Asimov's SF, October-November 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Jesus, no wonder everyone looks so bleak.

  “This hearing is convened,” said the commander of Group Seattle, “to learn the facts of what happened last Tuesday morning on Elliott Bay.” He said more, most of it to give the news reporters a lead paragraph, but Francie relaxed a little in her seat. She had been afraid the Coast Guard would push to Get Out There and Do Something and implement a solution before they even knew the root cause. There was still a possibility of that. The Usual Suspects were already demanding to know why the Coast Guard had not prevented the tragedy, and she had heard that one law firm was ginning up clients for a class action suit against the Washington State Ferries.

  No, the first order of business was to find out what had actually happened—to measure, as she liked to say, the size and shape of the problem. Her eyes dropped to the pad where she had jotted notes of her chat with the radar tech. He would testify later in more detail, using his logs and printouts, but the gist of it was already captured. Francie thought that what the tech had told her was important, perhaps even central to the problem, that it must be something more than an instrument glitch.

  The Committee heard testimony all morning: from the dispatcher at the ferry dock, from the captain and deckhands of the fishing boat that had nearly collided with the Hyak, from the VTS radar technician, from the pilot and co-pilot of the Coast Guard rescue chopper and the surviving frogman and crewman, from the meteorologist for the Elliott Bay region, from the chief mechanic who had worked on the Hyak's last repairs. No trace had been found: no bodies or body parts, let alone survivors. How could that boat have gone down so damned fast, and with no flotsam? With not so much as an oil slick?

  The reporters drifted away during the testimony. It was boring and it was for the most part technical. Francie, on the other hand, quickly filled her sheet with notes. The current encountered by the fishing boat. The wind encountered by the helicopter. Times of departure and disappearance, the vessel's beam and length, her capacity, her speed, the distance from the dock to the estimated point of her disappearance, her three oddly contradictory bearings at the time of disappearance....

  “Excuse me,” she said, and then had to repeat herself after the sound tech turned her mike on. “Tommy,” she asked the VTS tech, “do your records show when these peculiar readings began and when they stopped?"

  A moment passed while the tech searched his records. There had been several freighters and an oil tanker moving on the Bay at the time, and VTS tracked all of them. He found several other anomalies, starting about half an hour before the Hyak left dock. Francie asked for a copy of the data and the tech handed the sheets to a committee clerk for photocopying. She compared the time to the meteorologist's report of when the fog first appeared.

  Very curious, Francie thought. Gratz watched quizzically as she scribbled.

  “How is any of that important?” he asked.

  She reminded herself that he was still chasing terrorists in his head, and not yet gauging the metes and bounds of the problem. “I don't know that any of it is,” she admitted.

  “Once we locate the wreckage,” Gratz said, “we'll know whether they blew it up from the inside or the outside."

  She looked at him. “'They.’”

  He shrugged.

  She said, “No one heard an explosion."

  “No one reported an explosion,” he corrected her. “The sound may have been muffled by the fog or the horns. Or the bomb was planted down inside the hull."

  Francie turned once more to her list. There were any number of explanations. If this, if that, if the other thing.... Allow enough ifs and anything was plausible. They could spin theories until the cows came home. It could have been OJ or Elvis. It could have been little green men from Alpha Centauri. If you start with the conclusion, you can always imagine a trail that reaches it, but the simplest explanation for not hearing an explosion was that there had not been one. The proper place to start is at the beginning. Go from what you know toward what you don't. Don't start with what you believe.

  Later, and because the media would tolerate nothing else but, the man from Washington State Ferries read the list of names that had been confirmed so far. There would be a wall or a monument one day. That was inevitable. In the meantime, there was some balm in reading aloud the names of the lost. “John Dunning, master,” the man said. “Peter Jurgowitz, mate. James O'Grady, engineer. Karen Lewis-Nowick, assistant engineer...” And so on through the two oilers and the eight deckhands, the two Coast Guard frogmen and the seaman who had fallen from the helicopter. Francie wondered at the order in which the names were read and decided that it was the order in which their presence on the ferry—or in the aborted rescue—had been confirmed. Cindi Comfort, she heard. Howard Mannerhein. Dale Wingate. Mitch Raftery. Paul Latimer. Agnes, Becky, and Kyle Timmer. The names ran on. The litany was numbing. When the recitation reached “Donald Whistler,” Francie jerked a little in her seat and the man from Homeland turned to her and said, “Your husband?"

  “No, my baby brother.” Well, he was twenty-five, but he'd always be her baby brother now, because he would never, ever grow any older. She could remember coming home from college and little Donny running to meet her at the door. F'annie's home! F'annie's home! And now, little Donny would never be there again.

  Gratz gave her a handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said.

  The WSF official was still reading the list and everyone listened with long faces. A couple of times, Francie saw people in the meeting room react to a name. “We kept thinking he would call,” she said at last. “Mom and me and Andy. Andy is the oldest. Dad's dead. We thought, maybe Donny caught the 5:10 and he was safe in Bremerton before the Hyak sailed. But he would have called to tell us that, once he'd heard the news. He would have called to tell us he was safe. But it's been nearly a week now, and there's been no word."

