World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) (20 page)

“To here.”

Trundell spun the Alighieri schematic through a half turn. Another spherical dot popped up, which he labelled Lidenbrock City.

“Lidenbrock. That was where Banerjee travelled next. He spent a year and a half among the Lidenbrockers, cataloguing moleworm movements, mating rituals and suchlike.”

“I don’t envy him that,” said Kahlo.

“Watching moleworms fuck?” said Dev.

“Rubbing shoulders with Lidenbrockers.”

“Ah, yes,” said Trundell. “He does mention from time to time how primitive the living conditions were and how challenging he found it associating with the locals. ‘Colourful’ is, I think, the kindest description he had for them. His rented accommodation was burgled five times during his stay.”

“Only five?” said Kahlo. “He got off lightly.”

“Nonetheless he managed to produce a scholarly text on moleworms, a classic of its kind. Of particular note is the fact that there are two very slightly divergent subspecies. Banerjee dubbed them the western and eastern moleworm. Not terribly imaginative taxonomy, but it’ll serve. The western moleworm is the type that was once found in abundance around Calder’s and Xanadu.”

“And the eastern is the Lidenbrock strain.”

“Quite so, chief.”

“No one calls the chief of police ‘chief,’ Trundell. ‘Captain’ is the accepted form of address.”

“I beg your pardon, captain. Anyway, as I was saying, the two types of moleworm aren’t easy to tell apart. The eastern’s nasotentacles – its snout feelers – are a little bit longer, and its skin colour tends towards a richer pink than the western’s. Banerjee observed some cross-breeding between the subspecies, but also intense, almost tribal rivalries.”

“They hated one another, except for the occasional love story,” said Dev. “Even moleworms have their Romeo-and-Juliet moments.”

Trundell threw a glance at Kahlo as if to say,
Does he ever stop clowning around?
She, in return, offered him a despairing grimace.

“Here are shots of both kinds,” Trundell said, “so you can see for yourselves.”

Two pictures of moleworms appeared side by side on the floatscreen.

“Yeah,” said Dev, “that’s not horrendous in any way.”

“On the left, the western. On the right, the eastern. Spot the differences?”

“That one’s ugly,” said Dev, pointing to the western moleworm. Then he pointed to the eastern. “And that one’s
butt-
ugly.”

“The pinker hue? The slightly longer nasotentacles?”

“Okay,” said Kahlo. “So, all very fascinating. But...”

“But where am I going with this?” said Trundell. “Very well. Mr Harmer, which subspecies of moleworm did we run into yesterday?”

“The subspecies that likes to eat people? How should I know? I was busy trying to keep us from ending up as moleworm scat. I didn’t have time to stop and take a long, hard, scientific look.”

“Myself, I’m pretty sure it was an eastern.”

“Really?”

“Ninety per cent sure. Perhaps even ninety-five. Its feelers were more like those” – Trundell enlarged the right-hand picture – “than those” – he enlarged the left – “and its skin was definitely on the darker side, at least as far as one could tell in the negligible light.”

“The eastern moleworms have come halfway round the world to visit us,” said Kahlo. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not with any degree of certainty,” Trundell replied. “A single sighting of an eastern moleworm does not constitute proof of anything other than that we’ve seen one of them. However, it is intriguing. Banerjee commented that the eastern subspecies was not apt to stray from its ranges. It was fiercely territorial and treated the western as an interloper.”

“Maybe the one you met was a rogue.”

“Could be. But I was prompted, out of curiosity, to examine footage taken in Xanadu of a moleworm that ventured onto public property just last month. Here it is.”

It was a shaky, first-person clip lasting half a minute. A moleworm was crawling across a shopping mall plaza, looking bewildered and bedazzled. People were shouting and screaming, dropping their bags and running away from the creature in terror.

“The Xanaduan who took this used the iWitness feature in their commplant,” Trundell said, “then sold it to a news feed.”

“I’m waiting for a kitten to turn up and do something cute,” said Dev.

The moleworm blundered nose first into a shopfront. Shaking its head in distress and pain, it began spading up the plaza’s tiled floor, scrabbling to make its escape.

The clip ended.

“I heard about that incident,” said Kahlo. “It happens now and then. In Calder’s, too. Moleworms are digging along, and break through into some part of the city by accident. They don’t hang around for long, if they can help it. The noise freaks them out.”

“Yes, but...” Trundell rewound to the clearest shot of the creature. He blew up and enhanced the image. “Look. It’s an eastern.”

The moleworm’s skin was distinctly a shade of rose.

“Could it be the same one you two came across?”

“No, that was a female. This is a male.”

He zoomed in on the creature’s underside, between its back legs.

“Moleworms exhibit sexual mimicry,” he said. “The external genitalia of both genders look alike, at a cursory glance. However, see that fleshy projection there? You’ll note that there is no aperture at the base of it, which tells us it’s a phallus rather than a peniform clitoris extruding from a vagina.”

“I am so regretting I ever looked at that,” groaned Dev. “My eyes.”

“Again, Professor Trundell,” said Kahlo, “this is all very fascinating, but if you can cut to the chase...”

“All right, all right. I believe it’s possible that eastern moleworms have made their way to Calder’s and Xanadu, perhaps in large numbers. Why? It could be that their feeding grounds around Lidenbrock City have become compromised somehow. Or it could be that there’s been an population explosion and some of them have had to travel in search of pastures new.”

“And...?”

