Undersea City by Frederik & Williamson Pohl Page B

the buildings, the people.
    Something very great indeed was on his mind.
    I could not imagine what it was—until a terrible moaning sound seemed to fill the dome. It came from somewhere beneath us, far down—so far that it was a distant cruel howling that made no sense.
    Then the floor moved crazily under my feet, and it began to make a great deal of sense indeed.
    Seaquake!
    Bob’s forecast had been right indeed! I heard screams from the people around us, saw the old Chinese turn and begin to run toward me.
    Then I caught a glimpse of something big and jagged sailing down from the deck-roof toward me; I tried to leap out of its way, but I was too late, too late; it reached me; I was thrown a couple of yards away; and the lights went out for me.

8
Million-Dollar Seaquake
    There was a roaring in my ears, and I tried to sit up.
    Someone was holding my head. I opened my eyes groggily; it was the ancient Chinese; his eyes were neither haunted nor dangerous, only sad. He looked at me; then, gently, put my head down.
    By the time I managed to push myself up again he was out of sight. A medical corpsman rushed toward me. “Here, you!” he cried. “Are you all right?”
    “I—I think so,” I mumbled; but he was already examining me. Overhead a great flat voice was blaring out of the emergency public-address speakers:
    “This is a Quake Alert. Repeat, this is a Quake Alert! Routine precautions are now in effect. The safety walls are being energized. All slidewalks will be stopped. All safety doors will be closed at once. Do not attempt to pass the octant barriers! Repeat, do not attempt to pass the octant barriers!”
    “You’re all right,” said the corpsman, getting up from beside me.
    “That’s what I tried to tell you,” I said, but he didn’t hear me; he was already on his way to look for other casualties. I stood up, a little wobbly, and looked around. The Troyon-tube sign of a little delicatessen had come plunging to the ground and had caught me—fortunately, just by one corner. A few inches farther, and—But it was all right.
    The great flat voice of the speakers was blaring:
    “There is no reason for panic. Only slight damage has been reported. Only minor injuries have been reported. These safety measures are purely precautionary. Please remain indoors until the alert is lifted! Repeat, please remain indoors until the alert is lifted! The public ways must be kept clear for official use.”
    There was no help for it; the octant barriers were down; I was marooned where I was.
    It was nearly two hours before the alert was lifted—too late for me to do very much with what time remained of my pass.
    All around me the people of Krakatoa Dome were responding to the challenge of the quake. It didn’t seem to scare them; it hardly seemed to interrupt their lives. Of course, such minor quakes were common here—since the dome was, after all, located in the great quake belt that runs all the way from Mexico, through the West Indies and Southern Europe, through Asia Minor, to the East Indies. And the engineers who designed Krakatoa had known that better than I; the dome had been designed to stand them.
    But this quake—this one was something special.
    This was the one that none of us had forecast—except Bob Eskow.
    I went back to base with a great many questions on my mind.
    But the station was sealed off.
    It was because of the quake, of course. Lieutenant Tsuya had one of the geosondes out, and it was too dangerous to do so without activating the Edenite shields between the quake station and the rest of the base and the dome itself—especially with a quake so recent and the chance of another. It made sense; but it was no help to me.
    I wanted to see Bob.
    I went to sleep in spite of myself—my aching head made it difficult for me to stay awake, though I wanted to be there when Bob came back from the station.
    But when I woke up, Bob’s bed had been slept in, but he was already up and gone; and Harley