. “That means that it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere.”
    “Maybe we can go to the beach,” Alex said.
    “I’ll pack my bathing suit.”
    “Shut up, you two,” Sean said, but he was grinning.
    Pavel Rormer, a short, thin man with a face that seemed to express constant disappointment, said,“Our explorations will take us away from the entrance to the lava tunnels, in the direction of this installation.” He pointed toward a holographic map of the Martian surface. “Areologists have drilled an opening into a primary lava tube here, just fifteen kilometers north-northeast of Marsport.”
    On the map a red light began to blink in an area of rolling hills. Marsport itself was a blue smudge, a spiderweb that had caught dozens of fat beetles. Except the beetles were domes, and the strands of the web were connecting corridors.
    “As you know, the initial settlers here used smaller lava tubes. Some of you may even have been in them.” Rormer’s pale blue eyes settled on Jenny and Sean, and the corners of his mouth jerked downward. Sean squirmed. When the Asimov Project kids had been ordered off the planet, he had led them on a serious game of hide-and-seek, and one of the places they had hidden in was a storage room deep underground, in one of the old settlement areas.
    He pretended not to notice Rormer’s stare, though, and concentrated on the map. It showed five shortorange lines now, irregular in length, like five outspread fingers. They were on the outskirts of Marsport. Rormer gestured toward them. “These are very small. Millions of years ago, a much lesser volcanic eruption caused these. By contrast, the tunnel we will be exploring is huge. We will have to be very careful. The low gravity means that caverns on Mars can be much larger than ones on Earth, but even in low gravity, tunnels can collapse. We will regularly test the strength of the tunnels, and we will not venture into any that the quakes have damaged.”
    The lesson went on, with Rormer explaining in detail how various sciences—engineering, chemistry, physics, areology—would come into play as they explored the ancient lava tubes. He pointed out that the type of lava that had flowed through these tunnels had been liquid and fast moving, but added that the tunnels were lined with hardened rock left over from the lava flows. “Very good stuff, this,” he said. “Impermeable to leakage, if we’re lucky. We could seal up sections and make them airtight. Have shelters if we need them. Expansion sites for the future settlements.”
    Sean studied the sad-faced scientist. Rormer was, in hisown way, a man of principle. The trouble was that Sean thought all his principles were wrong. Rormer never actually said so, but he made it obvious that he did not highly value Asians, Africans, or Americans. Sean supposed that his ideal colony would be a settlement that would allow in only people Rormer himself approved of.
    And that was the whole trouble.
    When Rormer’s presentation was over, the thirty people who were in the exploration group with him asked a few questions, and then they took a break. Sean and Jenny went to an observation room and found a nook with a couple of chairs. All around them colonists were looking out over the landscape of Mars, dim on a cloudy day. No one paid them any attention.
    “Cheerful guy, isn’t he?” Sean asked.
    “I don’t like him,” Jenny said. “He’s supposed to be good at his job, though.” She rested her chin on her hand and stared at the viewscreen. “I’m glad he’s just in charge of the science projects. I’d hate to have Rormer leading us.”
    “I don’t think we’d be on his team in that case. Too American.”
    “I am. You were