Just as the din approached the point of actual pain, one of the rangers pulled out a whistle and blew a long blast. Conversations ceased as if the power had been cut.
Collins nodded to the ranger. “Thanks, Alan. Okay, people, we’re as organized as we’re going to be, so let’s get things rolling. First, pop quiz.” There were groans from the audience, and Collins grinned. “Ranger Henderson here tells me that the water level has risen on the east end of Yellowstone Lake and dropped on the west side. Can anyone tell me what that means?”
Several students raised their hands, and the professor pointed to one. “Brett?”
“It means the land has risen on the west side, which is part of the lava dome. The water has rushed over to the other end.”
“That’s correct. So, Brett, what can we expect next from the lava dome?”
“Hopefully, that it stops doing that.”
Collins waited for the laughter to die down, then continued. “Now, we’re going to split into—”
He was interrupted by another student. “Professor, it’s not just that there’s been uplift. I’ve heard that the amount of uplift is unprecedented, and it’s making some people nervous.”
Henderson held up his hand as Collins opened his mouth to answer. “I’ll field this one, Robert. Young lady, do I look nervous?” He paused for a moment, grinning. “Uplift has accelerated recently, but it’s not unprecedented, whatever your sources may be saying. There are a lot of Chicken Little types out there who start running around in tight little circles the moment something goes out of routine. But the nature of a chaotic system guarantees that you’ll get outlier measurements occasionally. There’s nothing to indicate that this sequence is ominous.”
The student looked unconvinced but didn’t respond. Erin turned her gaze back to the professor, who raised a hand to get everyone’s attention.
“As I was saying, we’ll divide into groups. We have staff from the USGS who will be performing their rounds, checking GPS transceivers, placing some of the remote units, and so forth. You’ll be tagging along. Some of you will be helping them with logging any maintenance requirements. Others will get to do the more glamorous activities like slogging through swamps. There are fumaroles to observe, hot springs to measure, rock strata to examine, and conclusions to reach. Tonight we will feast on hot dogs—not the name-brand kind either—and compare notes. Everyone, back here by seven p.m.”
Erin and Ayanda shuffled slowly toward the posted group list. Erin was relieved to find that her group didn’t include Creepy Guy. Erin could understand why the professor would keep Jenson as an assistant. His knowledge of geology was encyclopedic, his memory was near perfect, and he seemed to be quite happy to obsess over the smallest detail until he wrestled it into submission. Still, he gave off a vibe that made Erin want to be elsewhere when he was around.
When he looks at you, it’s like he’s dissecting you, she’d thought on her first day. She’d found him staring at her every time she looked up. The last time, she had glared back at him until he dropped his eyes. Since then, she’d seen him staring at other girls the same way.
Erin found herself grouped with Ayanda, along with Ted and Sheila. She knew those two by name but had never hung out with them. Still, they all seemed to hit it off right away. Going to be a good time.
The four of them waited until their guide came over and introduced himself.
“I’m Doug Shaw, and we will be doing a tour of some of the geology today. Not the touristy destinations like Old Faithful—we’ll be examining rock strata and looking for the ash and lava layers. Not as dramatic, but far more significant. So let’s get this show on the road.”
They piled into Doug’s jeep and held on for their lives as he took off with a reckless disregard for the rules of the road and the laws of physics. He grinned at their panicked expressions. “We get our excitement where we can, kids.”
It felt like it took only a few minutes to get to their destination near West Thumb. Erin considered getting down on her knees and kissing the ground, but decided she wouldn’t give Doug the satisfaction. It was a fair bet that he was deliberately trying to scare them. Succeeding, too, from the look on Ted’s face.
Doug grabbed his pack and pointed up the hill, then set off while everyone else was still getting organized. As soon as Erin and the others caught up, he began to talk. “All right, it’s time for the disillusioning. Here’s reality: you study geology, you get out of college, and you expect to spend all your time hiking around, looking at the scenery, checking and measuring and digging. Except you spend most of your time on paperwork and meetings. The level of bureaucracy is simply staggering.”
