'There's no proof of that yet, Ted,' reproached Phillips.
'In any case, there seems good reason to proceed cautiously at this point.'
'What about a colleague of mine at Princeton ,' suggested Fletcher, 'Clarence Humphreys?'
'Of course,' Runyan enthused, 'Clarence could be very helpful. I don't know about his stand on security matters, but he should be approached.'
'There seems to be a consensus, then,' summarized Phillips, 'that we will proceed on the assumption that Alex has provided the correct explanation of the events reported. We will try to enlist the support of an expert on black holes, particularly the miniature variety — starting with Humphreys. We've already established that Gantt will set up a gravimeter experiment to seek direct evidence for or against the black hole theory. Alex, you mentioned the need for detailed orbit calculations. Can you see to that end of things?'
'The best way to proceed there would be to make use of the computer facilities and programs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,' said Runyan. 'I could move up to Pasadena for the rest of the summer. As for security, we can't simply ask them to calculate a black hole orbit inside the earth. I must have special personal access to the computers, but I'll need to consult with the experts on the relevant codes which require modification. Someone will have to do some arranging for me.'
Phillips looked at Isaacs who nodded in confirmation.
Phillips then addressed the group again. 'Anyone have anything else to add?'
After a moment Zicek spoke up.
'Our course of action is just as you have outlined, Wayne — some straightforward steps to better define the situation. Last night I took a different tack and spent a good deal of time pondering Alex's basic premise. He not only wants a small black hole careening through the earth, but he led us to the brink of concluding that such a dung must have been artificially manufactured. Despite his logic, like many of us here, I found that idea prima facie absurd. And granting that absurdity, I questioned the whole scheme. My apologies, Alex.'
Runyan shrugged and waited for the point to which all this was preamble.
'This morning,' Zicek continued, 'I am not so sure.'
His eyebrows compressed together as he paused to formulate his words.
'I do not see how to create such a little monster, but I am no longer so positive that to speak of such a process is absurd.
'As many of you know, I am actively involved in Project Antares at Los Alamos. Our goal is to create controlled thermonuclear reactions by imploding a pellet of deuterium and tritium. The present scheme has six gas lasers the size of locomotives producing seventy-two laser beams which are brought to focus on the pellet. The pellet is drastically compressed, creating high enough temperatures and densities to trigger the fusing of deuterium into helium.
'This is only one of the projects currently being undertaken by our government and by that of the Soviet Union , which appears to me to bear on this problem. The others, given the current political situation, are related to weaponry. I speak of beam weapons of many kinds which unload their destructive power at the speed of light and will render normal missiles and aircraft obsolete and defenceless.
'I myself have had a role in developing the infrared chemical laser which the Navy is using in their Sea Light lethality verification programme and the related Talon Gold pointing and tracking tests. The Air Force has its own parallel programme with a carbon dioxide gas laser on an NKC-135 at Kirtland Air Force Base.
'While I'm not involved with them, except as a competitor for funding, there are several programmes developing particle beams. The White Horse project at Los Alamos aims for a space-based neutral beam generator using a radio frequency quadrupole accelerator. The Advanced Test Facility at Livermore is producing an electron beam, and the RADALAC at Sandia can fire electrons, protons, or negative hydrogen ions at near the speed of light. Lord only knows what sort of gadgets the Russians have by now. Most of our ideas were stolen from them. We know they have developed techniques to use chemical explosions to drive magnetic flux compression generators. They have used stupendous electric currents generated by these devices to power rail guns — linear induction motors which can be used to hurl payloads into orbit or drive armour piercing bullets at hypersonic velocities.'
Zicek leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and interlocking his fingers. 'Now my point is, any of these devices — lasers, relativistic electron beams, rail guns — can, in principle, be focused inward to achieve implosions. So far the goal of implosion studies has been to achieve high density and temperature and produce nuclear fusion. Such processes cannot achieve extreme densities because the energy expended to raise both the temperature and the density is too high. Alex and Harvey discussed that yesterday.
'But suppose our goal was not high temperature, but just high density — very high density. It is true that I cannot see how to reach densities where self-gravity plays a role and a black hole becomes feasible. I can, however, imagine a few tricks in principle to keep the temperature relatively low even as the density rises.'
He unlaced his fingers and gestured with open palms.
'I'm sorry to be so long-winded. What I am trying to say is that our technology is moving even now in a direction where such a thing becomes imaginable. Technological and scientific advances are growing exponentially. Who knows what comes next?'
Zicek looked around the confines of the small room, eyeing his colleagues.
'Are you inviting us to conclude,' asked Fletcher in a voice of deliberate calm, 'that, while we cannot now do such a thing, perhaps a society only somewhat advanced from ours could?'
'Never mind a very advanced society,' put in Noldt more excitedly.
'Oh, hold on,' said Leems disgustedly. 'Granted, Vlad, we're inventing a cornucopia of implosion machinery. There is still an immense jump to making black holes. Just because we've launched a space probe out of the solar system doesn't mean that intergalactic space travel will be possible for us or for any advanced civilizations which might be out there. Sometimes practical limits can erect just as solid a barrier as physical impossibility. You damn well can't strike a match on a wet cake of soap. I still find the whole black hole business preposterous.'
'Perhaps you're right, Harvey,' admitted Zicek, 'but I feel we should not jump to a conclusion either way. No one has really thought seriously about how hard or how easy making a black hole might be if one really tried. I'm just saying such a dung may be possible. Our knowledge of the behaviour of matter at only slightly greater than nuclear density is very sparse.'
'Well, what we don't know, we can't use to reach any conclusions,' said Leems, still sounding disgusted.
'Of course, of course,' placated Zicek. He addressed himself to Phillips again. 'My thoughts in this direction lead me to one concrete suggestion you may want to consider.'
'Yes, what is that?' inquired Phillips.
'We have discussed bringing in other experts to help us deal with the particulars of this problem, earl suggested Humphreys,' he waved towards Fletcher. 'I think we should consider more carefully this question of how such a flung might be made. One person comes to mind who would be uniquely qualified in terms of both experience and creative insight.'
'I'll bet you're thinking of Paul Krone,' said Runyan.
'Yes, in fact, I was,' replied Zicek.
Isaacs looked up sharply at this reference. He had heard of Paul Krone, and he was not the kind of man Isaacs would be keen to bring into this effort. Not exactly stable. Leems made clear where he stood.
'That horse's ass? Surely you don't want to set that bull loose in this china shop?'
'You're being unfair,' Zicek replied tensely. 'I know there are people jealous of Paul's successes because they don't understand his methods, but he has great insight which could serve us well and he's currently deeply involved in these questions.'
'Jealous?' Leems waved a hand in dismissal. 'He can't even keep a job. Half his ideas are fantasy — sheer gibberish. And who knows what other troubles he would bring.'
Isaacs thought Leems probably was jealous. Krone had worked his way through a couple of universities, private industry and various government labs, a maverick always on the move, but he had a midas touch. A dozen times during his career he had started a little company on the side, working on some development or other. If the idea worked. Krone would keep a controlling interest, but turn the company over to professional managers and never look back. The scientists he worked with were always suspicious because he made so much money. Businessmen couldn't understand how he could throw it all over and go back to tinkering in some laboratory or doodling equations.
Krone was a man of great appetites as well as great talent. There had been some trouble getting him a security clearance for one government consulting job, and the case had come to Isaacs's attention informally through an acquaintance with the FBI. There had been questions of drugs and women, a year or two ago he had taken up with an expatriate Russian of all things, and legal entanglements concerning the proprietary rights to some of his developments. In looking over the file, Isaacs had been amazed to see the number of well-known companies, three of them on the Fortune 500, that Krone controlled, directly or indirectly.
Runyan laughed to take the sting out of Leems's words. 'C'mon, Harvey. It's true Paul can be hard to take when he starts ranting. There's no question he's a raving egomaniac with a penchant for hiding his ideas until he can spring them on the world. And maybe half his ideas are nonsense, but half of them have some real insight, and half of a lot is a lot.'
He addressed himself to Phillips.
'It strikes me someone like Krone who's familiar with both theoretical physics and engineering developments might be useful to us.'
Runyan turned to Zicek.
'What's he doing now? Didn't I hear he was consulting at Los Alamos ?'
'That's right. He started another company and has a consulting contract' with the Lab to explore just these developments I was describing — laser implosion, relativistic beams — both experimentally and theoretically. That's why I thought he would have a general grasp of the situation which would be useful to us.'
Isaacs saw there might be some merit to the arguments Zicek and Runyan made, but his sympathies were more with Leems. He spoke up. 'I wonder whether the questions Dr Zicek raises, and perhaps Dr Krone's involvement, might be of secondary importance just now. It seems that our critical task is to confirm or deny Dr Runyan's suggestion. I would like to ask Dr Gantt whether he has considered the requirements of the proposed experiment. I'm sure your seismology lab at Caltech is well equipped, but I wonder whether you will need any help which my agency or some other government agency can provide?'
