Canticle Blue

39. Red Sky

Music - San Jacinto by Peter Gabriel

The following day on Per'sa island began with a red sky and ended with no sky at all. The previous evening, while the Terreska community was celebrating sunset, Os Andis and Tor Stym had left Per'sa Island in a cargo module attached to the Castel. Inside was the airship Blue Light and the last movable items remaining on the island. After several attempts, they had managed to start the End-Stone. Its spin had seemed much slower and more erratic than they expected; but, never having seen a spin-stone in operation, they had to assume that its function was normal. Once it began to make visible drilling progress, conditions simply became too dangerous for them to stay. So, after making sure that its water supply would not be interrupted, they quickly made their way up through the city to the central crater and departed. As they began the long return trip to the Terreska, they maintained communications with the Silver Run which was hovering at the edge of space over the island in stealth mode to observe.

At the same time, a military cargo ship was stalled twenty miles south of the island, waiting out a storm and high winds. The intent of its crew was to put a team of engineers ashore on the northwest beach near the sea tunnel.

Early the next morning, Estmere called the Castel from the Silver Run to say that she and Corei had seen no activity on the island and wanted to re-check the progress of the End-Stone. After receiving permission, she threaded the small ship through the sea tunnel and landed in near darkness at the base of the waterfall. Corei then flew to the waterwheel cavern.

As soon as he entered the room, he could see that the End-Stone was not moving. It had made considerable headway before stopping, but was now out of reach. There was only one way for him to proceed if he was going to re-start it. He positioned himself in the air above the hole and slowly began to descend. Then, just as he reached out to touch its control pendant, the End-Stone suddenly shifted to an upright position and began to spin so furiously that the churning water threw him upward. As he tried to regain his bearings near the ceiling of the cavern, he could already detect a very low frequency vibration, not only locally but seemingly throughout the entire caldera. And he could feel the chamber shrinking.

At that moment, Estmere radioed the Castel with a strange and urgent message, "The island is speaking to us and ordering us to leave. It is using C-waves. I have no time to explain—"

Corei quickly called Estmere, "I heard it too. I am coming; but leave now. Do not delay. There will not be time for me to enter the ship."

Estmere responded, "I will use the ship's arms. Are you still hearing me?"

But Corei had already reached the Silver Run and passed it. As he tried to escape,
the rumbling became audible and resonated through the city. Estmere, expecting an eruption at any second, quickly snatched Corei in all four of the the ship's arms and flew back through the sea tunnel at the best speed she could manage. Just as the Silver Run reached the end of the tunnel, it was suddenly enveloped in a sheet of brilliant blue light, and an extremely violent explosion struck it from behind. As the sheet careened wildly away, the ship was catapulted into the sea.

When the blast wave struck the city, it lifted the entire roof of the cavern, fracturing every part of it. The mountain above the cavern then collapsed into the city, and a torrent of volcanic debris exploded through all three craters at once.

The caldera island was gone in an instant, sent miles skyward in enormous clouds of ash and steam. The caldera lake vanished into churning lava. Per'sa Island, as it had been known for centuries, was no more.

Far out at sea, a tsunami from the eruption struck the approaching cargo ship with such fury that it ripped all four sea-anchor chains from its deck, sending first the bow and then the stern underwater. As the ship regained the surface and righted itself, it slowly turned and set out for the nearest port with only one usable engine and all of its ballast pumps running.

Beneath the ocean, Estmere resumed C-wave communications. "Are you damaged, Corei?"

"Unknown, but I am wet. And there is still debris falling from the surface."

She told him, "Yes, I am moving out to sea. The ship made just enough 'silver' for us to escape. But I think the Blue Ghost was there."

As soon as she was able to bring the ship to the surface, she landed on the nearest iceberg and took Corei aboard. Then, after flying over the island in the upper atmosphere, she used the ship's radio. "Silver Run to Castel: We are high above the position of the island, and there is nothing left. We will be returning to the Terreska now. Along the way, we will stop for ice."