Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [28]
“I shouldn’t have yelled at them,” Stiles murmured, scouring the recent past, smelling his mistakes. “They were doing everything I said to do… they were with me. And I gave them hell because I couldn’t take a little fibbing.”
“Hardly matters now. Please put the blanket back on yourself. Your face is going pale-“
“What did you say made this Constrictor thing happen? Did you tell me? If you did, I forgot it all.”
“Graviton waves;’ Zevon patiently explained. Clearing a place for himself, he sat down on something Stiles couldn’t see. “They originate in space and bathe the planet. A recurring disaster for the Pojjana. As unpredictable as lightning-lit wildfires. When the waves strike the planet, everything suddenly gets two, three, or even five hundred percent heavier. What you felt was the pressure of yourself suddenly weighing several hundred pounds. Blood trying to slog through compressed veins, muscles screaming for relief…”
“I remember that part.”
“The Constrictor causes massive shifts in tectonic plates, tidal waves, earthquakes, as you call them. Buildings collapse, air vehicles crash… some people suffocate if it lasts more than a few seconds… elderly people are crushed to death by their own weight….” Waving his hand at their surroundings, Zevon glanced up into the cylindrical pit that trapped them. “Sinkholes and fissures open up under people while they’re pinned helplessly to the ground….”
The rod sagged a little more, finally resting against Stiles’ leg with his limp hand upon the close end. He gazed at Zevon, listening to the ghastly narrative just as he had listened all his life to the stories of trial and triumph with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock at the helm of their legendary starship. This story, though, had a glaze of the horrific. It was real. He’d just been through it.
How many other people out there were suffering? What had happened to those rioters in the courtyard? The people in the other embassies lining that brick area? “How long’s this been going on?”
“Nine years,” Zevon said. “The first Constrictor wiped out a fifth of the planet’s population. Nearly a billion people died.”
“A billion ?” The word pulsed in Stiles’ head, cooling down the throbbing of his arm and back. How many million was a billion? Why couldn’t he do the mathematics? He was a pilot… he could multiply figures… do the trigonometry for atmospheric … for… landing ….
A billion. The number grew and grew, pressing him down beneath the utter oppression of its swelling. If so many could die, he could endure some discomfort. A broken arm abruptly seemed surmountable, his moans and winces petty.
“Yes,” Zevon said. “At first I could scarcely absorb such a number. Now I can put a face to each one.”
“Why would you care so much about this Constrictor thing?” Stiles asked.
But Zevon did not answer that. “Half the buildings were destroyed,” he continued instead. “Countless trillions of tons of planetary material suddenly heavier for a few critical, deadly moments… even the most stoic among us was disturbed to his core. The people of the planet worked valiantly to rebuild. Then it came again, and we knew it was a recurring phenomenon. After the second time, they gave up rebuilding and concentrated on structural shoring of the buildings and bridges which had been strong enough to survive the first two. They’ve constructed pressure-tolerant housing and connected buildings so the structures could hold each other up… I could liken this to a meltdown in a nuclear plant. Now the Po’jjana hate all aliens, who brought this thing upon them. If they could put the aliens off the planet, perhaps the Constrictor would go with them. They’ve scrubbed their planet clean of all who were not native, and still the blight from space has struck on. It will continue to strike, and they will continue to hate you and me and all aliens for what we have done to them. Periodically the Constrictor