'I've not had time to plan any details,' replied Gantt.
'We'll want to go someplace which is seismically inactive — away from the California fault system, perhaps Arizona. I might use some help with transportation and some support equipment. I'd like to use an on-site minicomputer for analysis. I have one, but it's cumbersome to move.' Isaacs nodded. 'We can help with that.'
Gantt continued, 'We must, of course, know where to look. From Dr Danielson's present data it appears that the activity comes near the surface at about twelve-hundred— mile intervals. The trick is to be in the right place at the right time. You've said you can predict the surface location at any particular instant to within a kilometre or so.' He looked towards Danielson for confirmation, and the young woman nodded.
'With updated sonar data, we should be able to do better than that,' she said.
Gantt turned to Runyan. 'What gravitational perturbation did you estimate for a distance of a kilometre, Alex?'
'That should give you a fluctuation of a part in a million,' replied Runyan.
'We can do that,' asserted Gantt.
'I'm going to be busy with things in Washington ,' Isaacs said, 'but I'd like to have someone on the site with you. Would you mind if Dr Danielson joined you?'
'Not at all,' Gantt replied. 'I think her knowledge of the background to this situation could prove most useful.' He smiled at the young woman and got a brief appreciative one in return.
'You wouldn't mind joining Professor Gantt, would you, Pat?' Isaacs asked.
She thought of her urge to go to Dallas to be where the action was. Nothing would keep her from being on top of it the next time.
'I would like to very much.'
Oho, Runyan thought to himself, now there's a trip I'd like to make, too. He looked at Isaacs's stern visage and decided now was not the ideal time to press his petition.
'Excellent,' said Phillips, with an air of summary. 'Perhaps we should leave it at that, then. I know Mr Isaacs has a plane to catch, and I don't believe further discussion would enhance the situation at this point. I suggest we adjourn.'
He rose to emphasize his decision and watched as the others stood and filed out. He joined Isaacs in the hall and they waited a moment for Danielson and Runyan, who were the last ones out.
Isaacs and Danielson gathered their things from their rooms while Phillips called for a car. They caught a noon flight back to Washington.
They spoke little until the plane was in the air. When the no smoking sign was turned off and the attendants began to move around the cabin, they turned as if at a signal, and looked at one another. Each read in the other's eyes the special camaraderie of a shared, shocking experience. Impulsively, Danielson leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. Surprised and pleased, he patted her hand on the armrest, in what he hoped was a fatherly manner. Danielson leaned back in her seat.
'Wow!' she exclaimed quietly. 'I feel like I'm trying to work an idea into my head that's a hundred sizes too big to fit.' She turned to him. 'Thanks for the opportunity to go with Gantt. I really want to do that.'
'You've done an excellent job all along,' Isaacs told her.
'We need you to follow up.'
'Thank you,' she replied, 'but you're the one who deserves congratulations. I know what you risked to bring us this far.'
The rolling chaos of the serving cart appeared in the aisle next to them, and they each ordered a bloody mary.
Danielson took a sip of her drink, then stared into it, probing on the lime slice with the swizzle stick. 'Who would have thought that that faint signal would lead to this!" she asked herself as much as Isaacs.
She turned to him. 'You certainly were right about the effectiveness of Jason. What did you think of Alex Runyan?
Wasn't that amazing the way he so quickly drew everything together?'
'That was quite a show he put on,' Isaacs replied neutrally. 'We do have to remember that for all his arguments we have no direct proof. Perhaps we should reserve judgement until Gantt performs this experiment.'
Danielson was surprised at his coolness. She shot a sideways glance at him, with a sudden flash of intuition. Was it possible, just possible, that Bob Isaacs was the tiniest bit jealous of Alex Runyan? At the attention he had shown her? She took another sip of her drink. There were a number of things, big and small, to savour about this trip. She added that notion to the list.
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
'In any case, there seems good reason to proceed cautiously at this point.'
'What about a colleague of mine at Princeton ,' suggested Fletcher, 'Clarence Humphreys?'
'Of course,' Runyan enthused, 'Clarence could be very helpful. I don't know about his stand on security matters, but he should be approached.'
'There seems to be a consensus, then,' summarized Phillips, 'that we will proceed on the assumption that Alex has provided the correct explanation of the events reported. We will try to enlist the support of an expert on black holes, particularly the miniature variety — starting with Humphreys. We've already established that Gantt will set up a gravimeter experiment to seek direct evidence for or against the black hole theory. Alex, you mentioned the need for detailed orbit calculations. Can you see to that end of things?'
'The best way to proceed there would be to make use of the computer facilities and programs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,' said Runyan. 'I could move up to Pasadena for the rest of the summer. As for security, we can't simply ask them to calculate a black hole orbit inside the earth. I must have special personal access to the computers, but I'll need to consult with the experts on the relevant codes which require modification. Someone will have to do some arranging for me.'
Phillips looked at Isaacs who nodded in confirmation.
Phillips then addressed the group again. 'Anyone have anything else to add?'
After a moment Zicek spoke up.
'Our course of action is just as you have outlined, Wayne — some straightforward steps to better define the situation. Last night I took a different tack and spent a good deal of time pondering Alex's basic premise. He not only wants a small black hole careening through the earth, but he led us to the brink of concluding that such a dung must have been artificially manufactured. Despite his logic, like many of us here, I found that idea prima facie absurd. And granting that absurdity, I questioned the whole scheme. My apologies, Alex.'
Runyan shrugged and waited for the point to which all this was preamble.
'This morning,' Zicek continued, 'I am not so sure.'
His eyebrows compressed together as he paused to formulate his words.
'I do not see how to create such a little monster, but I am no longer so positive that to speak of such a process is absurd.
'As many of you know, I am actively involved in Project Antares at Los Alamos. Our goal is to create controlled thermonuclear reactions by imploding a pellet of deuterium and tritium. The present scheme has six gas lasers the size of locomotives producing seventy-two laser beams which are brought to focus on the pellet. The pellet is drastically compressed, creating high enough temperatures and densities to trigger the fusing of deuterium into helium.
'This is only one of the projects currently being undertaken by our government and by that of the Soviet Union , which appears to me to bear on this problem. The others, given the current political situation, are related to weaponry. I speak of beam weapons of many kinds which unload their destructive power at the speed of light and will render normal missiles and aircraft obsolete and defenceless.
'I myself have had a role in developing the infrared chemical laser which the Navy is using in their Sea Light lethality verification programme and the related Talon Gold pointing and tracking tests. The Air Force has its own parallel programme with a carbon dioxide gas laser on an NKC-135 at Kirtland Air Force Base.
'While I'm not involved with them, except as a competitor for funding, there are several programmes developing particle beams. The White Horse project at Los Alamos aims for a space-based neutral beam generator using a radio frequency quadrupole accelerator. The Advanced Test Facility at Livermore is producing an electron beam, and the RADALAC at Sandia can fire electrons, protons, or negative hydrogen ions at near the speed of light. Lord only knows what sort of gadgets the Russians have by now. Most of our ideas were stolen from them. We know they have developed techniques to use chemical explosions to drive magnetic flux compression generators. They have used stupendous electric currents generated by these devices to power rail guns — linear induction motors which can be used to hurl payloads into orbit or drive armour piercing bullets at hypersonic velocities.'
Zicek leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and interlocking his fingers. 'Now my point is, any of these devices — lasers, relativistic electron beams, rail guns — can, in principle, be focused inward to achieve implosions. So far the goal of implosion studies has been to achieve high density and temperature and produce nuclear fusion. Such processes cannot achieve extreme densities because the energy expended to raise both the temperature and the density is too high. Alex and Harvey discussed that yesterday.
'But suppose our goal was not high temperature, but just high density — very high density. It is true that I cannot see how to reach densities where self-gravity plays a role and a black hole becomes feasible. I can, however, imagine a few tricks in principle to keep the temperature relatively low even as the density rises.'
He unlaced his fingers and gestured with open palms.
'I'm sorry to be so long-winded. What I am trying to say is that our technology is moving even now in a direction where such a thing becomes imaginable. Technological and scientific advances are growing exponentially. Who knows what comes next?'
Zicek looked around the confines of the small room, eyeing his colleagues.
'Are you inviting us to conclude,' asked Fletcher in a voice of deliberate calm, 'that, while we cannot now do such a thing, perhaps a society only somewhat advanced from ours could?'
'Never mind a very advanced society,' put in Noldt more excitedly.
'Oh, hold on,' said Leems disgustedly. 'Granted, Vlad, we're inventing a cornucopia of implosion machinery. There is still an immense jump to making black holes. Just because we've launched a space probe out of the solar system doesn't mean that intergalactic space travel will be possible for us or for any advanced civilizations which might be out there. Sometimes practical limits can erect just as solid a barrier as physical impossibility. You damn well can't strike a match on a wet cake of soap. I still find the whole black hole business preposterous.'
