Chapter 7: The Experiment
The alarm sounded at 6 a.m., and Thaddeus Stout awoke with a headache. Disoriented for a moment, it took him a few seconds to realize where he was - in the Hotel Rosario del Lago, overlooking Lake Titicaca in the city of Copacabana. He gulped down a couple of Tylenol, got dressed as quickly as possible, and headed for the coffee shop, planning to have some breakfast on the patio overlooking the lake. I hope to God they serve Mate de coca, he thought. The tea made from coca leaves that Tyler Freeman had introduced him to seemed to be the only thing that was keeping him going in the thin air of the altiplano, and Stout, who did not speak Spanish, had memorized the name of the drink immediately so he could order it no matter where he was. This was his third day in Bolivia. Freeman had assured him that he would get used to the altitude, but he hadn’t yet seen any signs of acclimation.
He was supposed to have taken a helicopter to Titicaca the previous afternoon, but there had been some mix-up in the arrangements, so he had been driven to Copacabana instead. Freeman had stayed behind to go to the dinner at the presidential palace. The road was good the whole distance from La Paz to Copacabana, but the trip had still taken just long enough so that he had arrived too late to take a boat to the Island of the Moon. There weren’t all that many nice places to spend the night in Copacabana, and this hotel had looked nicer than most. Naturally frugal, he was pleasantly surprised at the rates and had taken one of the comfortable and nicely appointed rooms for $43.50 in U.S. currency. Of course, the American taxpayers were picking up the tab because he was currently, however temporarily, employed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Although the hotel was not exactly a resort, it did have a nice hillside panorama of the lake, which in the twilight had been almost indescribably beautiful. Stout was all scientist, but the beauty of the landscape around Copacabana wasn’t lost on him. He had noted on the trip to the lake that there didn’t seem to be anyplace you could look that wasn’t just extraordinary. For one thing, the sunlight at this altitude wasn’t filtered much by the atmosphere. Everything was brighter, and colors seemed to be more vibrant. Halfway to Copacabana, the guide who had driven him to the lake pointed out the cutoff to visit the Tihuanaco archeological site, one of the most important in South America, and home to a civilization that predated the Incas. Stout included archeology among his many scientific pursuits and made a mental note to visit the place. As they had neared the lake, the van had crossed a range of very high hills on a narrow road that snaked its way down to the village. Every turn revealed a new view of the lake, and it had been nothing short of an assault on the senses. He had been in mountainous country before, of course, but this place was something special.
When he entered the dining room, he found Jorge Salazar, the guide that Freeman had hired to escort him, waiting. Salazar’s assignment was to stay with the American scientist all the way to the island. At least he spoke English, and he seemed nice enough. During the long 90-minute drive from La Paz, Stout had quizzed Salazar about life in Bolivia, and had learned a lot about the country. Salazar was employed by Crillon Tours, and normally he took fairly large groups of tourists to the lake via Huatajata, where the tour company had built a resort called Inka Utami. The resort was also the home base for Crillon’s fleet of hydrofoils, one of which would take Stout to the Island of the Moon this morning. Freeman had met Salazar and liked him, so when Stout arrived he had arranged for the guide to be available to handle Stout’s travel needs.
“Good morning, Dr. Stout,” Salazar said. “I took the liberty of ordering your breakfast. The hydrofoil is ready to leave for the island whenever you are.”
“What time will we arrive at the island of the Moon?” Stout wanted to make sure he had enough time to set up an experiment before the waterspout returned. He wanted to test a theory, and he didn’t want to wait until the next day to do so.
“No later than 8:30 if we leave in the next half-hour,” Salazar answered.
“Good’” Stout said. “I have some work that must be done early.” He spotted a steaming cup of yellowish tea. “You ordered mate de coca. Thank you.”
Salazar just smiled and nodded. He was well aware of the difficulty visitors had adjusting to the altitude.
Stout gulped down the tea, poured himself some more from the pot that had been left on the table, then absent-mindedly chewed on some hard-crusted bread that seemed to be the only thing anyone ever ate for breakfast in Bolivia. While he ate and drank, he replayed the videotape he had seen at the embassy in his mind, frowning. He had a theory, one that he was sure was the answer, but it was an answer that simply couldn’t be. At least no one had ever observed such a phenomenon before. His scientist’s mind rebelled at the thought of a solution that was just impossible. Nevertheless, it was the only answer that fit the observable facts, and that troubled him.
When Stout finished eating, Salazar paid the bill and they headed for the boat docks. The guide had already loaded the hydrofoil with his luggage and additional supplies to take to the island. Cell phone contact with the island had been reestablished the previous evening, so Stout had already talked to Roger Malloy, the foreman of the FAA team on the island, and he was expected. He had found it odd that a country that was backward in so may ways would have universal cell phone coverage, even on the altiplano and in the middle of the lake.
Malloy would be setting up an experiment as soon as Stout reached the island. The foreman had the good sense not to ask what kind. He had worked with Freeman’s scientist friend on two previous cases, and he simply accepted the fact that Stout’s instructions would probably seem bizarre but would produce useful information.
