Undersea City by Frederik & Williamson Pohl Read Free Book Online Page A

“I do not follow your computations. You have predicted a Force Two quake at twenty-one hundred hours today. Is that correct?”
    “Yes, sir,” said Bob stonily.
    “I see. There is no such prediction in the station’s official forecast, Eskow. Neither is there one in Danthorpe’s or in Eden’s. How do you account for that.”
    Bob said, without expression: “That’s how I read it, sir. Focus twenty miles north-northwest of Krakatoa Dome. The thermal flow—”
    “I see,” rapped Lieutenant Tsuya. “Your value for the thermal flow is taken nearly fifty per cent lower than any of the others. So that the strains will not be relieved, is that it?”
    “Yes, sir!”
    “But I cannot agree with your reading,” the lieutenant went on thoughtfully. “Therefore, I’m afraid I cannot give you a passing grade on this forecast. Sorry, Eskow. Til have to cancel your pass.”
    “But, sir!” Bob looked stunned. “I mean—sir, Fve been counting on a pass!”
    “Disapproved, Eskow,” said the lieutenant coldly. “Passes are your reward for satisfactory performance of duty. This forecast is not satisfactory.” He nodded coldly. “Dismissed!”
    Back at our quarters, Danthorpe and I showered and changed quickly into our sea-scarlet dress uniform, and headed for Yeoman Harris’s desk to pick up our passes.
    Bob had disappeared while we were in the shower. I was as well pleased; I didn’t like to walk out on him. And Danthorpe—why, nothing was troubling Harley Danthorpe. He was bubbling with plans and hopes. “Come on, Eden,” he coaxed. “Come with me. Have dinner with my father. He’ll show you what sub-sea cooking can be like! He’s got a chef that—Come on, Eden!”
    Yeoman Harris looked up at him sourly. But the phone rang before he could speak.
    “Yes, sir!” he wheezed, and then waited. “Right, sir!” He hung up.
    “You two,” he said, clearing his throat asthmatically. “Do you know where Cadet Eskow is?”
    “In the barracks, I guess,” said Harley Danthorpe, “Come on, Harris. Let’s have our passes.”
    “Wait a minute,” the yeoman grumbled. “That was Lieutenant Tsuya. He wants Eskow to report to Station K at twenty hundred hours for special duty. And he isn’t in the barracks.”
    Harley and I looked at each other. Not in the barracks? But he had to be in the barracks. .
    Harley said, “I wonder what the special duty is.”
    I nodded. We both knew what the special duty was—it wasn’t hard to figure out. Twenty hundred hours. An hour before the little quake that Bob had forecast. Obviously, the lieutenant was planning to have Bob on duty at the time the quake was supposed to occur—to show him that the forecast was wrong, in a way that Bob couldn’t question.
    But Bob wasn’t around.
    Yeoman Harris wheezed softly, “His pass is missing.” He opened the drawer and showed us. “It was there. Then Lieutenant Tsuya canceled it, and I went to destroy it. But it was gone.”
    I stared at the open drawer unbelievingly. Bob was behaving oddly—I remembered his behavior with the shriveled Chinese janitor, coming so close to the disappearance of the microseismometer. But he was my friend,
    I couldn’t imagine anything in Krakatoa Dome that would make him go AWOL to get there.
    “Better see if you can find him,” wheezed Yeoman Harris. “Lieutenant Tsuya’s a good officer, so long as you trim ship with him. But he won’t stand for lubberly lack of discipline!”
    We took our passes and, without a word, hurried back to the barracks.
    Bob wasn’t there.
    And his dress uniform was gone.
    “He’s gone AWOL!” cried Harley Danthorpe. “Well, what do you know about that!”
    “Blow your tanks,” I said sharply. “He’s a good cadet. He wouldn’t do anything like that.”
    “Then where is he?” Harley demanded.
    That stopped me.
    There wasn’t any answer to that.

7
Life on the Lid
    Harley said knowingly: “You haven’t got the inside drift. Take my word for it, Bob’s