  “That's the worst part,” Gratz said. “There's no closure."

  “Closure.” She squared the pad in front of her; moved the pen to one side. She hated that word. “After a while, you grow numb."

  “I didn't know anyone on board."

  Francie remembered that he was from DC. “Are you complaining?"

  He shook his head. “No, just admitting that I can't know how you feel."

  Maps of the bay were passed down the table. She took one and handed the last to Gratz. “I'm not sure that I know, either,” she said. Key points were highlighted on the map. Pier 52. The normal ferry route. The location of the fishing boat, approximately correct because its skipper had taken a sighting on Duwamish Head only a few minutes earlier. The direction of the current they had fought. The direction of the wind-shear that had nearly brought down the ‘copter. The positions of other vessels in the bay. And, marked with red crosses, the three contradictory positions for Hyak.

  Always draw a picture of your data, her statistics professor had told her years ago. Francie took her pen and connected the crosses. It was in there, she thought. Inside that triangle. She looked through her notes on the VTS network and marked the location of the three malfunctioning radars, connecting the radars to the positions they had given.

  “The three lines intersect,” Gratz said. He had been watching her construction in silence. “Is that important?"

  “I don't know.” She used her name card as a straight-edge and projected the direction of the current that had caught the fishing boat. It, too, ran through the same locus. The back of her head began to prickle. She did the same with the wind direction. It missed, but by only a little, and the ‘copter pilot had been too pre-occupied to take a more precise bearing. She added the other anomalous sightings, and each one had passed near or through that same point.

  She studied her ad hoc plot with growing unease. That was where it happened, she thought.

  Whatever it was.

  * * * *

  Taralyn Harrison

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: JJ Brannon

&nb
sp; What the hell is all the fuss about the Hyak? Mix some drunk captain with a little fog and incompetent government flunkies who can't even properly read radar they were trained on. It's plain buggy software compounded by human greed and stupidity at fault. The divers will find the ship once the mud settles.

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: Pagadan

  GMAB. This is Mother Nature striking back—and about time, I'd say. Who else could create fog, currents, and winds like that. And this is just the beginning. Did you read about the chasm on the way to Disneyland, the earth quake in that Texas oil field, the giant sink hole between Orlando and Tampa?

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: Velvet

  JJ, did you even read the report about the radar tech? It's a real, honest-to-God anomoly. Either time travel or a portal to an alternate Earth. I'd say a tractor beam used by an entity who couldn't quite handle it.

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: JJ Brannon

  All right, I saw that guy with the mini-sub interviewed on the 6 o'clock news. I admit those videos show no ferry down there in the mud. So I think it was Release 1.0 of some quantum-nanobyte experiment. Some of that crap probably got loose and the ferry fell apart in a zillion pieces and washed away. That's where all the steam came from, too.

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: FIJAGDH

  A buddy of mine out west says the Taos, NM, hum changed frequency the same day they lost that ferry. Which proves my theory about the Taos hum being part of some secret government experimentation with found/donated alien technology.

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: IrishBet

  JJ, have you forgotten the USS Eldridge? Teleportation could account for the anomalies at the time of reappearance. I've never believed they gave up that line of inquiry. SciAm ran an article about the practical possibilities of teleportation back in 1997. I'm betting a shiny new quarter the ferry will be back.

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: Tee-E

  Dont you people listen to yourselves? It's not a game!! I lost my boy on that boat. Maybe if you had, youd look at things different.

  Taralyn

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: Les OneGuy

  The only scientific fact that explains this is a teleportion experiment by the North Koreans, what else culd they be doing with those reactors. It's people like you who hinder the advance of civilization with your moralistic superstions, your sexual hangups, and your inability to see that all religions are a fraud based on the big people loarding it over the regular ones. This will probebly trigger a world-wide war ending in nuclear conflagation, but I feel that in the end it will work out for the better and bring humanity to the stars, or at least those of us who can see it and preapare for it.

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: Kwakiutl1968

  Have you ever been whale watching? Have you ever stood on deck and been fixed by those big, penetrating, accusing eyes? Whales know who we are, and what we've been doing to their kind for a thousand years. I don't know what they did to the Hyak, and I don't know how they did it, but the Hyak incident is only the beginning. The whales have finally decided to fight back.

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: Tee-E

  I dont know nothing bout no teleportation or time travel or althernate earths whatever that is. But I do know bout my son, Tiron. Maybe it mean something to you people, or maybe it dont. You think people just words on a screen cause you never ever see each other. But here I am doing the same, like my daughter showed me how, so maybe this is just something I need to do and if anyone read it or not, it dont really matter. So let me make the words flesh.