The half-hour trip to the island was uneventful. The water had a slight chop to it but because the boat was a hydrofoil it had very little effect on the ride, for which Stout was grateful. Sometimes he got seasick when he was on the water for a long time if it was rough, and he didn’t need anything to make him feel worse. He passed the time making notes in the journal he carried with him everywhere he went. He was in the habit of writing down fleeting bits of insight that occurred to him while was working on a problem, a habit that had paid off for him more than once when he discovered that something he had written weeks, months or even years earlier could provide the missing piece to a puzzle he was trying to solve.
The boat arrived at the Island of the Moon at 8:25 a.m. Roger Malloy was standing on the dock waiting for the boat to be tied up. When Stout stepped out of the boat at the stern, Malloy extended a hand to help him. “Welcome, Dr. Stout,” he said. “We’re very glad to have you here. We need help figuring this thing out, and you’re the man who can do it.”
“I hope I can help,” Stout said. Two Bolivian soldiers carrying automatic rifles stood behind Malloy. Standing stiffly to their right was another, older man in a general’s uniform. “I didn’t know there were troops on the island, Roger.”
“I was a little surprised myself when they showed up,” Malloy said. “but they’ve been very helpful.”
The general extended his hand and smiled. “I am General Linares. I understand you need some men to help you set up some kind of experiment. My soldiers are at your disposal.”
As they climbed the terraced hill toward the base camp, Stout said, “First, I need to know if it’s possible to tell where, exactly, the effect begins. On the videotape I saw at the embassy, there didn’t seem to be a definable event horizon.”
“There isn’t,” Malloy said. “There’s an area around the atmospheric distortion that begins almost imperceptibly, then gets more pronounced. The visual effect seems to be diffused at the edges.”
“How near the shore?” Stout asked.
“Actually, the outermost part of the effect is on shore, but only about five yards of it. There,” he pointed to a small crescent-shaped slice of the shoreline that had been roped off to keep anyone from straying near it during an eruption. It was directly in front of the large circle in the water marked off by the orange buo
ys that Stout had seen on the video.
“Good. How are those buoys anchored?” Stout asked.
“With half-inch-thick nylon ropes sunk into a block of concrete,” Malloy answered. “The blocks are four cubic feet each. We had a hell of time getting them to stay put. We lost two sets before we figured out how far away to anchor them. The buoys are nearly 25 yards from the water column when it gets established, and it still pulls them pretty hard. We have no idea why. It’s not the magnetism, because there are no metals in the buoys.”
“But there is a magnetic effect?”
“Oh yeah. A very strong one. You can’t use cell phones when the effect is erupting, if that’s what it’s doing, and digital watches get reset to 12 o’clock if you get too close. We have to keep the computers and the electronic instrumentation shielded and at a distance beyond 200 feet when it’s doing its thing. It wiped three hard drives clean before we figured out how far away we needed to be.”
Stout frowned. “How much wind does the effect create?”
“That’s one of the odd things about it. There’s some wind, but not as much as you’d think. Maybe two to five miles per hour, when you’re very near the effect.”
“OK,” Stout said. “That means we can’t use anything metallic, but we need something fairly heavy. Do you have any lumber on the island? Some long two-by-fours would work, four-by-fours would be better.”
They had reached the base camp at the crest of the hill, and Malloy pointed to a supply area at the other end of the row of tents and temporary buildings that had been set up. “We probably have 15 or 20 four-by-fours. I think they’re 12 feet long.”
“Perfect. Do you have any sawhorses? The kind carpenters use?”
“Sure. As you can see, we’ve practically built a village here. Carpenter’s tools, we’ve got.”
Stout turned to Linares. “All right, general, here’s what I need. Have your men get six sawhorses and 12 of these four-by fours, and take them down near that area of the shore that’s cordoned off. And take some rope with you, along with one two by four we can cut up to use for stakes. You’ll also need a saw and a sledge hammer.”
The general nodded assent, signaled to a half-dozen soldiers, and strode off toward the supply area with the soldiers right behind him.
“I’ll also need this videotaped, Roger.”
“No problem, we’re already set up for that. What kind of experiment are you setting up?”
Stout grinned. “If I told you, you’d think I was nuts,” he said. “I’ll wait until it’s over. Then, if I’m right, you’ll think I’m a genius.” He glanced at his watch. “We have less than an hour to get set up. I’d better get down there.” He headed down the hillside to meet the soldiers, who were almost at the shoreline with the lumber and tools he had asked for. He produced a sketch of the experiment, then supervised its construction over the next 35 minutes.
