Wednesday morning Pat Danielson clambered down from the rear seat of the jet-black F-16 that 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 toward the fighter. “We landed before we took off.”
“Holy cow!” 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 adventure!”
He helped her through the passenger hatch in the side of the helicopter, handed 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 buckled 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 the 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 program. 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 of her 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 toward Gantt. “What about this cessation of the signal below the surface that 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 that have 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 behavior for a normal seismic wave, but it might be consistent with Alex’s beast as we discussed in 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 fr
om 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 epicenter, 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 meters.”
“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 Danielson 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 swiveled in his seat toward 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 toward Gantt and had been caught with one foot in 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 toward the instrumentation. Danielson’s gaze followed his and they simultaneously swiveled to look at the seismometers. All the needles had fallen to rest, tracking a straight line down the center of the strip charts. In the same instant as the faint whistling stopped, the needles twitched 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 color. 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 g
ot 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 gyros 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 license plate, only enough detail to discern a car from a house.
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