'Perhaps you're right, Harvey,' admitted Zicek, 'but I feel we should not jump to a conclusion either way. No one has really thought seriously about how hard or how easy making a black hole might be if one really tried. I'm just saying such a dung may be possible. Our knowledge of the behaviour of matter at only slightly greater than nuclear density is very sparse.'
'Well, what we don't know, we can't use to reach any conclusions,' said Leems, still sounding disgusted.
'Of course, of course,' placated Zicek. He addressed himself to Phillips again. 'My thoughts in this direction lead me to one concrete suggestion you may want to consider.'
'Yes, what is that?' inquired Phillips.
'We have discussed bringing in other experts to help us deal with the particulars of this problem, earl suggested Humphreys,' he waved towards Fletcher. 'I think we should consider more carefully this question of how such a flung might be made. One person comes to mind who would be uniquely qualified in terms of both experience and creative insight.'
'I'll bet you're thinking of Paul Krone,' said Runyan.
'Yes, in fact, I was,' replied Zicek.
Isaacs looked up sharply at this reference. He had heard of Paul Krone, and he was not the kind of man Isaacs would be keen to bring into this effort. Not exactly stable. Leems made clear where he stood.
'That horse's ass? Surely you don't want to set that bull loose in this china shop?'
'You're being unfair,' Zicek replied tensely. 'I know there are people jealous of Paul's successes because they don't understand his methods, but he has great insight which could serve us well and he's currently deeply involved in these questions.'
'Jealous?' Leems waved a hand in dismissal. 'He can't even keep a job. Half his ideas are fantasy — sheer gibberish. And who knows what other troubles he would bring.'
Isaacs thought Leems probably was jealous. Krone had worked his way through a couple of universities, private industry and various government labs, a maverick always on the move, but he had a midas touch. A dozen times during his career he had started a little company on the side, working on some development or other. If the idea worked. Krone would keep a controlling interest, but turn the company over to professional managers and never look back. The scientists he worked with were always suspicious because he made so much money. Businessmen couldn't understand how he could throw it all over and go back to tinkering in some laboratory or doodling equations.
Krone was a man of great appetites as well as great talent. There had been some trouble getting him a security clearance for one government consulting job, and the case had come to Isaacs's attention informally through an acquaintance with the FBI. There had been questions of drugs and women, a year or two ago he had taken up with an expatriate Russian of all things, and legal entanglements concerning the proprietary rights to some of his developments. In looking over the file, Isaacs had been amazed to see the number of well-known companies, three of them on the Fortune 500, that Krone controlled, directly or indirectly.
Runyan laughed to take the sting out of Leems's words. 'C'mon, Harvey. It's true Paul can be hard to take when he starts ranting. There's no question he's a raving egomaniac with a penchant for hiding his ideas until he can spring them on the world. And maybe half his ideas are nonsense, but half of them have some real insight, and half of a lot is a lot.'
He addressed himself to Phillips.
'It strikes me someone like Krone who's familiar with both theoretical physics and engineering developments might be useful to us.'
Runyan turned to Zicek.
'What's he doing now? Didn't I hear he was consulting at Los Alamos ?'
'That's right. He started another company and has a consulting contract' with the Lab to explore just these developments I was describing — laser implosion, relativistic beams — both experimentally and theoretically. That's why I thought he would have a general grasp of the situation which would be useful to us.'
Isaacs saw there might be some merit to the arguments Zicek and Runyan made, but his sympathies were more with Leems. He spoke up. 'I wonder whether the questions Dr Zicek raises, and perhaps Dr Krone's involvement, might be of secondary importance just now. It seems that our critical task is to confirm or deny Dr Runyan's suggestion. I would like to ask Dr Gantt whether he has considered the requirements of the proposed experiment. I'm sure your seismology lab at Caltech is well equipped, but I wonder whether you will need any help which my agency or some other government agency can provide?'
'I've not had time to plan any details,' replied Gantt.
'We'll want to go someplace which is seismically inactive — away from the California fault system, perhaps Arizona. I might use some help with transportation and some support equipment. I'd like to use an on-site minicomputer for analysis. I have one, but it's cumbersome to move.' Isaacs nodded. 'We can help with that.'
Gantt continued, 'We must, of course, know where to look. From Dr Danielson's present data it appears that the activity comes near the surface at about twelve-hundred— mile intervals. The trick is to be in the right place at the right time. You've said you can predict the surface location at any particular instant to within a kilometre or so.' He looked towards Danielson for confirmation, and the young woman nodded.
'With updated sonar data, we should be able to do better than that,' she said.
Gantt turned to Runyan. 'What gravitational perturbation did you estimate for a distance of a kilometre, Alex?'
'That should give you a fluctuation of a part in a million,' replied Runyan.
'We can do that,' asserted Gantt.
'I'm going to be busy with things in Washington ,' Isaacs said, 'but I'd like to have someone on the site with you. Would you mind if Dr Danielson joined you?'
'Not at all,' Gantt replied. 'I think her knowledge of the background to this situation could prove most useful.' He smiled at the young woman and got a brief appreciative one in return.
'You wouldn't mind joining Professor Gantt, would you, Pat?' Isaacs asked.
She thought of her urge to go to Dallas to be where the action was. Nothing would keep her from being on top of it the next time.
'I would like to very much.'
Oho, Runyan thought to himself, now there's a trip I'd like to make, too. He looked at Isaacs's stern visage and decided now was not the ideal time to press his petition.
'Excellent,' said Phillips, with an air of summary. 'Perhaps we should leave it at that, then. I know Mr Isaacs has a plane to catch, and I don't believe further discussion would enhance the situation at this point. I suggest we adjourn.'
He rose to emphasize his decision and watched as the others stood and filed out. He joined Isaacs in the hall and they waited a moment for Danielson and Runyan, who were the last ones out.
Isaacs and Danielson gathered their things from their rooms while Phillips called for a car. They caught a noon flight back to Washington.
They spoke little until the plane was in the air. When the no smoking sign was turned off and the attendants began to move around the cabin, they turned as if at a signal, and looked at one another. Each read in the other's eyes the special camaraderie of a shared, shocking experience. Impulsively, Danielson leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. Surprised and pleased, he patted her hand on the armrest, in what he hoped was a fatherly manner. Danielson leaned back in her seat.
'Wow!' she exclaimed quietly. 'I feel like I'm trying to work an idea into my head that's a hundred sizes too big to fit.' She turned to him. 'Thanks for the opportunity to go with Gantt. I really want to do that.'
'You've done an excellent job all along,' Isaacs told her.
'We need you to follow up.'
'Thank you,' she replied, 'but you're the one who deserves congratulations. I know what you risked to bring us this far.'
The rolling chaos of the serving cart appeared in the aisle next to them, and they each ordered a bloody mary.
Danielson took a sip of her drink, then stared into it, probing on the lime slice with the swizzle stick. 'Who would have thought that that faint signal would lead to this!" she asked herself as much as Isaacs.
She turned to him. 'You certainly were right about the effectiveness of Jason. What did you think of Alex Runyan?
Wasn't that amazing the way he so quickly drew everything together?'
'That was quite a show he put on,' Isaacs replied neutrally. 'We do have to remember that for all his arguments we have no direct proof. Perhaps we should reserve judgement until Gantt performs this experiment.'
Danielson was surprised at his coolness. She shot a sideways glance at him, with a sudden flash of intuition. Was it possible, just possible, that Bob Isaacs was the tiniest bit jealous of Alex Runyan? At the attention he had shown her? She took another sip of her drink. There were a number of things, big and small, to savour about this trip. She added that notion to the list.
Chapter 13
Ellison Gantt glanced at the naked sun high over his shoulder, wiped sweat from his forehead and dried his hand on the seat of his pants. He checked the date on his watch. Tuesday, August 10. Hot in this part of the world. The Jason meeting with the CIA people had catalysed a week of exhaustive activity. He had assembled an impressive array of seismological data monitoring equipment and made what modifications he could to suit the mission at hand. They had been encamped for two days in this remote part of the Lechuguilla Desert , thirty miles from Yuma , a little southwest of Welton. Despite the debilitating. blistering August heat, they had managed to set up the equipment and to repair the minor damage done in transit. Gantt still marvelled at the speed with which the transportation had been mobilized once a suitable site had been selected and the equipment was ready. Isaacs had arranged for an Air Force cargo jet to fly them to the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station, then for a helicopter ferry to this remote site.
The basic location had suggested itself naturally enough. Gantt had briefly considered a shipboard experiment in the ocean west of Son Diego, but he concluded that the delicate measurements he hoped to make would be virtually impossible with the present equipment on board a pitching ship. Even on this solid land where he now stood, the natural tremors of the earth could mask any small effect, and he did not really know what effect to anticipate.
