The Krone Experiment k-1

by J. Craig Wheeler

  His physique conceded something to age, but Phillips’ rangy build still extended to nearly six feet. His thick grey hair was balding, but not exceedingly so. The lock of hair in the middle of his forehead gave the effect of a high rise widow’s peak. His longish face displayed kindly blue eyes underscored by pronounced bags. Phillips had come from a monied eastern family and had been raised in style. Although he was among the most highly respected of his colleagues, he had long been regarded as a pariah by some members of his family for not devoting his life to the disbursement of the extensive family trust funds.

  Isaacs introduced Danielson to Phillips and they chatted as they moved off down the walk and into a nearby building. Danielson warmed immediately to the physicist’s courtly manner, which belied his aggressive intellect.

  They entered one of the dormitories. The bulletin board in the foyer bore outdated reminders of the school-term occupants. Freshly scattered around were announcements of classes and various activities. In a lower corner, neatly aligned but yellowed with age, was a detailed list of covenants applicable to proper young school girls.

  Phillips gestured for Isaacs and Danielson to ascend the stairway that led from the foyer. At the top they paused while Phillips caught up with them and led the way down a hall. At midpoint he stopped, rapped once on the door, then turned the knob and stepped back to usher them in.

  The furnishings of the room they entered looked all out of place. After a moment’s reflection, Danielson realized that it was a regular dormitory room converted for the summer into an office. The beds had been removed and replaced by a large serviceable desk that stood against the left wall, littered with papers and books. A comfortable old sofa had been shoehorned in beneath the windows opposite, and along the right wall stood a roller-footed portable blackboard. Next to the blackboard a partially opened door revealed a compact lavatory. Extra chairs were placed randomly, adding to the sense of clutter.

  Two men sat on the sofa. Isaacs recognized one as Ellison Gantt, the distinguished seismologist from Caltech who had been instrumental in planning the large seismic array. Gantt had receding grey hair and wore dark framed glasses. His jowls and chin were beginning to sag. The two men rose and Phillips introduced them. The other was Vladimir Zicek from Columbia, one of the world’s experts on lasers. Danielson was unsure she would recognize Gantt if she were to bump into him on the street later; he looked like so many other grey, middle-aged men. In a coat and tie he could have passed anywhere as a business executive. Zicek was more distinctive. He was rather small in stature with sharp features and hair combed straight back from his forehead. There was a friendly twinkle in his eyes and his polite continental manner appealed to her.

  Phillips addressed Gantt.

  “Ellison, you’re our host here today. Would you mind assembling the others?”

  “Of course. Let’s see—it’s Leems, Runyan, Noldt, and Fletcher, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” acknowledged Phillips.

  Gantt moved into the hallway. Phillips offered Danielson a seat on the sofa, which she took. She realized it put her in full direct view of each new arrival, and she watched with amusement as they filed in over the next several minutes. Each reacted with various degrees of surprise to find an attractive female in the retinue.

  Isaacs remained standing, fidgeting at the delay, which would be barely excusable by regimented CIA standards. They were all assembled in a few minutes, however. Isaacs conceded even that was admirable for a bunch of prima donna college professors.

  Phillips courteously introduced each new arrival and Isaacs checked them off against the files he had studied. Carl Fletcher and Ted Noldt arrived together. They were experts in high energy particle physics, Fletcher, a theorist from Princeton, Noldt, an experimentalist from Stanford. They both were in their middle thirties, friends from graduate school. Fletcher was of medium height with shaggy brown hair. He had quick dark eyes set in a square face with the gaunt, tanned cheeks of a long-distance runner. Noldt was a bit taller, but blond and pudgy. A crooked grin and glasses gave him the look of a good-humored owl.

  Harvey Leems, a solid-state physicist from Berkeley, followed in a minute. Leems was tall and bald. His thick, rimless glasses diminished his eyes and contributed to a sour look. He greeted Isaacs and Danielson with a quick nod.

  Gantt returned lugging a slide projector and screen, which he proceeded to arrange. Last to arrive was Alexander Runyan, an astrophysicist from Minnesota. Runyan’s rawboned frame ran three inches over six feet. Danielson watched him come through the door and stop to be introduced to Isaacs. He was wearing a T-shirt that showed a slight paunch, cutoffs, and flip-flop thongs. He moved slowly, almost shambled, but Danielson sensed in him an energy that could be quickly galvanized. A dark beard going salt-and-pepper, particularly at the sideburns, covered a face she thought might be handsome if she could see it all. He turned toward her then, gave a look of surprise and delight and whipped off the glasses he’d been wearing. He stepped across the room and introduced himself, shaking Danielson’s hand and giving her a warm smile. His eyes were light grey or green, hidden in a perpetual sun squint that melded easily into his smile. He squeezed between Danielson and Zicek on the sofa. There was an exchange of knowing looks among the scientists. If there were an attractive woman in the crowd, Runyan would be at her side pouring on the charm.

  Phillips moved to the small, clear area before the projection screen that Gantt had placed in front of the lavatory door.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, “we are pleased to welcome Mr. Isaacs and Dr. Danielson from the Central Intelligence Agency. They have an interesting problem to set before us. It’s not on our formal agenda, but I’ve promised Mr. Isaacs we’ll lend what insight we can. They’ll present us with some details and then lead a general discussion to explore the nature of the situation. Mr. Isaacs.”

  “Thank you, Professor Phillips,” Isaacs began, looking around the room. “I want to thank you all for giving up your Saturday afternoon on such short notice. As you will see, we are dealing with a problem so foreign to our experience, that any hint of how to proceed will be most useful.”