“Okay,” Erin said, “but every job has paperwork, right?”
Doug shook his head. “Not like this. Then there are the PR duties. You guys would not believe how much time I spend, in person or on the phone or via email, reassuring the public about the probability of eruptions or explaining why we can’t do anything about the volcano. Like I’m supposed to hose it down or something.
“And of course, we give tours to the public. Those can be good or bad, depending on the group. Sometimes I find myself wondering why I pushed myself through college just to listen to some kid whining about how his feet hurt from walking around in his flip-flops.” He swiped two fingers across his forehead, right to left. “Tourista!”
He put on a sorrowful expression, and the students chuckled. Erin was learning that people wandering around Yellowstone with wildly inappropriate and inadequate clothing and gear were a standard gag with the park staff.
Doug stopped and turned to the others. “One time, we walked to the top of Mammoth Hot Springs, and there was a lady up there in a dress and five-inch stilettos! Anyway, these tours with students like you are the best. I get to do the things I came here to do in the first place, and I get to talk about it with people who won’t go catatonic on me.”
They had started near Delusion Lake and hiked in the general direction of Flat Mountain Arm, checking seismic monitoring stations on the way. At each stop, Doug unlocked the enclosures, performed some basic diagnostics on the GPS and internet connection, and discussed the purpose of the equipment and some of the causes of breakdowns. It was routine work, but the whole process fascinated Erin. She promised herself that when she graduated she would be aiming for Yellowstone.
“So what’s your opinion of the recent events, like the melting road and new fumarole at Geyser Hill and such?” Ayanda asked.
“No comment.”
Erin stopped dead and stared at Doug. “No comment? Are you kidding? The massive increase in uplift? No comment?”
Doug stopped and turned to his charges. He started a couple of attempts to respond, then sighed. “I have my opinions, of course. But I’m an employee, and I like my job. Can we leave it at that? Please?”
The students traded bemused looks, then Erin replied, “Uh, sure, Doug.”
The exchange had cast a pall over the group, though, and they proceeded for several minutes in silence. Then, as they walked up a small rise near the lake, the ground shook for several seconds.
“Whoa! Did you feel that?” Erin said.
“Yeah. About a three, three point five,” Doug replied. “No biggie. We get dozens of quakes per day, although you don’t notice most of them. The trees barely moved on that one.”
“There have been a lot of swarms lately, haven’t there?”
Doug glared at Erin but didn’t respond. She found that more unnerving than his earlier demurral.
Ted, meanwhile, did not look reassured. “We’re not in any danger, are we?”
Doug stopped and turned to him. “Listen, Ted, you’re walking around in the caldera of a former supervolcano, which is very much not extinct. Of course it’s dangerous. But to put it into perspective, statistically you’re more likely to die walking around downtown Lincoln.”
Ted looked even less reassured. “Yeah, but what are the chances—”
He was cut
off by a loud grinding sound and another quake, this one strong enough to make them lose their balance. The pines swayed back and forth as if gripped in a tornado. In the distance, there was a crack and a crashing sound, just as the shaking stopped. The smell of damp dust hung in the air, and a shower of needles fell from the trees.
“Ow, my butt,” Sheila said, massaging the injured area. “That’s not part of the tour. This is unacceptable. Who do I complain to?” She smiled tentatively at Doug.
Doug seemed to have gotten over his earlier surliness, and he grinned at Sheila. “That was more like a five.” Then he lost the smile. “I think it took down a tree.”
Ted tried again. “So the chances—”
Before he could finish the sentence, the ground shook hard enough to toss the students off their feet. This quake was accompanied by a grinding, thudding sound like a fully loaded dump truck making an emergency stop on gravel.
“Holy—” Doug yelled, as trees began to topple.