He mentally surveyed the layout. Arrayed over several miles of barren rolling desert were a series of seismometers to measure the ordinary activity of the earth, and the special seismic waves that were due to be superposed. There were also the special instruments designed to detect any accelerations which might occur if a significant gravitational pull, in addition to that of the earth, were to occur. All these instruments were connected to a small but powerful computer energized by the portable generator whose noise disturbed the otherwise quiet early afternoon. This computer would provide an instant analysis of the data. It not only recorded the strength of the signals but, using information from instruments spaced at a distance, it could also triangulate and determine the direction and distance to the source of the waves or gravitational acceleration.
All was now in readiness. Gantt felt a small chill despite the heat. In a little over an hour the seismic waves should broach the surface about two hundred miles away in eastern Arizona, registering on the seismometers but perhaps only marginally on the accelerometers even with Runyan's most extreme estimates. Eighty and a half minutes later the source of the waves would again approach the surface but a thousand miles to the west, over seven hundred miles off the Pacific coast. Since the incommensurate period of rotation of the earth made the surfacings appear to shift one hundred ninety miles every twenty-four hours, tomorrow at nearly the same time the waves should impinge on the surface very close to their present location.
Gantt turned his back on the encampment and looked out across the shallow hills. He had great difficulty accepting the picture proposed by Runyan, and yet he could not resist a morbid temptation to imagine what was proceeding if the hypothesis were correct. A small speeding object was now plunging down through the deepest basalt layers of the earth's crust. In fifteen minutes it would enter the molten core, picking up speed as it went. Sensing the change in gravitational pull as it passed the earth's centre, it would begin to slow as it shot back towards the surface, where it would peak with majestic slowness before crashing back into the dirt and rock.
Gantt shook his head and strode back to the main tent of the encampment. The interior of the tent was a little cooler because of the air conditioner installed to service the computer, but it was still stifling. Gantt became too engrossed to notice.
At five minutes before the appointed time, he focused his attention on the needles of the seismometers. They jiggled steadily but with nearly constant amplitude, tuned to the basic constant sounds of the earth. In a couple of minutes he saw the effect he was looking for. The swings of the needles on all three seismometers began to slowly grow in amplitude. Danielson's seismic waves were real enough all right. The question was what caused them. Even to Gantt's framed eye the signals on the three instruments looked identical. Only the computer could distinguish the minute differences due to the slightly different distances of the instruments from the source of the waves. Gantt turned to the computer, typing rapidly on the keyboard and then scrutinizing the screen in front of him as the printer to one side began to roll out the same data on a chain of paper sheets. The distance was about one hundred ninety miles, a little closer than their best guess, but within the expected errors. Gantt's gaze then swung to take in the readings from the accelerometers which might detect some variation in gravitational force. He thought he could make out the briefest fluctuation, but could not be sure. Again he keyed the computer and found his impression confirmed. There might be an effect, but it was only marginally above the noise level. A more sophisticated analysis that could only be done with time and a bigger computer might dig something out, but for now there was no firm conclusion to be reached. Still, he mused, an effect of the size Runyan predicted could not be ruled out. If the minute fluctuation were real, then something massive had just surfaced two hundred miles away, and in three quarters of an hour it would do so again on the far side of the earth.
Gantt stripped the printed computer output off the machine and examined it more carefully. He swore quietly as sweat dripped off his brow onto the paper, obscuring a few numbers. He stopped to wipe his forehead and neck and then returned his attention to the rows of numbers. The seismic waves stopped several miles below the surface. After a minute or so, the source of the waves began again, moving nearly vertically down into the earth. Gantt felt a nervous tightening across his abdomen. An ordinary seismic wave could be reflected, but it did not wait a minute while making up its mind. Such a delay might occur if the source of the waves moved up into light surface layers which were not conducive to the production of waves and then fell back again. Runyan's hole could do that. Deep in thought, Gantt sat for some minutes striving for an explanation in terms of the normal behaviour of the earth as he knew it. Nothing occurred to him, but he told himself that Runyan need not be right on that basis, perhaps it was just his own lack of imagination or lack of sufficient information. The mysterious interior of the earth had surprised him more than once and might be doing so again. Taking solace from that thought, he proceeded to a close study of the data acquired during the event.
Wednesday morning Pat Danielson clambered down from the rear seat of the jet-black F-16 which was rigged for tactical reconnaissance. She was aided by the pilot and a ground technician. Her legs were a little unsteady from the excitement of the Mach 2 flight from Washington — over two thousand miles to the Yuma Air Station in an hour and a half. She followed a young marine to a waiting helicopter and stood there while he went into a nearby utilitarian terminal building. He reemerged in a moment followed by Alex Runyan. Runyan was halfway across the tarmac when he looked up and saw her. The look of surprise and pleasure on his face was delicious to her.
'Pat!' He ran forward, grabbed her hand in both his and gave her a spontaneous peck on the cheek, oblivious to the watching servicemen. 'What a delight. I didn't expect to see you here.'
'After you pleaded with Bob Isaacs yesterday,' Danielson said gaily, 'we decided to coordinate the trips, save a helicopter ride.'
'That's great. When did you leave? It's a long way.' She laughed with obvious glee. 'Crossing three time zones helps, but so does that,' she pointed towards the fighter.
'We landed before we took off.'
'Holy cowl' Runyan exclaimed. 'Now I know who has the real clout. I thought I was Mr Big with the puddle jumper your boss arranged for me this morning. Well, let's get on with the adventurer
He helped her through the passenger hatch in the side of the helicopter, banded up her light bag, then his and finally swung himself up and in with a single easy motion.
'What did you think of Gantt's preliminary report?' Danielson shouted over the whine of the cranking engine, as they budded themselves in.
'Too soon to tell,' he shouted back, 'but I'm afraid there was nothing to prove I was wrong.'
After they took off, the flight noise made conversation difficult. Danielson watched the country flash by the open hatch, vividly aware of Runyan's long lean thigh next to hers.
Gantt was engrossed in making some changes in the computer analysis routines when he heard the chopping roar of the approaching helicopter. He approached the landing site and stood a hundred yards off as the machine circled once around the area and then settled slowly to the ground. As die rotor speed decreased and the whine of the turbojet ceased, he saw a man get out and then turn to help his companion. Gantt squinted into the sun and then finally waved a greeting as he recognized the approaching figures.
'Hello!' shouted Gantt. 'Alex! What a surprise. I didn't expect an extra guest at our little party here.'
He shook hands with Runyan and then with Danielson. He grabbed the young woman's hand with both of his and gave an extra shake. He suddenly wanted Danielson to feel welcome as a colleague, rather than a visiting government official.
'Do you have baggage to unload?' he inquired.
'Just a couple of bags,' replied Runyan. 'Lord, it's hot here! What's the temperature?'
'About a hundred and fifteen in the shade,' Gantt laughed. 'Cools off in the evenings, though. Not so bad then.'
Gantt looked back and saw the pilot unloading two small cases from the passenger compartment. He called to one of the young marines who had been recruited for the project to lend a hand and then ushered the pair into the mess tent.
'Can I get you something? Coffee? Iced tea? Lemonade? Lunch won't be ready for a while, but we might scare up a snack.'
Both declined anything to eat. Gantt got a cup of coffee for himself and showed the others where to help themselves to iced tea. They sat at a table under the outstretched flap of the tent, shielded from the sun but open to the fitful breeze.
'Well, Alex, I needn't ask what brings you here, but it is a pleasant surprise.'
Runyan wiped his brow with the back of his hand and scratched his hot beard.
'I've been living with the computer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, adapting their orbital programs to calculate the path of a black hole through the earth. When you radioed your results from yesterday to CIA headquarters, Isaacs relayed the essence of it to me. I'd calculated so many orbital eccentricities that I was getting a bit eccentric myself. I'm afraid I was rather obvious about my desire to be out here where the action is, even though that wasn't on the programme. Lord knows I'll just be a fifth wheel.'
'In any case,' continued Runyan, 'I was picked up by an Air Force plane this morning and, much to my pleasant surprise, met Pat here in Yuma.'
'Well, I'm glad to see you both,' admitted Gantt. 'I confess I've been bothered by not having anyone here to talk to about this business. How are your calculations going?' he asked Runyan.
'The model basically fits the data. But there are lots of loose parameters. We don't know enough about the detailed structure of the inner earth and how a small black hole would interact with it to predict small subtle shifts in the orbit with any degree of confidence. A little extra rock, like the roots of a mountain range, can perturb the orbit slightly, depending on angle of approach, a bunch of things. You can get slow cumulative effects, or an occasional finite perturbation. Hard to pin down. The data you're collecting now should allow us to fix some of those parameters. That still won't be the same as proving my picture is right.'
'Actually,' interjected Gantt, 'if we are going to discuss this matter, and I surely want to, we should move over to my tent. It's a little less public there.'
They picked up their drinks and moved off to Gantt's tent which was set off somewhat from the main compound. Gantt went off to gather up two more folding chairs and returned to arrange them in the small patch of shade available.
'Have you learned anything new?' he inquired of Danielson.