“And that’s all I have.” Trundell spread out his hands. “Mr Harmer wanted me to report back. These are my preliminary findings.”

Kahlo leaned back. “Well, that was a big fat waste of time. So we have moleworms on the move. So what?”

Dev raised an index finger. “I beg to differ. It may actually have some bearing on the general situation.”

“In what way?”

“Prof, moleworms burrow, right?”

“Absolutely. With great speed and efficiency. You’ve seen it first-hand.”

“I’m remembering, when that one was chasing us, its burrowing made quite a tremor.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Harmer?” said Kahlo.

“I’m just airing an idea. It may be ridiculous. You can call me an idiot if you like. But could the moleworms be causing the earthquakes?”

22

“A
N EARTHQUAKE IS
a sudden release of energy within the planetary crust,” said Kahlo. “It occurs along a fault plane on the boundary between tectonic plates, where they interact. It’s a spontaneous, natural geological phenomenon. A moleworm can’t make one happen by burrowing. That’s absurd.”

“But Calder’s Edge isn’t near a plate boundary,” said Dev.

“You can still get quakes some distance from a plate boundary. A fault hundreds of kilometres away can be responsible for disturbances deeper into the plate where there are irregularities in the geological makeup. The strain can spread far, affecting areas outside the immediate zone of deformation.”

“You know your stuff.”

“Too right I do. I’ve researched the shit out of earthquakes since we started having them. But like I told you yesterday, Calder’s Edge is where it is because there’s supposed to be no chance of even the smallest tremor here. The colonisation precursor survey was thorough and detailed.”

“And the mines themselves aren’t somehow to blame? That’s beyond question?”

“I’ve spoken to geological engineers. They’ve assured me it can’t be mining that’s triggering the quakes. Induced seismicity events – that’s human-caused tremors – produce only low-level seismic yields. Mining can unsettle the integrity of the rock bed, no doubt about it. In the past there’s been the occasional rock burst, where the wall of a shaft fractures because the drilling has resulted in a pressure imbalance. There’ve been sinkholes too, from cavern collapse. But that’s as far as it goes. Nothing severe enough to match earthquakes of the magnitude we’ve been experiencing.”

“Might the effect of the mining be cumulative?” said Trundell. “What if, after a while, an area becomes so riddled with workings that a kind of chain reaction of instability builds?”

“I asked the engineers that myself. They said no. They site new tunnels precisely so as to avoid the likelihood arising and shore up old ones by backfilling them with waste material if the new ones look like they might have to be bored too close for comfort. There is no direct correlation between drilling for helium-three and the quakes.”

“This is my point exactly,” said Dev. “If it’s not a natural occurrence and it’s not inadvertently manmade – if we eliminate those two possibilities – then we have to look somewhere else. So how about moleworms? Why not them?”

“I thought you were working on the theory that Polis Plus were behind this.”

“Bear with me. I might still be. The moleworms might not have moved to this area of their own accord.”

“As in they were guided? Herded?”

“Conceivably.”

Kahlo gave a sceptical grunt. “Trouble with you, Harmer, is you spout such nonsense most of the time, I can’t tell if you’re in earnest now or just bullshitting.”

“You too?” said Trundell, pleased. “I thought it was just me. I never know whether I should believe him or ignore him.”

“The latter’s usually the safest,” said Kahlo. “His mouth’s moving but nothing worthwhile is coming out.”

“All I hear are phrases he doesn’t mean. It’s really confusing.”

“He amuses himself. I suppose that’s something.”

“I am actually sitting right between you two,” said Dev. “It’s rude to talk about me over my head.”

“We know,” said Kahlo. “But it was nice, just for a moment, to act as if you weren’t here.”

Trundell smirked. “I think I like you, Captain Kahlo. You know, everyone says you’re blunt and emotionless and a real stickler for the rules. But you speak your mind, and that really works for me.”

“And the prize for backhanded compliment of the year goes to...” said Dev.

“Blunt is good,” said Kahlo. “Blunt gets things done. And in that spirit, Harmer, let me tell you – bluntly – that this moleworm idea of yours is as harebrained as they come.”

“And I disagree,” said Dev. “Look, you can’t deny that there at least
could
be a causal connection. Answer me this. When did the earthquakes start?”

“A month or so ago.”

“What was the date stamp on the Xanadu moleworm footage?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Ten days ago. You mentioned that that sort of thing happens now and then. How many incidents like it have there been recently?”

“I can’t say I’ve been keeping track.”

“Give me a moment. I’ll look it up.”

Dev ran a general search for moleworm sightings, then narrowed the parameters by date and location.

“Seventeen in the past four weeks. What’s the normal average?”

“About once a month, if that.”

“So we have a clear statistical anomaly: an abrupt and marked uptick in the number of times moleworms have strayed onto human-developed areas. The professor here told me yesterday that they prefer, as a rule, to stay down in the lower lithosphere. Patently they’re not doing that now.”

Kahlo gnawed her lip. “A fair point. But can we assume from that that they’re behind the quakes somehow? Mightn’t you be looking at it the wrong way round? Mightn’t the quakes be what’s making the moleworms behave unusually?”

“I’m not discounting it,” said Dev. “Either way, the influx of eastern moleworms onto this side of the planet, a long, long way away from their natural habitat, has to have some bearing on the earthquake situation. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise. Two simultaneous, out-of-the-ordinary events can’t exist in isolation from each other. It defies logic.”