Convergent Series by Charles Sheffield Page A

and Perry had for some reason lost his nervousness. "First of all, they avoid the surface of Quake during Summertide. Each one of the animals that you'll find on Quake either dies before Summertide, and its eggs hatch after summer is all over, or else it estivates—hides away for the summer. Those herbivores are all amphibians. In a few more days they'll go down into the lakes, dig deep into the mud at the bottom, and sleep until it's safe to come out again. We can't do that. At least, you and I can't. Maybe the Cecropians can."
    "We could do something like that. We could make habitats, domes under the lakes."
    "All right. We could, but I doubt if Darya Lang and the others would agree to it. Anyway, that's only half the story. I said they do two things. The other thing they do is, they breed fast. A big new litter every season. We can mate all we want to, every day, but we won't match that." Perry's grin had no humor in it. "They have to do it here. The death rate for animals and plants on Quake is over ninety percent per year. Evolution really pushes, so they've adapted as far as they can adapt. Even so, nine out of every ten will die at Summertide. Are you willing to try odds like that? Would you let Darya Lang and Julius Graves risk them?"
    It was a powerful argument— if Rebka were willing to acceptPerry's claim of Summertide violence. And so far he was not.A closeapproach to Mandel, consistent with Perry's claim about the violence of Summertide, would exert great tidal forces on Quake. No one could doubt that. But it was not clear how much those land tides would damage the surface. Quake's flora and fauna had survived for over forty million years. And that included dozens of Grand Conjunctions, even if there had been no humans to observe them. Why would it not easily survive another?
    "Let's go." Hans Rebka had made up his mind. Mandel was close to setting, and he wanted to be off the planet before theywere reduced to depending on Amaranth's dimmer glow. He was convinced that Perry was not telling him everything; that the man had his own reasons for trying to keep people away from Quake. But even if Max Perry were right, Rebka could not justify closing Quake. The evidence that the world was dangerous was just not there to send back to the government of the Phemus Circle.
    The arguments all seemed to be the other way round. The native animals might have trouble making it through Summertide, but they did not have human knowledge and resources. Based on what Rebka could see, he would be quite willing to spend Summertide here himself.
    "We have a duty to tell people the odds," he went on. "But we are not their guardians. If they choose to come here, knowing the dangers, we shouldn't stop them."
    Perry hardly seemed to be listening. He was staring all around, frowning up at the sky and down at the ground and over to the distant line of hills.
    "There's no way this can happen, you know," he said. His voice was perplexed. "Where's it all going?"
    "Where's what all going?" Rebka was ready to leave.
    "The energy . The tidal forces are pumping energy in—from Mandel and Amaranth and Gargantua. And none of it is coming out. That means there has to be some monstrous internal storage—"
    He was interrupted by a flash of ruddy light from the west. Both men looked that way and saw that between them and the setting sphere of Mandel a line of dark, spreading fountains had appeared, shot with fire and rising from the distant mountains.
    Seconds later the sound wave arrived; the ground shock came later yet, but the animals did not wait. At the first bright flash they were heading for the water, moving much faster than Rebka had realized they could ever manage.
    "Blow out! We'll get flying rocks!" Perry was shouting, through a rumble like thunder. He pointed to the multiple plumes. "Molten, some of 'em, and we're within easy range. Come on."
    He started running back toward the Umbilical, while Rebka hesitated. The line of eruptions was