'I've collated some more data from the Large Seismic Array and various other monitoring stations. There have been some refinements in our estimations, but nothing qualitatively new.' She took a sip other tea. 'In fact, there's been one major frustration. We had hoped to get the Navy to make systematic measurements of the sonar signal. That would have given us much better positions. Unfortunately, their old data isn't much good now, and they couldn't or wouldn't respond fast enough to get any new data this last week. As a result, the measurements of positions you got yesterday are probably the best we have.'
'Did you explain Alex's hypothesis to the Navy?' Gantt wanted to know.
'No,' replied Danielson, 'the decision was made not to spread that notion any further than necessary until the results of this expedition are in.' She leaned towards Gantt. 'What about this cessation of the signal below the surface which you reported yesterday? My data have never shown a signal from the upper mantle, but you reported a definite time delay. That would be a small effect.in my data which has poor time resolution, but it might be present. I didn't have time to look carefully before hopping the plane. Don't you think it's reminiscent of the sonar signal stopping at the surface of the ocean, just that it starts earlier and lasts a bit longer?'
'Yes, that's my impression,' said Gantt. 'It's strange behaviour for a normal seismic wave, but it might be consistent with Alex's beast as we discussed a La Jolla.' He paused to scratch his head and shuffle his toe in the dirt. 'Still, I can't help wondering whether we could be dealing with some special fissuring that focused normal seismic waves, and those fissures could terminate below the surface.'
'But that wouldn't explain the delay in the return of the waves,' Runyan pointed out, 'nor the holes drilled in Nagasaki and Dallas.'
'Well, maybe the energy is temporarily stored as a mechanical stress in the rock and then released. I admit I don't have a real physical picture of such a process, but neither do I see how to rule out the possibility. The holes? Well, you're right: I can't account for them easily either. Coincidental imperfections in the concrete?'
This rhetorical question went-unanswered. There was silence for a moment, broken by Runyan. 'As I understand from Isaacs, you had a marginal detection of an abnormal acceleration?'
'Yes,' replied Gantt, 'there was some indication in the first event. It could be real, or just an accidental accumulation of noise.'
'From the distances you got yesterday,' Runyan continued, 'what do you estimate for the location of this event coming up today?'
'My best guess is that the epicentre, if you can call it that, will be about a quarter of a mile to the northeast of here, but there's an uncertainty of a few hundred metres.'
'Hmmm, too bad we don't have that Navy sonar data,' Runyan muttered. 'I'd hate to have this thing fly up my ass.' He caught himself and turned to Danielson, patting her on the arm. 'Pardon me, hon, excuse my language.' She suppressed a smile. He turned back to Gantt.
'And you expect it at about 2:03 this afternoon?'
'Give or take a few seconds.'
'So it surfaced almost half an hour ago in northwest Louisiana ,' mused Runyan. 'It's passed through the core and is now headed up to a point in the East Crozet Basin in the southern Indian Ocean. And, after another quick pass through the core, it will soon be here.' He stared down at the brown dirt and scrubby grass beneath his feet, as if by concentrating he could peer into the depths of the earth in reality as he could by imagination and thereby witness this rogue particle at work.
'You think you're right, don't you?' Gantt inquired.
'I'm afraid I am,' Runyan answered.
Gantt stared at Runyan and then removed his glasses and wiped sweat from his eyes. 'Let me give you a tour,' he said and led his guests to the main tent where he explained the function of the arrayed instrumentation.
At fifteen minutes before two, Gantt had Runyan and Danielson stand aside while he made final preparations. Danielson glanced at her watch at two minutes after the hour just as Gantt turned to announce:
'Come and look — I'm getting a signal on the seismometers.' Runyan and Gantt approached and peered over his shoulder. All three seismometers were showing a definite increase in activity. Gantt turned to the computer, fingered the keyboard, and examined the screen.
'I'm getting a good reading on the distance, but I'm having some trouble determining exactly where it's heading since, as predicted, it seems to be right beneath us.'
They turned their attention back to the seismometers which were by now showing great activity.
'Look at this!' exclaimed Gantt. He pointed to the readings on the gravimeters. All were showing a definite and growing anomalous acceleration. Once more, Gantt swivelled in his seat towards the computer, but before he could key in his instructions, confusion erupted.
Runyan first saw the needle of the seismometer in the camp go off scale, slamming against its restraining pin. Before his mind could quite absorb the implication of that occurrence, his body recorded a rapid, bizarre set of feelings. First, he had the definite sensation that the floor of the tent had accelerated upward suddenly like an express elevator. This feeling was terminated by a sideways impulse as if he had been hit with a sudden, strong gust of wind. Just as quickly, that sensation was replaced by a familiar fearsome tickle in stomach and gonads. Runyan was reminded of a roller coaster as it begins its first terrifying descent, leaving tender organs in the grasp of inertia. His ears registered a sucking whistle, rapidly diminishing in amplitude as if someone had turned on a vacuum cleaner just outside the tent and then whisked it rapidly away.
As these sensations passed, Runyan became aware of chaotic shouts beginning to echo around the camp and of Danielson half sprawled, grasping the back of Gantt's chair. Danielson had taken a step towards Gantt and had been caught with one foot m the air when she was bumped sideways and knocked off balance. Runyan helped Danielson regain her feet. She collapsed against him, weak— kneed and pale with shock. Runyan held her shoulders gently.
The whistling noise returned, this time not quite so loud and at a higher pitch. Danielson stepped back from Runyan, her hands on his chest, her eyes searching his for explanation, confirmation. After a moment, Runyan looked towards the instrumentation. Danielson's gaze followed his and they simultaneously swivelled to look at the seismometers. All needles had fallen to rest, tracking a straight line down the centre of the strip charts. In the same instant as the faint whistling stopped, the needles witched and once more the one on the camp instrument slammed against its restraining pin. As they watched, the needles began to swing, first entirely across the chart and then with gradually diminishing amplitude.
The hoarse voices outside the tent died with the swing of the needles, and Runyan spoke first.
'Goddamn!' he said with measured stress. And then again, 'Goddamn!'
As the reaction began to sink in, he felt his legs begin to shake. He moved uncertainly to the nearest chair and collapsed in it. He looked at Gantt, whose face was ashen, and at Danielson who, by contrast, was beginning to regain some colour. Her eyes now showed the intensity of contained excitement. She suddenly had an idea, turned and rushed out of the tent. The two men sat in silence until one of Gantt's assistants burst in.
'Dr Gantt,' he shouted, 'what'n hell was that?'
Gantt turned and looked at him for a long moment before replying, 'I don't know, an earthquake, I suppose.'
'Hell, that wasn't like any earthquake I've ever been in,' replied the other, his voice barely quieter. 'Two fellows just outside the tent got knocked on their butts. I was a hundred yards away and didn't feel a thing. And that noise, I've never heard a quake make a noise like that!'
'It was somewhat irregular,' Gantt conceded. 'Why don't you check out the camp and the other sites to see if everything is all right. I'll see what I can figure out from the data we collected.'
The man knew he was being put off, but could see nothing to do about it. He paused a moment until it was clear that Gantt had nothing further to say, then departed with an aggressive stride, nearly colliding with Danielson, who rushed in as he left.
She hurried across the tent floor and pulled up a chair to sit at right angles to Runyan. His arm was draped on the chair. Danielson grasped his hand in both of hers and gave it a strong, almost painful, squeeze.
Barely aware of Danielson beside him, squeezing his arm, Runyan was caught up in a maelstrom of fragmentary thoughts. He couldn't grasp the details: they moved too fast, too lightly, wafted away like floating cottonwood seeds if he tried to grab at them. Somehow, though, he caught enough glimpses through the swirl. Us? Them? He couldn't see who, but he knew the answer.
'You were right, Alex,' Danielson said in a tense hissing whisper. 'I don't see any sign of a tunnel outside the tent, but I know you were right. That force! It could only have been the gravity! It is a black hole!' As she said the last words she raised his hand in hers and banged it back down on the arm of the chair. Runyan winced slightly.
Danielson had been looking at his face without seeing. As the grimace passed briefly over Runyan's features, she suddenly became cognizant of the black desolation reflected there. She stared at his impassive face as her own tenseness and excitement abated. She turned her head to look briefly at Gantt and read the same feeling of devastation on his face. Her mind spun with conflicting emotions as she released her grip on Runyan's slack hand and slumped back in her chair.
My god, she thought, it's like being torn apart, elation and terror at the same time. She recognized that she had been completely committed to this project, that she craved for her passion to be justified. The frightening encounter had been so real, so visceral, she felt — vindicated! But something in her mind cowered like a timid creature, beset by a raging beast. Her mind froze, resisting the full implications of what had transpired here. Where had it come from? What were they going to do? They had done what they had come to do. But were they better off, or worse?
She grabbed at a straw. Take a step, a small step. We've get to move on.
'Professor Gantt?' she inquired. 'I've got to call Bob Isaacs.'