“—shit,” Erin screamed, “that’s—” Tree after tree lost the battle with gravity. Loose rocks skittered down the slope, and a cloud of dust rose several feet off the ground.
After a few more seconds, the quake stopped. “—getting upward to a seven,” Doug finished, his eyes wide and staring.
The group picked themselves up off the ground, hands spread out defensively, ready to hit the dirt if another quake occurred. They heard a loud sloshing sound, which Erin realized was the lake pouring back into its basin. As she looked around, she could see that a significant number of trees had gone down. In many cases, the shaking had produced a domino effect, with each tree leaning on the next.
Doug finished examining the scenery, looked at his charges, and said, “I, uh, think we’d maybe better cut this short.”
No one argued, so they did an about-face and hiked back to where they had parked. On the way, Doug’s phone rang. He flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Hey. Uh huh. You’re kidding. Wow, that bad? Yeah, I understand. No, no, we’re on our way. ’Kay, bye.”
He turned to the group. “Bad news, kiddies. Vacation has been canceled. This quake was a seven plus. It’s opened some fissures, and we’ve got an honest-to-God partial collapse in the caldera. Not big, but still … Anyway, some of your classmates were injured, and your prof is pulling the plug.”
“Aw, heck!” Erin exclaimed. “Just when it was getting interesting!”
Ted looked at her as if she’d grown an extra head.
“Still no comment?” Ayanda said to Doug.
Doug gave her a sour look instead of a glare, which Erin decided was an improvement. “Still no comment, but note that I’m not going to attempt reassurance either. You can form your own conclusions.”
It took a few hours for all the groups to get back to the field office.
Professor Collins finished his third head count and said, “Okay, everyone’s here that isn’t in the infirmary. I’ll fill them in later. Folks, I’m not a lawyer, thank God, but even I know that a release form isn’t worth diddly if I knowingly take you all out into a more dangerous situation than you signed up for. I’ve been discussing things with the USGS folks here”—he indicated one of the onlookers with a tilt of his head—“and this is not business as usual. Uplift in the caldera just increased by a foot. Even compared to the recent movement, that’s dramatic. In fact, Dr. Lowenstern here has informed me that, based on today, he’s going to ratchet up the Current Volcano Alert Level from Normal straight up to Warning. And I remind you that the next level up from Warning is Oh, Shit!”
That got a brief, thin smile from the USGS rep, who had been looking very solemn through most of the professor’s speech.
“Anyway,” Collins said, “I’ve checked with the charter company, and they can take us home early. You’ll get full credit regardless, but I’m going to change the term paper requirements a little to allow you to put in some personal observations of your experiences today.”
Erin found Sheila and Ayanda in the crowd of students. “Hey, Sheila. Did you get your butt-cast?”
“Hah, hah. You are too funny,” Sheila replied, then continued in a more serious tone, “I feel a little sorry for the people who got injured. Hell of a way to start the summer.”
“No kidding,” Ayanda chimed in. “Two broken wrists, a broken arm, and two sprained ankles. Not a good day.”
Erin could hardly stop herself from bouncing up and down on her toes. “But did you hear what the ranger said? Actual fissures. Someone said there might even have been a volcanic gas discharge!”
“Okay, Geology Girl. Time to change back into mild-mannered Erin Savard. Sadly, we are out of here.”
“And they seem to be taking things more seriously now,” Erin replied. “Of course, they can’t buffalo the professor, and I doubt they’d want a public argument with him.”
Sheila looked askance at Erin. “Girl, you are really starting to worry me. You think this is getting dangerous?”
“Let’s do a quick test.” Erin waved to Professor Collins as he walked by. “Professor, any chance we can get a look at the damage from the quake?”
Professor Collins looked at her with a surprised expression. “Not on foot, no. I’ll tell you what, though. I’ll talk to the pilot before we take off and see if he can come anywhere near the area. An aerial view might even be more interesting. Certainly safer.”