  Tiron he was a fine boy. Big, like he could rest his chin on top my hed and long arms. Had to be long to rap all the way round his mama. Only twenny last march, but he was working hard and trying to save up money to maybe go to the communty college next year. He was always study hard in school. He wasnt smart like some, but worked at it way his daddy did. He use to tell me things like I never heard of before, all about enjins and that. He had a book about how stuff worked and he'd tell me about it ever chance he got. And sometimes he take apart stuff like my toaster or the telefone just to see you know what was inside? You should of seen his eyes when he talked mashines. He wanted to get one of those soshit degrees. Nobody in our famly ever got no degrees, so we was real proud of him for trying. I know his daddy would of been. His daddy was kilt in the Stan, and Tiron, he missed him something bad. He never cried much. You dont want to be a boy cries much in this naborhood. But he always goes how he wants to invent something and name it after his daddy.

  Well he use to work little jobs at repair stores and stuff, like places where he got to play with mashines. And then last spring his name finly come up at the union hall and he got a job as oiler on the ferry boats. Oh he was so proud! He was so proud. He come home real greasy from those rides. Everbody like him and he like everbody on the boats. He was reel happy down there with the enjins and things.

  It was just before it happen that Tiron told me he want to be a navel architek which is all about building boats. I didnt understand half what he said and I probly didnt spell it right. I know I dont spell so good. When I was a kid I didnt have the same chances as Tiron so I never mounted to much, tho I kept myself clean and honest even when it was hard. Tiron, he could of been somebody.

  Whats hardest is that he wasnt supposed to be on Hyak that day but he traded with a friend who had to go see a doctor. That Keith is so twisted up over it. Half of hims sorry it was my Tiron went in his place, but the other half is happy it wasnt him. I dont hold it against him tho. Hes a nice boy and was good friend to Tiron.

  Tiron he lef the house that day just like always and took his lunch with him and he kiss me on the cheek and say he wants my pulled pork for supper. Thats what I was cooking when I hear the news. Pulled pork. Oh he did favor that some.

  You never know when you say good-bye for the last time. You never ever know that. It seem just like ever other time, and later you wish youd of said something more or did something more but you dint

  Was hard for me he called away like that so young. I dont know why the Lord wanted him but I guess he must got a reason. I just wisht he explain it to me, cause I dont want to think it just bad luck he be gone.

  Taralyn

  * * * *

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: Come2Reven

  I read an expose that the ship in question wasn't actually the U.S.S. Eldridge docked in Philadelphia, but the U.S.S. Philadelphia docked in Eldridge. No wonder the facts have been so hard to uncover, huh?

  Subject: Re: The Disappearance.

  From: DANNISGR

  Ch 7 is going to run a special with the guy who talks to dead people. It's about time science was brought in to solve the case!

  * * * *

  William J. Timmer, Ph.D.

  Abstract: It will be shown that the well-known disappearance of MV Hyak is the result of a singularity in the dynamic field equations for rotating magnetic fields. The locus for this singularity will be shown to be unstable in the sense of Poincare and to be subject to aperiodic shifts in its locus due to endogenous factors. These shifts will be conceptualized by means of Thomian catastrophe surfaces.

  Text: It is well known that the state of a dynamic system acting under a potential will move toward the nearest equilibrium point in its state space in such a way as to minimize the value of the potential function. The set of all such equilibria comprises a manifold over the parameter space known as the “attractor.” If the manifold is “folded” or “pleated,” loci exist in parameter space possessing two or more
distinct equilibria. A system entering such a bifurcation set while at one equilibrium will snap to the other should it leave the set at the opposite boundary. From the reference frame of the original state, the object will appear to accelerate rapidly in a direction orthogonal to the sheet. Rene Thom [7] called this a catastrophe, although he did not mean a catastrophe in the colloquial sense, such as the loss of one's wife and children, but simply a sudden change from one equilibrium state to another.

  The anomalous radar fixes in the case of the Seattle Event, each of which showed the ferry accelerating directly away from it, provide a good empirical fit to the model. The fit is further substantiated by anecdotal evidences; namely, the dopplering of the boat's horn and the red-shifted light reported by eyewitnesses. Clearly, the vessel accelerated along a dimension orthogonal to normal 3-space. It is suggested that the Elliott Bay Anomaly marks the edge of a higher dimension bifurcation set in space-time. One might call this colloquially a “drain-hole."

  That a singularity must exist in certain dynamic systems is well known, but the locus of the singularity may be subject to random fluctuations. A comparison is made to the familiar topological problem of covering a billiard ball with hair. Such a cover must leave a gap, for example the “bald spot” that forms when men comb their hair flat. If the hair is combed differently, the “bald spot” will appear in a different position.

  An analogous process can be applied to higher dimensional dynamic manifolds. While locally smooth, they cannot be globally smooth. Very little in life is globally smooth. Thom's Classification Theorem states that only seven stable catastrophes can arise from variations in the parameter space. These qualitatively distinct discontinuities arise from a combination of technical and geometric considerations involving the regions of parameter space where the catastrophes happen. It is suggested that the Elliott Bay Anomaly is of this nature. Anecdotal data suggests a former locus near the island of Bermuda. A hole being an absence (or is it the absence that leaves the hole?), it does not physically move; but a change induced on the manifold that closes a hole will inevitably cause another to open elsewhere. A conservation law is suspected. This will require additional research.