The basic location had suggested itself naturally enough. Gantt had briefly considered a shipboard experiment in the ocean west of Son Diego, but he concluded that the delicate measurements he hoped to make would be virtually impossible with the present equipment on board a pitching ship. Even on this solid land where he now stood, the natural tremors of the earth could mask any small effect, and he did not really know what effect to anticipate.
He mentally surveyed the layout. Arrayed over several miles of barren rolling desert were a series of seismometers to measure the ordinary activity of the earth, and the special seismic waves that were due to be superposed. There were also the special instruments designed to detect any accelerations which might occur if a significant gravitational pull, in addition to that of the earth, were to occur. All these instruments were connected to a small but powerful computer energized by the portable generator whose noise disturbed the otherwise quiet early afternoon. This computer would provide an instant analysis of the data. It not only recorded the strength of the signals but, using information from instruments spaced at a distance, it could also triangulate and determine the direction and distance to the source of the waves or gravitational acceleration.
All was now in readiness. Gantt felt a small chill despite the heat. In a little over an hour the seismic waves should broach the surface about two hundred miles away in eastern Arizona, registering on the seismometers but perhaps only marginally on the accelerometers even with Runyan's most extreme estimates. Eighty and a half minutes later the source of the waves would again approach the surface but a thousand miles to the west, over seven hundred miles off the Pacific coast. Since the incommensurate period of rotation of the earth made the surfacings appear to shift one hundred ninety miles every twenty-four hours, tomorrow at nearly the same time the waves should impinge on the surface very close to their present location.
Gantt turned his back on the encampment and looked out across the shallow hills. He had great difficulty accepting the picture proposed by Runyan, and yet he could not resist a morbid temptation to imagine what was proceeding if the hypothesis were correct. A small speeding object was now plunging down through the deepest basalt layers of the earth's crust. In fifteen minutes it would enter the molten core, picking up speed as it went. Sensing the change in gravitational pull as it passed the earth's centre, it would begin to slow as it shot back towards the surface, where it would peak with majestic slowness before crashing back into the dirt and rock.
Gantt shook his head and strode back to the main tent of the encampment. The interior of the tent was a little cooler because of the air conditioner installed to service the computer, but it was still stifling. Gantt became too engrossed to notice.
At five minutes before the appointed time, he focused his attention on the needles of the seismometers. They jiggled steadily but with nearly constant amplitude, tuned to the basic constant sounds of the earth. In a couple of minutes he saw the effect he was looking for. The swings of the needles on all three seismometers began to slowly grow in amplitude. Danielson's seismic waves were real enough all right. The question was what caused them. Even to Gantt's framed eye the signals on the three instruments looked identical. Only the computer could distinguish the minute differences due to the slightly different distances of the instruments from the source of the waves. Gantt turned to the computer, typing rapidly on the keyboard and then scrutinizing the screen in front of him as the printer to one side began to roll out the same data on a chain of paper sheets. The distance was about one hundred ninety miles, a little closer than their best guess, but within the expected errors. Gantt's gaze then swung to take in the readings from the accelerometers which might detect some variation in gravitational force. He thought he could make out the briefest fluctuation, but could not be sure. Again he keyed the computer and found his impression confirmed. There might be an effect, but it was only marginally above the noise level. A more sophisticated analysis that could only be done with time and a bigger computer might dig something out, but for now there was no firm conclusion to be reached. Still, he mused, an effect of the size Runyan predicted could not be ruled out. If the minute fluctuation were real, then something massive had just surfaced two hundred miles away, and in three quarters of an hour it would do so again on the far side of the earth.
Gantt stripped the printed computer output off the machine and examined it more carefully. He swore quietly as sweat dripped off his brow onto the paper, obscuring a few numbers. He stopped to wipe his forehead and neck and then returned his attention to the rows of numbers. The seismic waves stopped several miles below the surface. After a minute or so, the source of the waves began again, moving nearly vertically down into the earth. Gantt felt a nervous tightening across his abdomen. An ordinary seismic wave could be reflected, but it did not wait a minute while making up its mind. Such a delay might occur if the source of the waves moved up into light surface layers which were not conducive to the production of waves and then fell back again. Runyan's hole could do that. Deep in thought, Gantt sat for some minutes striving for an explanation in terms of the normal behaviour of the earth as he knew it. Nothing occurred to him, but he told himself that Runyan need not be right on that basis, perhaps it was just his own lack of imagination or lack of sufficient information. The mysterious interior of the earth had surprised him more than once and might be doing so again. Taking solace from that thought, he proceeded to a close study of the data acquired during the event.
Wednesday morning Pat Danielson clambered down from the rear seat of the jet-black F-16 which was rigged for tactical reconnaissance. She was aided by the pilot and a ground technician. Her legs were a little unsteady from the excitement of the Mach 2 flight from Washington — over two thousand miles to the Yuma Air Station in an hour and a half. She followed a young marine to a waiting helicopter and stood there while he went into a nearby utilitarian terminal building. He reemerged in a moment followed by Alex Runyan. Runyan was halfway across the tarmac when he looked up and saw her. The look of surprise and pleasure on his face was delicious to her.
'Pat!' He ran forward, grabbed her hand in both his and gave her a spontaneous peck on the cheek, oblivious to the watching servicemen. 'What a delight. I didn't expect to see you here.'
'After you pleaded with Bob Isaacs yesterday,' Danielson said gaily, 'we decided to coordinate the trips, save a helicopter ride.'
'That's great. When did you leave? It's a long way.' She laughed with obvious glee. 'Crossing three time zones helps, but so does that,' she pointed towards the fighter.
'We landed before we took off.'
'Holy cowl' Runyan exclaimed. 'Now I know who has the real clout. I thought I was Mr Big with the puddle jumper your boss arranged for me this morning. Well, let's get on with the adventurer
He helped her through the passenger hatch in the side of the helicopter, banded up her light bag, then his and finally swung himself up and in with a single easy motion.
'What did you think of Gantt's preliminary report?' Danielson shouted over the whine of the cranking engine, as they budded themselves in.
'Too soon to tell,' he shouted back, 'but I'm afraid there was nothing to prove I was wrong.'
After they took off, the flight noise made conversation difficult. Danielson watched the country flash by the open hatch, vividly aware of Runyan's long lean thigh next to hers.
Gantt was engrossed in making some changes in the computer analysis routines when he heard the chopping roar of the approaching helicopter. He approached the landing site and stood a hundred yards off as the machine circled once around the area and then settled slowly to the ground. As die rotor speed decreased and the whine of the turbojet ceased, he saw a man get out and then turn to help his companion. Gantt squinted into the sun and then finally waved a greeting as he recognized the approaching figures.
'Hello!' shouted Gantt. 'Alex! What a surprise. I didn't expect an extra guest at our little party here.'
He shook hands with Runyan and then with Danielson. He grabbed the young woman's hand with both of his and gave an extra shake. He suddenly wanted Danielson to feel welcome as a colleague, rather than a visiting government official.
'Do you have baggage to unload?' he inquired.
'Just a couple of bags,' replied Runyan. 'Lord, it's hot here! What's the temperature?'
'About a hundred and fifteen in the shade,' Gantt laughed. 'Cools off in the evenings, though. Not so bad then.'
Gantt looked back and saw the pilot unloading two small cases from the passenger compartment. He called to one of the young marines who had been recruited for the project to lend a hand and then ushered the pair into the mess tent.
'Can I get you something? Coffee? Iced tea? Lemonade? Lunch won't be ready for a while, but we might scare up a snack.'
Both declined anything to eat. Gantt got a cup of coffee for himself and showed the others where to help themselves to iced tea. They sat at a table under the outstretched flap of the tent, shielded from the sun but open to the fitful breeze.
'Well, Alex, I needn't ask what brings you here, but it is a pleasant surprise.'
Runyan wiped his brow with the back of his hand and scratched his hot beard.
'I've been living with the computer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, adapting their orbital programs to calculate the path of a black hole through the earth. When you radioed your results from yesterday to CIA headquarters, Isaacs relayed the essence of it to me. I'd calculated so many orbital eccentricities that I was getting a bit eccentric myself. I'm afraid I was rather obvious about my desire to be out here where the action is, even though that wasn't on the programme. Lord knows I'll just be a fifth wheel.'
'In any case,' continued Runyan, 'I was picked up by an Air Force plane this morning and, much to my pleasant surprise, met Pat here in Yuma.'
'Well, I'm glad to see you both,' admitted Gantt. 'I confess I've been bothered by not having anyone here to talk to about this business. How are your calculations going?' he asked Runyan.
'The model basically fits the data. But there are lots of loose parameters. We don't know enough about the detailed structure of the inner earth and how a small black hole would interact with it to predict small subtle shifts in the orbit with any degree of confidence. A little extra rock, like the roots of a mountain range, can perturb the orbit slightly, depending on angle of approach, a bunch of things. You can get slow cumulative effects, or an occasional finite perturbation. Hard to pin down. The data you're collecting now should allow us to fix some of those parameters. That still won't be the same as proving my picture is right.'