Erin clapped her hands with enthusiasm. “That’d be great!” Then in an aside to Sheila, “He doesn’t seem too concerned. Maybe this isn’t as bad as it looks.”
Sheila shook her head. “Famous last words.”
9. That was Not Expected
Bill looked around the lab. “You know, it was a better secret lair when it was a rat’s nest of equipment and cables.”
Richard glared at Bill but didn’t rise to the bait.
Crap, Bill thought. Losing my touch.
Richard waved a hand at the equipment. “We’ve made a lot of improvements to the hardware that actually controls the portal effect. As Mighty Mouth here points out, we’ve cleaned it up and removed some redundancies. My computer setup and Matt’s controller cards now fit into two server boxes, with a couple of cables to Bill’s gate hardware. The control software, running on an iPad, has allowed me to eliminate my breadboard control panels. We’ve also improved the tuning stabilization. Once we get a strong match, the device should home in on it and lock on, which should prevent the abrupt shift in focus that caused the bang last time.”
Bill flapped his untucked shirt, trying to get some air movement. The day was hot, even for summer in Nebraska, and all the windows were open as far as they would go. It helped a little that this side of the building had been in shade for a while, but everyone was still wilting. Kevin was fanning himself with a Sky & Telescope magazine.
Richard wiped his forehead. “Yeah, I know, not the ideal day to be inside. So let’s get this done so we can get out of here.”
They went through the same sequence as last time. Kevin placed the dice-flipping device through the gate into the cage. He placed the video cameras in the usual spots. Preparations completed, Kevin activated the flipper, called out, “Ten seconds,” and walked back to join the others at the monitor.
Richard worked the tablet, tuning the portal. “Here we go,” he said and hit “OK.”
There was a loud roar, and a jet of yellowish gas spewed out of the gate, blistering a spot in the far wall. The room heated up to an intolerable level, as if someone had opened a door to a blast furnace. The table with the control hardware spun 180 degrees, while the table with the test apparatus rocked back on two legs and almost went over. A bright spark shot from an electrical short. The equipment shut down, and the gate closed, cutting off the stream.
As the gas spread through the room, everyone stampeded out the door, coughing and gagging. Bill slammed the lab door behind him. He turned and looked at the others. Shock was written clearly on every face.
For perhaps half a minute, no one spok
e. Bill leaned on the lab door, waiting for someone else to say something or make the first move. Finally, when it was obvious no one else was going to volunteer, he cautiously opened the door to the lab. The odor and the heat were dissipating out the windows, and the room was becoming tolerable. After a brief hesitation, Bill walked in.
Matt followed him in and went over to examine the blistered spot on the wall. “Still warm.”
“Well, that was fun. We must do that again sometime,” Bill smirked, but he was clearly shaken. He glared at Matt. “What was it you were wishing for? More drama? Are you happy now?”
Matt shrugged and managed to look both smug and embarrassed at the same time.
Bill scrubbed his face with both hands, then quickly scanned the room. “I guess we can all agree that wasn’t expected behavior? Anyone?”
Richard responded with a snort. He spent a minute examining the equipment, and soon found the smoldering cables.
“So what exactly was that?” Matt said. “Any theories?”
“No, but that’s why we have cameras,” Kevin said, returning with the three cameras in hand. One of them looked much worse for wear.
Kevin connected the dented and abused camera to the monitor and pressed “play.” The video showed the flipper losing focus for less than a second, then a chaotic series of frames, ending with a blurry image of the floor and some table legs.
“I think we’ll have to retire that particular camera,” Richard observed. “The optics look pretty much done for.”
Bill chuckled. “Don’t you mean toasted?”
“I think it was more of a pressure cooking,” Matt added.
Richard glared at them. “Is everything a comedy routine with you two?”
Kevin, ignoring the byplay, connected one of the other cameras. This time, the image showed a faint plume of yellowish gas fountaining from the gate. The effect lasted less than two seconds before it was cut off. They restarted the video and played it one frame at a time.
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