Peace Company: The Mountain Walks - Book 3 by Roland J. Green

Author:Roland J. Green [Green, Roland J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Caliber Books
Published: 2024-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Cardinal Parona laid the sets of graphs and charts side by side, with the summary sheets on top.

“I’m glad you provided the summaries,” he said. “They’re almost in layman’s language. The rest—” He shrugged.

“Actually the summary was my brother’s work,” Chancellor Biancheri said. Professor Bahr glared, and Professor Biancheri hastily added:

“We were short of time, with all the departmental business and not knowing how long you’d be visiting.”

“Thank you,” Parona said, impartially to all three. He suspected that without the senior professor’s intervention he’d have been asked to draw conclusions from a mass of vulcanological data somewhat less intelligible than Ancient Aramaic.

“From the summary, I should say that the Teuffelberg is preparing to erupt. Comparing the data from its last eruption with what you’ve gathered lately, it looks like a violent eruption.”

“There can hardly be a one-to-one correlation between pre-eruption indications and the actual—” Bahr began.

“I didn’t say there was,” the cardinal put in. “I would ask you, though—if you were wagering on the violence of this coming eruption, where would you put your money?”

Bahr nibbled on his lip and looked everywhere but at his companions. “Several times the violence of the last eruption, at least. There are also indications of an eruption that won’t follow the usual pattern. Not that we really have enough data for the Teuffelberg that we can speak of a ‘usual pattern,’ of course.”

He sighed. “I have said since I was a student that building Nordshaven here went against three centuries of environmental wisdom. I’m not the only one to say it, either.”

“It would have gone against even older wisdom not to build a city on the best harbor on the north shore,” Professor Biancheri said. “If our economy had been completely independent of water transportation, it would have been another matter.”

“Let us also remember that no one anticipated that the city could be cut off from easy evacuation, both by land and by sea,” the chancellor added. “An evacuation in the depths of winter would have been slowed by the limited number of privately owned vehicles in the city. It might have been dangerous to the very young, the very old, and the sick. It would not have faced a hostile army.”

“This one may not, either,” Parona said. “The Brotherhood’s offensive seems to have been slowed, if not stopped.”

“If you were placing bets, Your Eminence, would you put your money on the north shore being clear before the Teuffelberg erupts?” Bahr grinned.

Parona shrugged. “I have to concede your point. So what do you want me to do? If it is something that you could and should have already done yourself—”

“Read this, Your Eminence. It’s what I asked from those fascist clowns on the General Staff. With this, we’ll have plenty of warning of the eruption. With the evidence in hand, we can lay it before the Protectorate’s War Council. Even the Proctors won’t argue against a truce to let us evacuate Nordshaven.”

The memorandum called for continuous air and orbital surveillance of the Teuffelberg. As soon as security permitted, manned monitoring stations should be set up at six to nine places.

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