He had the troops place a sawhorse right next to the water, well within the portion of the shoreline where Malloy had told him the effect occurred. The sawhorse was oriented so that its length ran the same direction as the edge of the effect. He then had them make a large wooden stake about three feet long by sawing one end of a piece of two by four to a point and cutting notches on the other end. The stake was pounded into the rocky shore directly beneath the sawhorse using the sledgehammer, and the sawhorse was tied securely to the stake at the notches, effectively anchoring the sawhorse so it wouldn’t get sucked into the effect. Using more rope, the troops then lashed two of the 12 foot four by fours together, side by side, creating a single unit 12 feet by eight inches by 4 inches. This was carefully balanced on the sawhorse so that it pointed directly toward the center of the circle marked by the buoys.
He then had the troops repeat the same construction right on the line where Malloy had told him the phenomenon began to have an effect. One side of the two lashed-together four by fours, balanced on the sawhorse, was inside the circle, the other outside. And finally, the other four sets of sawhorses and four by fours were placed at succeedingly farther away locations on the shore, about three yards apart. Every set of lashed-together four by fours pointed toward the center of the effect.
Malloy’s workers had set up a tent on the steep hillside above the shore for viewing and videotaping, far enough away so that the magnetic field would not affect the tape. The position of the tent afforded a good view of all six of the wooden constructions. All of this was finished barely ten minutes before the effect was scheduled to begin. At the same time, a helicopter landed on the makeshift landing area they had cleared on the crest of the island and Tyler Freeman jumped out, waving to Stout as he came down the hillside. The helicopter took to the air again immediately, leaving the area to avoid the impending eruption of the Titicaca Effect.
Freeman joined Stout in the tent. “I didn’t want to miss this,” he said. “I wanted to see what you’ve cooked up.”
Malloy and three of his men were also there to take care of the videotaping and to monitor the other instruments. Stout instructed them to aim the camera at the experiment, not the effect, and to be sure to zoom out far enough so that all the sawhorses and beams would be in the video frame simultaneously. He told them to start taping about five minutes before the scheduled eruption.
“Now, we wait.” Stout said to Freeman. While he waited, Stout took note of the fact that all the seagulls seemed to be leaving the area. There were no other animals nearby, so he couldn’t see how they were reacting to the coming eruption. He made notes in his notebook, glancing up at his experiment every few seconds.
At about one minute before the scheduled eruption, Stout placed his notebook under a tarpaulin, just to make sure it didn’t get wet in the downpour that was soon to come. Even though they were under a tent, he was taking no chances with his prized journal. He peered intently at the sawhorse and beam that were inside the effect’s circumference, next to the water’s edge.
At 40 seconds before the eruption, he glanced at the pocket compass he had brought with him to the tent. It had started to move back and forth erratically, as if it had lost its fix on the North Pole and was searching for it. He squinted at the center of the circle marked by the buoys, looking for any signs of disturbance on the surface of the water, but saw nothing. A light breeze seemed to be picking up, however, blowing directly toward the center of the circle. Suddenly, Stout heard the familiar popping sound of a helicopter again. He stepped out of the tent and scanned the sky until he spotted a chopper without military markings, obviously a private aircraft that had come to within about a half-mile of the eruption site and was hovering over the lake at an altitude of about 2,000 feet. There wasn’t time for Stout to guess at the origin of the helicopter or to worry if it was too close. He ducked back into the tent to return his attention to the six balanced wooden beams, watching them closely for any signs of movement. It was now less than 10 seconds until the eruption would occur, and there was no motion at all.
At exactly 9:49:51 he heard the telltale hissing sound that marked the beginning of the event. At the same instant, the wooden beam inside the circle began to move, simultaneous with the beginning of the lensing effect in the atmosphere. The end of the beam that pointed to the center of the effect began to rise like a seesaw in a public park. The other end went down until it touched the ground. The beam twisted and fell, but never hit the ground. Instead, it took off like a shot, heading for the center of the circle in a great parabolic arc, until it slammed into the rapidly enlarging column of water that was at that instant probably eight feet across, and disappeared. All of this was accompanied by a deafening roar that was getting louder by the second.
In what must have been less than a second after the first wooden beam had begun to rise, the second beam, the one balanced on the sawhorse at the edge of the effect about five yards from the water’s edge, began to tilt in exactly the same way. The end that pointed to the center of the effect rose, but more slowly than the first beam had risen. When the other en
d touched the ground, the end nearest the effect continued rising until the beam was off the sawhorse, standing without support at an angle that looked to be about 15 degrees. It stayed there, moving almost imperceptibly as it caught gusts from the breeze that was now blowing at about five miles per hour. It looked as if it had been leaned against an invisible wall.
The beam that was the third farthest from the effect also rose, but only slightly. The end nearest the column of water tilted until it was at an angle of about 60 degrees, not high enough for the far end of the beam to touch the ground. It stayed at that angle, not moving at all. The fourth beam rose about six inches and also stayed that way. The last two beams stayed exactly where they had been put, the phenomenon having no effect on them.
All of this happened within a span of about five seconds, just enough time for Stout to assimilate what was happening, when out of the corner of his eye he saw two figures running toward the effect, which continued to grow. It was two of General Linares’ soldiers.
The Titicaca Effect Page 6