Leems had listened carefully to this extended reply to his first question and raised another.
“If this phenomenon is as dangerous as you indicate, why haven’t there been widespread reports of damage? If it really surfaces regularly, that’s about eighteen times a day somewhere on Earth.”
“I agree that’s a point of interest,” replied Isaacs, “and Dr. Danielson has had another important insight in that regard, which she just told me about this morning. We think the answer is that, for the most part, the damage is of a curiously limited nature, and the locus on the Earth’s surface passes through relatively sparsely occupied territory. You’ve noticed, I suppose, that we are very nearly on the track here in La Jolla. From San Diego the path stretches across the southwest United States, where there are few people, although it does pass through Dallas/Fort Worth. The southeast United States is also not too densely populated. The nearest big cities to the path are Macon, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, both somewhat to the north. From there the path goes across the Atlantic, intersecting Africa south of Casablanca then cutting across North Africa and into the Mediterranean. It passes through the Middle East, but again misses the big cities, going south of Haifa and Esfahan. From there it goes across Afghanistan and Pakistan and through the Himalayas. The path cuts through the heart of China, but misses major population centers. If there were incidents in the rural areas there, as for many of the other affected countries, we might very well hear nothing of it. The path intersects Nagasaki and then proceeds across the Pacific. The story is very much the same for the locus in the southern hemisphere. Lots of ocean, relatively little population density.
“So I suspect most events go unobserved, and that many that are observed go unreported. The probability of a surfacing twice in the same place is small. To any single witness it would be an isolated event with little meaning.
“What Dr. Danielson has pointed out is that the seismic signal should come up within a region of high population density occasionally, increasing the chances of observing some associated phenomena. She predicts that the trajectory of the seismic wave will intersect a position within the city of Nagasaki this coming Thursday, July 8, Japanese time. On July 26 a similar event should take place in Dallas.”
“Well, you clearly want to put some observers at those sites,” said Leems, coldly. “Aren’t you jumping the gun, talking to us now without those data?”
Isaacs stared at Leems for a long moment, then replied in an equally cool tone. “As I said, the predictions were made after this trip was scheduled. I’m hoping the events that have already transpired will give you some clue to tell us what to look for.”
“Well, what about this business of sidereal time then; what do you make of that?” asked Gantt, attempting to head off Leems’ negativism.
“That’s one of the crucial issues we would like to raise with this group,” Isaacs replied to him. “The timing seems to be so special that it must be an important clue, but we haven’t been able to utilize it. Perhaps we could get some comment now from you.” He swung his hand in invitation around the room.
“Well, Alex—what the hell?” Gantt turned to address Runyan on the sofa.
Runyan scratched his thick beard. “I’m working on it,” he replied in a testy tone overlaid with humor, picking up the cue from Gantt. There was a general chuckle. “The sidereal time would normally indicate an extraterrestrial source. That seems outlandish in this context, but I guess we should kick it around. I deduce we’re under attack by an extraterrestrial army stationed on Alpha Cancri aiming tachyonic Earthquake beams at us.” The chuckles turned to guffaws. Isaacs smiled wryly, recalling his own fatigued fantasy.
Noldt asked, “How about a Jupiter effect? Is there an alignment of planets that would cause a tidal or some other effect that would be associated with a fixed direction in the sky?”
“Jupiter effect?” Isaacs queried and Gantt turned to answer him.
“The Jupiter effect is supposed to be a terrestrial upheaval associated with an alignment of the great planets every two hundred years. One version has it that this alignment causes solar storms that eject particles affecting the polar atmosphere. Associated changes in air pressure are supposed to trigger Earthquakes.”
“I don’t believe any of that,” Gantt went on, “and have even more difficulty seeing how it could enter here. The regular tides should swamp any such effect. I suppose this might be a resonance of some kind, but it would have to be completely unprecedented.”
“Where’s Jupiter now?” asked Runyan. “Would you have noticed a change due to its motion over the time base you have?”
Isaacs deferred to Danielson. “Jupiter is about forty degrees away from the direction we’re talking about,” Danielson replied. “That may not mean anything if a resonance is involved. A preferred direction that’s a mean of the Moon and the Sun and Jupiter might be involved. Over the last three months, the Earth has moved far enough to rule out a preferred direction with respect to the Sun, but Jupiter moves more slowly. I’m not sure we could rule that out.”
“Jupiter would have moved through two or three degrees,” Runyan stated, having done a quick mental calculation.
“That’s a shift of over a hundred miles along the Earth’s surface,” Danielson replied. “If that’s the case, we can just about eliminate the possibility of alignment of the trajectory we see with the position of Jupiter.”
Runyan continued thinking out loud. “The twenty-three degree angle of the Earth’s equator with respect to the ecliptic is purely random—there’s no other solar system or astronomical connection—ruling out the accidental location of Polaris. A fixed angle of thirty-three degrees with respect to the Earth’s equator means even less. This thing has to be basically terrestrial. And yet sidereal. I’ll put it back to Ellison. What the hell?”
“How do you know the Russians aren’t behind this somehow?” Leems asked. “It seems like some kind of beam technology could be involved, and they invented the techniques. A satellite could be rigged to fire at a precise point in orbit so that it would look as if it always fired from the same position with respect to the stars. As Alex just said, terrestrial, but sidereal. They might do such a thing just to throw us off the mark. I point out that the eighty minute period you report is very close to the time for a satellite to orbit the Earth.”
“That’s short, though, Harvey,” said Runyan. “A satellite takes closer to ninety minutes.”
“Use an array of satellites then.” He turned to Isaacs. “You have checked the location of Russian satellites, haven’t you?”
“No, that hadn’t occurred to me—”
“I’m sure you’ll remedy that oversight at the first opportunity,” Leems interrupted.
Isaacs gritted his teeth and Danielson came to his defense.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Why would they use any such weapon on their own ship? And wouldn’t we know if they had some technique for generating seismic tremors deep inside the Earth?”
“I don’t suppose we know everything the Russians are up to,” said Leems with a patronizing tone. “Perhaps they shot their own ship to embroil us in the very scandal you alluded to.”
Danielson leaned back in her chair, her face flushed. Isaacs shook his head slowly.
Quiet fell on the group momentarily, then Fletcher spoke. “Alex, you were joking a while ago, but it got me thinking.” He looked around at his colleagues. “Apparently, none of us can propose a natural explanation to account for the evidence presented: the seismic signals, the sonar signals, the suggestion that something is boring small holes through the Earth itself. I can’t buy Harvey’s suggestion that it is some Russian plot. There are too many weird aspects. I think we must seriously consider another possibility. Suppose that we aren’t dealing with either a natural or a man-made phenomenon?” A deep silence filled the room. “Suppose there is a, well, an external intelligence behind this?”