'Actually,' interjected Gantt, 'if we are going to discuss this matter, and I surely want to, we should move over to my tent. It's a little less public there.'
They picked up their drinks and moved off to Gantt's tent which was set off somewhat from the main compound. Gantt went off to gather up two more folding chairs and returned to arrange them in the small patch of shade available.
'Have you learned anything new?' he inquired of Danielson.
'I've collated some more data from the Large Seismic Array and various other monitoring stations. There have been some refinements in our estimations, but nothing qualitatively new.' She took a sip other tea. 'In fact, there's been one major frustration. We had hoped to get the Navy to make systematic measurements of the sonar signal. That would have given us much better positions. Unfortunately, their old data isn't much good now, and they couldn't or wouldn't respond fast enough to get any new data this last week. As a result, the measurements of positions you got yesterday are probably the best we have.'
'Did you explain Alex's hypothesis to the Navy?' Gantt wanted to know.
'No,' replied Danielson, 'the decision was made not to spread that notion any further than necessary until the results of this expedition are in.' She leaned towards Gantt. 'What about this cessation of the signal below the surface which you reported yesterday? My data have never shown a signal from the upper mantle, but you reported a definite time delay. That would be a small effect.in my data which has poor time resolution, but it might be present. I didn't have time to look carefully before hopping the plane. Don't you think it's reminiscent of the sonar signal stopping at the surface of the ocean, just that it starts earlier and lasts a bit longer?'
'Yes, that's my impression,' said Gantt. 'It's strange behaviour for a normal seismic wave, but it might be consistent with Alex's beast as we discussed a La Jolla.' He paused to scratch his head and shuffle his toe in the dirt. 'Still, I can't help wondering whether we could be dealing with some special fissuring that focused normal seismic waves, and those fissures could terminate below the surface.'
'But that wouldn't explain the delay in the return of the waves,' Runyan pointed out, 'nor the holes drilled in Nagasaki and Dallas.'
'Well, maybe the energy is temporarily stored as a mechanical stress in the rock and then released. I admit I don't have a real physical picture of such a process, but neither do I see how to rule out the possibility. The holes? Well, you're right: I can't account for them easily either. Coincidental imperfections in the concrete?'
This rhetorical question went-unanswered. There was silence for a moment, broken by Runyan. 'As I understand from Isaacs, you had a marginal detection of an abnormal acceleration?'
'Yes,' replied Gantt, 'there was some indication in the first event. It could be real, or just an accidental accumulation of noise.'
'From the distances you got yesterday,' Runyan continued, 'what do you estimate for the location of this event coming up today?'
'My best guess is that the epicentre, if you can call it that, will be about a quarter of a mile to the northeast of here, but there's an uncertainty of a few hundred metres.'
'Hmmm, too bad we don't have that Navy sonar data,' Runyan muttered. 'I'd hate to have this thing fly up my ass.' He caught himself and turned to Danielson, patting her on the arm. 'Pardon me, hon, excuse my language.' She suppressed a smile. He turned back to Gantt.
'And you expect it at about 2:03 this afternoon?'
'Give or take a few seconds.'
'So it surfaced almost half an hour ago in northwest Louisiana ,' mused Runyan. 'It's passed through the core and is now headed up to a point in the East Crozet Basin in the southern Indian Ocean. And, after another quick pass through the core, it will soon be here.' He stared down at the brown dirt and scrubby grass beneath his feet, as if by concentrating he could peer into the depths of the earth in reality as he could by imagination and thereby witness this rogue particle at work.
'You think you're right, don't you?' Gantt inquired.
'I'm afraid I am,' Runyan answered.
Gantt stared at Runyan and then removed his glasses and wiped sweat from his eyes. 'Let me give you a tour,' he said and led his guests to the main tent where he explained the function of the arrayed instrumentation.
At fifteen minutes before two, Gantt had Runyan and Danielson stand aside while he made final preparations. Danielson glanced at her watch at two minutes after the hour just as Gantt turned to announce:
'Come and look — I'm getting a signal on the seismometers.' Runyan and Gantt approached and peered over his shoulder. All three seismometers were showing a definite increase in activity. Gantt turned to the computer, fingered the keyboard, and examined the screen.
'I'm getting a good reading on the distance, but I'm having some trouble determining exactly where it's heading since, as predicted, it seems to be right beneath us.'
They turned their attention back to the seismometers which were by now showing great activity.
'Look at this!' exclaimed Gantt. He pointed to the readings on the gravimeters. All were showing a definite and growing anomalous acceleration. Once more, Gantt swivelled in his seat towards the computer, but before he could key in his instructions, confusion erupted.
Runyan first saw the needle of the seismometer in the camp go off scale, slamming against its restraining pin. Before his mind could quite absorb the implication of that occurrence, his body recorded a rapid, bizarre set of feelings. First, he had the definite sensation that the floor of the tent had accelerated upward suddenly like an express elevator. This feeling was terminated by a sideways impulse as if he had been hit with a sudden, strong gust of wind. Just as quickly, that sensation was replaced by a familiar fearsome tickle in stomach and gonads. Runyan was reminded of a roller coaster as it begins its first terrifying descent, leaving tender organs in the grasp of inertia. His ears registered a sucking whistle, rapidly diminishing in amplitude as if someone had turned on a vacuum cleaner just outside the tent and then whisked it rapidly away.
As these sensations passed, Runyan became aware of chaotic shouts beginning to echo around the camp and of Danielson half sprawled, grasping the back of Gantt's chair. Danielson had taken a step towards Gantt and had been caught with one foot m the air when she was bumped sideways and knocked off balance. Runyan helped Danielson regain her feet. She collapsed against him, weak— kneed and pale with shock. Runyan held her shoulders gently.
The whistling noise returned, this time not quite so loud and at a higher pitch. Danielson stepped back from Runyan, her hands on his chest, her eyes searching his for explanation, confirmation. After a moment, Runyan looked towards the instrumentation. Danielson's gaze followed his and they simultaneously swivelled to look at the seismometers. All needles had fallen to rest, tracking a straight line down the centre of the strip charts. In the same instant as the faint whistling stopped, the needles witched and once more the one on the camp instrument slammed against its restraining pin. As they watched, the needles began to swing, first entirely across the chart and then with gradually diminishing amplitude.
The hoarse voices outside the tent died with the swing of the needles, and Runyan spoke first.
'Goddamn!' he said with measured stress. And then again, 'Goddamn!'
As the reaction began to sink in, he felt his legs begin to shake. He moved uncertainly to the nearest chair and collapsed in it. He looked at Gantt, whose face was ashen, and at Danielson who, by contrast, was beginning to regain some colour. Her eyes now showed the intensity of contained excitement. She suddenly had an idea, turned and rushed out of the tent. The two men sat in silence until one of Gantt's assistants burst in.
'Dr Gantt,' he shouted, 'what'n hell was that?'
Gantt turned and looked at him for a long moment before replying, 'I don't know, an earthquake, I suppose.'
'Hell, that wasn't like any earthquake I've ever been in,' replied the other, his voice barely quieter. 'Two fellows just outside the tent got knocked on their butts. I was a hundred yards away and didn't feel a thing. And that noise, I've never heard a quake make a noise like that!'
'It was somewhat irregular,' Gantt conceded. 'Why don't you check out the camp and the other sites to see if everything is all right. I'll see what I can figure out from the data we collected.'
The man knew he was being put off, but could see nothing to do about it. He paused a moment until it was clear that Gantt had nothing further to say, then departed with an aggressive stride, nearly colliding with Danielson, who rushed in as he left.
She hurried across the tent floor and pulled up a chair to sit at right angles to Runyan. His arm was draped on the chair. Danielson grasped his hand in both of hers and gave it a strong, almost painful, squeeze.
Barely aware of Danielson beside him, squeezing his arm, Runyan was caught up in a maelstrom of fragmentary thoughts. He couldn't grasp the details: they moved too fast, too lightly, wafted away like floating cottonwood seeds if he tried to grab at them. Somehow, though, he caught enough glimpses through the swirl. Us? Them? He couldn't see who, but he knew the answer.
'You were right, Alex,' Danielson said in a tense hissing whisper. 'I don't see any sign of a tunnel outside the tent, but I know you were right. That force! It could only have been the gravity! It is a black hole!' As she said the last words she raised his hand in hers and banged it back down on the arm of the chair. Runyan winced slightly.
Danielson had been looking at his face without seeing. As the grimace passed briefly over Runyan's features, she suddenly became cognizant of the black desolation reflected there. She stared at his impassive face as her own tenseness and excitement abated. She turned her head to look briefly at Gantt and read the same feeling of devastation on his face. Her mind spun with conflicting emotions as she released her grip on Runyan's slack hand and slumped back in her chair.