  Isaacs spent ten minutes giving a general but concise review of the surveillance role of the CIA and the parallel operation in AFTAC with particular stress on the capabilities of the Large Seismic Array and the undersea acoustic monitors. He also described the role of the Office of Scientific Intelligence in guiding and interpreting the surveillance missions. He then turned the floor over to Danielson.

  Although nervous, Danielson had maintained her demeanor while watching the group file in. Butterflies struck in earnest, however, as she listened to Isaacs. She was intent on giving a professional presentation. She knew intellectually that she was well versed in her subject, but her emotional reaction was tainted by the knowledge that she, as a woman and an engineer, was about to stand up before an audience of male physicists considered the best in their fields.

  As she stepped around next to the projector, she was vividly aware that the all male group was equally conscious of her sex. Her voice broke slightly as she began, and she spoke her first few introductory sentences at a low volume that scarcely carried over the faint traffic noise from the window.

  “A little louder for those of us who are hard of hearing, please Dr. Danielson.”

  The admonition came from Phillips, but it was delivered with a warm supportive smile. Danielson heartened and her tone strengthened. She turned on the first slide, which drew her attention away from the audience and to her subject matter. Soon she was caught up in the precise intricate web of analysis that, through her deep involvement, was an extension of her own personality.

  Danielson’s reading of her small audience was largely accurate. Before she began to speak and establish some grounds for an intellectual bond, the instinctive response was to react to her as a female. Not a man in the room failed to run a glance from her softly curled hair down to trim ankles and back and say to himself, “not your
standard CIA type” or variations on that theme. There was a communal embarrassment and the reinforcement of some prejudice as she began so softly, but by and large they were a sophisticated and open-minded group prepared to relate on an intellectual level. Once Danielson got involved in her subject, she commanded their attention, and a growing respect. When she reached her major point, that the seismic signal kept sidereal time, time with the stars, there was a muffled commotion of gestures and excitedly whispered comments that told Danielson that she had established the desired rapport with her audience.

  When Danielson finished, Ellison Gantt spoke from his seat in the swivel chair at the desk.

  “This is a very strange situation, but let me say for the information of my colleagues that Dr. Danielson seems to have a good command of the basics of seismology in general and the nature of the Large Seismic Array in particular. I’d like a chance to study the data she’s presented in more detail, but at first sight I have to concur that the signal’s a genuine one. I’ve never seen one like it. It’s certainly not the result of normal seismological activity.”

  Danielson knew Gantt by reputation. She was pleased by his gesture of support.

  Harvey Leems spoke up from his seat near the door. “Do you have other independent evidence of the existence of this phenomenon—something other than this seismological record, that is?”

  “Yes, let me speak to that,” replied Isaacs. “The seismic data is crucial because it told us that something systematic was occurring and led us to look for corroborative evidence. That’s the other half of the story.”

  He gave a quick smile and nodded at Danielson. As he rose, she took his chair that was more convenient than the sofa. The remnant state of intense nervous involvement with her own presentation persisted. Several minutes passed before she could concentrate adequately on Isaacs’ remarks. Isaacs outlined the associated sonar data and the behavior it portrayed. Whereas the seismic signal was lost in the mantle, the sonar signal proceeded along the extrapolated path to the ocean surface, disappeared for about forty seconds and then retraced its path to the ocean bottom where the seismic signal was picked up once more.

  “On the basis of such data,” Isaacs continued, “about three weeks ago a Navy destroyer was sent to investigate a site of the predicted surfacings. At its first station it recorded and relayed a signal typical of the one I just described. It then took up position near a second predicted point of surfacing.”

  Isaacs paused and looked around at his audience. “Our data is incomplete, but at approximately the predicted time of surfacing, the ship exploded, capsized and sank. Two hundred thirty-six of the crew were lost.”

  Most of the men to whom he spoke stared down at their hands or off to various spots in the room. Only Leems and Runyan kept their eyes on Isaacs.

  “There’s some evidence that the turbines exploded. There’s no proof that the sinking of the ship was related to its mission, but the circumstantial evidence and other events suggest to me that that possibility must be strongly considered.

  “We have seen in hindsight that a related event probably occurred to the Soviet aircraft carrier Novorossiisk last April. It was in the Mediterranean on the trajectory Dr. Danielson described and at the right time, as nearly as we can tell. Something punctured a small hole through it vertically a few millimeters to a centimeter across and triggered extensive fire damage. There was an associated sonar signal. We suggested a meteorite, but the Soviets rejected the idea; we’re not sure why. In any case, that event began an escalating and very dangerous conflict with the Soviets. We needn’t go into that here, but to say that the Soviets mistakenly blamed us for the damage to the carrier. Besides direct physical damage, ignorance of the true nature of this phenomenon threatens us with other indirectly related, but very real perils.”

  Isaacs paused and scanned around the group.

  “It’s imperative that we understand this phenomenon for its intrinsic menace, and to contain this related confrontation with the Soviets.”

  He looked at them again, satisfied he had made the point.

  “To summarize the picture we currently have, then,” said Isaacs, “some influence moves along a line fixed in space. It travels through the Earth or the ocean where its passage can be detected with seismographs or sonar, respectively. It seems to reverse just above the Earth’s surface and then return on a parallel path. There is evidence that this influence is responsible for puncturing a hole several millimeters across through solid steel. And there is every reason to think that it is something that is an immediate threat to life and property and, indirectly, to our political stability.”

  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 sider
eal 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.”