The Martians(102)

For some time after we closed the glory hole we were at a loss concerning what next to do. Mary of course called emergency services in Cairo, and told them to warn the people down in Oudemans and in Ius Chasma to get out of the crater and canyon, or at least as high on their walls as they could, as there was no quick way for great numbers of people to get out of that deep crater and gorge. But beyond that it was not clear what we could do. We hastened back and forth between the command center and the dam, looking at the water rising, then walking back up to the command center to check the weather reports, all the while in a terrific downpour. The reports gave us reason to hope that the rain might soon stop—it already had upstream in the watershed, and farther west. And the last squall had consisted mostly of hail—hail the size of oranges, which drove us to the shelter of the center, but had the advantage of staying where it was on the ground upstream, at least until it melted. So that too gave us some hope.

Nevertheless, the upstream flow readings coming in to the center made it clear that the lake was going to rise higher than the dam, by what the AI said would be two or three meters. Some rough calculations led me to the conclusion that the overflow would probably be more than the lip of the dam could tolerate. I informed the others of this unhappy conclusion.

“Three meters!” Mary said at last, and expressed the wish that the dam were just four meters higher. Certainly that would have helped.

Without really considering it, I said, “Perhaps we can make it four meters higher.”

They said, “How is that?”

“Well,” I said, “the pressure up top will not be that bad. Even just a plywood barrier might do the trick.”

This they found amusing, nevertheless we got in the truck and drove wildly to Cairo Lumber over a road sheeted with big hail balls, and we bought their entire stock of plywood sheets. We were too nervous to tell them what we wanted it for.

Back at the dam we set up the plywood sheets against the railing, nail-gunning them to the plastic footing of the rail just to keep the wind from blowing them away before the water trapped them against the railing. It started to rain again while we did this. We worked at the highest speed we could manage, I assure you—never have I worked with such a sense of haste. Even so, by the time we finished our work, the water had lipped over the concrete, and we had to run back along the road on the top of the dam splashing ankle deep through the water—an awful experience.

Once off the dam and up the road toward the command center, we stopped to look back. If the plywood did not hold and the dam gave way, the rim there would very likely go too, and we would all be killed; nevertheless, we stopped to look back. We could not help it.

The last squall had passed while we labored, and the sky had gone wild over our heads: dark orange to the east, then both to north and south an intense turquoise, like no sky color we had ever seen. It was still black to the west, but the sun was peeping under a distant cloud, illuminating the scene in brassy horizontal light. Below us we saw that the lake was continuing to rise, up the sides of the plywood. Finally, as dusk fell, it was quite a bit more than halfway up the plywood sheets. When we couldn't see it very well anymore—and I didn't want to see it either, I confess, it looked so flimsy—we walked back to the command center.

Up there we waited. Very possibly the whole structure would go very quickly; we would see this on the instrumentation, then perhaps be taken along with it, swept down with the rim walls. So all night we watched the readouts on the computers. Meanwhile we told people over the phone what we had done. My throat stayed dry no matter how hard I swallowed. We occupied ourselves telling jokes—a specialty of mine, but never had people laughed so hard at my jokes before. After one Mary hugged me, and I felt she was shaking; and I saw my hands too were shaking.

In the morning the water was still flush against the plywood, but it did not seem so high. It seemed it was going to hold. It remained a frightening sight, however; the lake surface was simply too high, as in some optical illusion; yet undeniably there below us, spread vast and colorful in the morning light.

So the dam held. But our celebration, after pumps arrived and we slowly lowered the water level back below the top of the dam, was muted, almost stunned. We too were drained, so to speak. Looking at the wet curve of plywood sheets topping the dam, Mary said, “By God, Stephan, we did a Nadia on that dam!”

Later of course they took it out. I cannot say I regret it.





Big Man in Love

When Big Man fell in love with a human woman, it was big trouble.

Her name was Zoya. Yes, she had the same first name as Zo Boone—she was a clone of Zo's, in fact, cloned by Zo's friends after Zo's fatal accident. So genetically Zoya was another daughter of Jackie's, therefore granddaughter of Kasei, and great-granddaughter of John Boone himself. That wasn't all; because Zo's body had floated for a while in the north sea, she had been slightly salted, and thereby became inadvertently related to the resurgent archaea. And in that salty fizzing primeval soup of a sea it seems she also picked up traits of kelp and limpet, dolphin and sea otter, and who knows what else. So she was a lot of things—big like Paul Bunyan, wild like Zo, rebellious like the archaea, happy like John, and as stormy and tempestuous as the northern sea. That was Zoya; Zoya was everything. She swam through icebergs, and flew in the jet stream, and ran the round-the-worlder for an afternoon jog. She drank and she smoked and she took strange drugs, she had casual sex with strangers and even with friends, and she skipped work anytime the waves were big. In short, she was a thrill seeker; she was a disgrace to propriety and morality; she mocked all principles of human progress. She could kill with a glance or a palm punch to the nose. Her motto was “Fun at all costs.”