My god, she thought, it's like being torn apart, elation and terror at the same time. She recognized that she had been completely committed to this project, that she craved for her passion to be justified. The frightening encounter had been so real, so visceral, she felt — vindicated! But something in her mind cowered like a timid creature, beset by a raging beast. Her mind froze, resisting the full implications of what had transpired here. Where had it come from? What were they going to do? They had done what they had come to do. But were they better off, or worse?
She grabbed at a straw. Take a step, a small step. We've get to move on.
'Professor Gantt?' she inquired. 'I've got to call Bob Isaacs.'
Chapter 14
The satellite, square-rigged with solar panels, sailed a smooth, circular, polar orbit every hour and a half. The rotation of the earth beneath it brought every square inch of the surface within viewing range in a twelve-hour period. Its eye was a large, finely-honed mirror, bigger than most earth-bound telescopes. This eye, like many cousins, would never witness the stark glories of the universe. It was dedicated to peering at the human scurryings below.
Normally, the twenty minutes spent passing from the North Pole down over Canada and the continental United States to the equator were downtime devoted to signal relaying and reprogramming. This orbit, the gyres hummed and locked the telescope on several spots in a dead east— west line running through the high mountains of southern New Mexico. If the computer knew slang, it would have called this operation a piece of cake. The signal carrying orders from the ground had not called for highest resolution, the capability to distinguish letters on a licence plate, only enough detail to discern a car from a house.
Light from the sun scattered in the earth's atmosphere, bounced off the New Mexico landscape and was reflected upward. The mirror in the satellite gathered a tiny portion of this light and focused it as an image on a photocathode. A sweeping electron beam converted the lights and darks of the image into electrical impulses and the on-board computer converted the impulses to immutable numbers. A beam of radiation, modulated and encoded with those numbers, shot to a receiving station on the ground at the speed of light. This signal was relayed to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade , Maryland where it received routine preliminary computer processing to decode the signal and remove the worst of the spurious electronic noise. Without pause, the signal was then relayed by special laser-driven glass fibre cable, immune to interception, to receiving equipment and a computer in CIA headquarters. This computer produced an electronic signal which reproduced a picture of the mountainous terrain on a special TV screen. A hard-copy photograph was taken of the screen, suitable for humans to scan and bicker over. Scarcely half an hour had passed from the time the special order had been sent up to the satellite to the time the camera shutter clicked.
As the photograph moved through the automatic developing process, the satellite coasted over the equator above the eastern Pacific Ocean. It would rest over the Pacific and Antarctica except for occasional records of ships. Things would pick up as it tried to collect data on the movement of the Soviet fleet in the Indian Ocean. There would be several frantic minutes in the vain attempt to monitor troops and rebels in Afghanistan , then the well-established routine over mother Russia herself. As the Arctic ice cap slipped underneath, the cycle would begin again.
Wednesday evening Isaacs sat in his study, the smells of supper beginning to romance his nostrils.
'Dad!' Isabel's young girl volume resounded down the corridor. 'It's for you!'
He reached for the extension.
Even before she came on the line, from the long-distance hollow echo, broken by occasional radiophone static, he knew.
'Bob?' Her voice was tense, excited.
'Pat?' His flat reply.
'Bob, he was right!' It's got to be a black hole! It almost hit us, came up right outside the tent. You could feel it, Bob! The pull, from its gravity, it knocked me over. Ellison is starting to analyse the computer records, but I just don't see how there can be any doubt.'
Silence.
'Bob?'
'Sorry. That's — good work.' He was suffused with a bone-weary fatigue. 'It's just so hard to accept. I was trying to think of what to do next.' How was he going to explain this to Drefke, to the President? Damn! Why had he brought the Russians, Korolev, into this? He certainly didn't want to hassle with them now.
'Have you started the site survey?'
'Yeah,' he confirmed. 'We got the satellite time on an emergency basis, shots of every site on the trajectory, north and south latitude, at the right altitude. The satellite should be working now, and we should have the first cut tomorrow morning. Then we can go back to anything that looks promising.'
'I wonder what we'll find?' She asked the question slowly, rhetorically.
'Pat, right now I haven't the faintest damn idea. Let me know if Gantt's analysis turns up anything interesting. I'll get hold of the Director tonight and see if I can explain all this to him.'
'Okay, good luck. You'll let me know what the site survey turns up?'
'Right.'
'Bye.'
'G'bye.'
He hung up the phone and stared at it, unseeing. He knew he should eat before calling Drefke, but his appetite had vanished.
Pat Danielson slipped back into the tent and took a chair next to Runyan who leaned over Gantt's shoulder, watching numbers do formation exercises on the terminal.
'Did you get him?' Runyan swivelled his neck to look at her.
'Yes. He didn't sound too happy.'
'Not the kind of thing you get happy about.' Runyan paused a moment, contemplating. 'I guess I feel relief. The peril is real and immense. I don't think any of us really appreciate in our guts the danger we're in. But I'm relieved that it's out in the open now so we can deal with it head on.' He turned back to the terminal. 'Ellison's finding out what our friend is really like.'
Normally, the twenty minutes spent passing from the North Pole down over Canada and the continental United States to the equator were downtime devoted to signal relaying and reprogramming. This orbit, the gyres hummed and locked the telescope on several spots in a dead east— west line running through the high mountains of southern New Mexico. If the computer knew slang, it would have called this operation a piece of cake. The signal carrying orders from the ground had not called for highest resolution, the capability to distinguish letters on a licence plate, only enough detail to discern a car from a house.
Light from the sun scattered in the earth's atmosphere, bounced off the New Mexico landscape and was reflected upward. The mirror in the satellite gathered a tiny portion of this light and focused it as an image on a photocathode. A sweeping electron beam converted the lights and darks of the image into electrical impulses and the on-board computer converted the impulses to immutable numbers. A beam of radiation, modulated and encoded with those numbers, shot to a receiving station on the ground at the speed of light. This signal was relayed to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade , Maryland where it received routine preliminary computer processing to decode the signal and remove the worst of the spurious electronic noise. Without pause, the signal was then relayed by special laser-driven glass fibre cable, immune to interception, to receiving equipment and a computer in CIA headquarters. This computer produced an electronic signal which reproduced a picture of the mountainous terrain on a special TV screen. A hard-copy photograph was taken of the screen, suitable for humans to scan and bicker over. Scarcely half an hour had passed from the time the special order had been sent up to the satellite to the time the camera shutter clicked.
As the photograph moved through the automatic developing process, the satellite coasted over the equator above the eastern Pacific Ocean. It would rest over the Pacific and Antarctica except for occasional records of ships. Things would pick up as it tried to collect data on the movement of the Soviet fleet in the Indian Ocean. There would be several frantic minutes in the vain attempt to monitor troops and rebels in Afghanistan , then the well-established routine over mother Russia herself. As the Arctic ice cap slipped underneath, the cycle would begin again.
Wednesday evening Isaacs sat in his study, the smells of supper beginning to romance his nostrils.
'Dad!' Isabel's young girl volume resounded down the corridor. 'It's for you!'
He reached for the extension.
Even before she came on the line, from the long-distance hollow echo, broken by occasional radiophone static, he knew.
'Bob?' Her voice was tense, excited.
'Pat?' His flat reply.
'Bob, he was right!' It's got to be a black hole! It almost hit us, came up right outside the tent. You could feel it, Bob! The pull, from its gravity, it knocked me over. Ellison is starting to analyse the computer records, but I just don't see how there can be any doubt.'
Silence.
'Bob?'
'Sorry. That's — good work.' He was suffused with a bone-weary fatigue. 'It's just so hard to accept. I was trying to think of what to do next.' How was he going to explain this to Drefke, to the President? Damn! Why had he brought the Russians, Korolev, into this? He certainly didn't want to hassle with them now.
'Have you started the site survey?'
'Yeah,' he confirmed. 'We got the satellite time on an emergency basis, shots of every site on the trajectory, north and south latitude, at the right altitude. The satellite should be working now, and we should have the first cut tomorrow morning. Then we can go back to anything that looks promising.'
'I wonder what we'll find?' She asked the question slowly, rhetorically.
'Pat, right now I haven't the faintest damn idea. Let me know if Gantt's analysis turns up anything interesting. I'll get hold of the Director tonight and see if I can explain all this to him.'
'Okay, good luck. You'll let me know what the site survey turns up?'
'Right.'
'Bye.'
'G'bye.'
He hung up the phone and stared at it, unseeing. He knew he should eat before calling Drefke, but his appetite had vanished.
Pat Danielson slipped back into the tent and took a chair next to Runyan who leaned over Gantt's shoulder, watching numbers do formation exercises on the terminal.
'Did you get him?' Runyan swivelled his neck to look at her.
'Yes. He didn't sound too happy.'
'Not the kind of thing you get happy about.' Runyan paused a moment, contemplating. 'I guess I feel relief. The peril is real and immense. I don't think any of us really appreciate in our guts the danger we're in. But I'm relieved that it's out in the open now so we can deal with it head on.' He turned back to the terminal. 'Ellison's finding out what our friend is really like.'