Free Misfits by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Scout pointed out that he might do the
same from the comfort of his own ship, if the station preferred not
to.
    As to specific warnings, that was barely
possible. A tsunami travels transparently in open ocean, its wave a
rapid but nearly invisible swell in an already tumultuous world.
They had no resources to determine speed, nor even to insure that
the first burst of monster wave against nearby shores had continued
beyond the initial coastline.
    Eventually Jack was pressed into service
with the satellite, sampling coasts and islands visually, with his
observations of specific sites added to the warning the scout gave.
What lives were affected by this they could not tell: the surface
spoke not at all to them, along any of the regular bands.
Periodically he returned to view the isthmus area where a few sandy
shoals amidst the deep gash of a river of darker water triumphantly
flowing from the west were all that was left of the former
barrier.
    "An army of liberation?" Jack asked heavily
of the room. "Is that what was here?"
    "Does it matter?" Boylan answered
impatiently. "They are beyond concern at this point, are they
not?"
    Brunner held to his tasks and said nothing,
working as if he could prevent further disaster by the strength and
purity of his research.
    Eventually, the Scout returned, bearing with
him a station-issue portable.
    Bowing a bow of respectful request to
equals, he waved the portable as if it were a child's rattle or
toy.
    "The main computer was able to share with me
demographic information reported by planetary authorities, and
later by those splinter groups claiming authority. Some of it
conflicts, some of it is probably purposefully wrong. I would like
to use overlays of the various records you have of the last
Standard, with particular emphasis on the past three days."
    This was said to the room at large.
    Jack looked at Boylan, who was tending her
screens, working as if the words had not been said.
    Brunner sighed and bowed, finding it within
himself to add the flourish which brought his acceptance close to
that of accepting a comrade's necessity.
    "Yes," agreed the Scout, "there is some of
that, isn't there?"
    "Some of what?" asked Boylan, raising her
face from her work.
    "Must be a Liaden thing," Jack said, rolling
his eyes, and nodded at the Scout. "How can I help?"
    * * *
    Liz was talking to the Scout via the Stubbs,
and Liz was not happy. Redhead hovered nearby, one eye on the
machine and the other on the horizon. The air was bad, pollution
and radiation levels high--she saw it all on the screen as the
Stubbs did its upload.
    "The shuttles that brought us down might
still exist," Liz was saying, sounding like she'd be mad if she
wasn't so damn tired. "So what? They're hellengone back down where
the city used to--"
    "In that case," the Scout interrupted. "They
do not exist, my friend. Nothing exists there anymore."
    Liz rubbed her face.
    "I've broadcast a plea for assistance," the
Scout continued, "but Klamath has not been a good neighbor these
last dozen years and it is painfully clear there is no immediate
commercial advantage to be had."
    Liz shook her head. "Merc unit here. I don't
have much in the way of bargaining chips, but I do have some
off-planet resources. Beam Merc Headquarters, tell 'em Lizardi's
good for the fare--…"
    Redhead saw it first, the tell-tale wobble
in the land.
    "Quake, clear and down!" She was parched,
and her voice didn't travel; Skel bellowed a repeat before going
down flat.
    Exhausted Lunatics ran from under tree and
makeshift shelters. You didn't want to be under anything when the
wave came through and you didn't want to be standing, either--in
fact, you couldn't; it was like trying to stand on a tarp stretched
out over the sea with the tide coming in.
    Whomp!
    Redhead was flat when the roll hit, and Liz,
already sitting cross-legged, bobbed around as the dirt groaned and
a few more trees fell, and that part was over.
    Now came the hard part for her: the ground
felt