Polar Shift (20 page)

“Not at all. But I would be the first to admit that the theory of polar shift is controversial.”

“Polar shift?”

“A realignment of the poles.”

“None of us is a geologist,” Arbatov said. “Please explain.”

“I'd be glad to. There are two types of polar shift. A ‘magnetic polar shift' would involve a reversal of the magnetic poles, causing all sorts of unpleasantness but nothing we couldn't survive. A ‘geologic polar shift' would mean actual movement of the earth's crust over its molten core. Something like that could create a cataclysm like the one I believe killed the mammoths as a species.”

Arbatov was unconvinced. “You're basing your extinction theory on the theoretical shifting of the poles? You'll have to admit that it's unlikely that such a disruption could occur.”

“On the contrary. It has happened, and could happen again.”

Arbatov made a show of taking Karla's glass. “Our guest has had a little too much vodka.”

“I'll be glad to let you read my paper setting forth my theory, Dr. Arbatov. I think you'll find it enlightening. Especially the equations showing how a disruption in the electromagnetic field of the earth could precipitate a polar reversal.”

An argument broke out around the table between those who agreed with her theory and those who didn't. Despite their civilized veneer, it was evident that some tension remained among the group. She wasn't surprised. Scientists were no different from anyone else, except they were possibly more vain and petty. Maria's forcefully pleasant personality broke up the verbal brawl.

“My apologies for being so rude to a guest,” she said, shooting dagger eyes at her husband. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

With Arbatov neutralized, the argument ended as quickly as it started.

“Maybe someone could show me where you found Babar.”

She was told that it would not be a problem. Everyone helped Maria clean up. A short while later, Karla was in her sleeping bag.

The old building was remarkably tight and warm, and, except for the scurrying of tiny animals, she felt quite comfortable. In her excitement over the baby mammoth, she found it hard to sleep.

She remembered a good-night poem her grandfather used to recite to her when she went to live with him after her parents died.

She hardly got past the first line before she fell fast asleep.

T
HE
T
ROUTS FLEW INTO
Albuquerque late in the afternoon and drove to Santa Fe, where they stayed the night. Early the next morning, they got into their rental car and headed toward Los Alamos, which was located on a natural citadel atop the three mesas that extended from the Panaretos Plateau.

Trout noticed a change in his wife during the twenty-five-mile drive. She had been chatting about the scenery, wishing they had time to stop at an Indian pueblo, when she became uncharacteristically silent.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he said. “Adjusted for inflation, of course.”

“I was just looking at this peaceful landscape, thinking about the work here with the Manhattan Project and the terrible forces it unleashed.”

“Someone was bound to do it. Just be glad that we were the first.”

“I know that, but it still depresses me to think that we still haven't learned how to control the genie that we let out of the bottle.”

“Cheer up. Nuclear power may be old hat compared to whirlpools and waves on steroids.”

Gamay gave him a sour look. “Thanks for pointing out the bright side.”

Los Alamos had changed a great deal from the day when Robert Oppenheimer and his team of geniuses figured out how to put the power of the atom into a metal, finned cylinder. It was a bustling southwest town with malls, schools, parks, a symphony orchestra and theater, but it has never been able to—or wanted to—escape its dark past. Although the Los Alamos National Laboratory is engaged these days in a number of peaceful scientific explorations, the ghost of the Manhattan Project lingers still.

Lab buildings where research is conducted into the maintenance of nuclear weapons are still off-limits to the public, hinting that the town is still very much in the business of nuclear war. Tourists who drop into the laboratory's museum can touch replicas of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the first A-bombs, view various types of warheads and cozy up to life-size statues of Robert Oppenheimer and General Groves, the binary stars of the ultrasecret alliance of military and science that created the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Trouts stopped at the national laboratory's research library and talked to a research assistant they had contacted earlier. She had prepared a folder with information about Lazlo Kovacs, but most of it was biographical and offered nothing beyond what they already knew about the scientist. Kovacs, it seemed, was pretty much a footnote. Like Tesla, about whom more was known, Kovacs had become a cult figure, the assistant explained, and his theories belonged more in the area of science fiction than science.

“Maybe we'll learn more at the Kovacs Society,” Gamay said.

The assistant gave the Trouts a blank look, and then she burst into laughter.

“What's wrong?” Gamay said.

The assistant blushed and said, “I'm sorry. It's just that—well, you'll see.”

She was still laughing when she ushered them to the door.

The contact at the Kovacs Society was an ebullient-sounding man whose name was Ed Frobisher. When they called Frobisher, he said he'd be out and about doing errands and suggested that they meet him at a surplus store called the Black Hole.

The shop was on the edge of town next to an A-frame with a sign out front designating it as the
OMEGA PEACE INSTITUTE, FIRST CHURCH OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY
. The church and the Black Hole were owned by a local named Ed Grothus, who had bought up decades of lab surplus that went back to the Manhattan Project days. He called it “nuclear waste,” and advertised his wares for mad scientists, artists and pack rats.

The yard around the store was cluttered with empty bomb casings, turrets, office furniture and electronic gear. Inside the big warehouse there was aisle after aisle of shelves, all piled high with obsolete electronic gear, such as Geiger counters, oscilloscopes and circuit boards. The Trouts asked the cashier if he knew Frobisher. He led them to an aisle where a man was talking to himself as he rummaged through a stack of control panels.

“Look at this stuff,” Frobisher said after they had introduced themselves. “This board probably cost a month's wages of the average taxpayer back in the fifties. Now it's junk, except to a few tech nuts like me.”

Frobisher was a big man, over six feet tall, with a barrel chest that flowed into a belly that hung over his wide, military belt. He wore a yellow plaid shirt that would have hurt the eyes even if it hadn't clashed with the red suspenders that struggled to hold his pants up under the weight of his belly. The pants were tucked into knee-high, rubber fisherman's boots, although the day was desert dry. His thick, pure white hair was cut in bangs that hung over rectangular, horn-rimmed glasses.

Frobisher paid for the control board, and led the way out of the store to a dusty and dented Chrysler K-car. He told the Trouts to call him “Froby,” and suggested that they follow him to his house where the Kovacs Society had its headquarters. As the vehicles headed out of town, Gamay turned to Paul, who was at the wheel.

“Does our new friend Froby remind you of anyone?”

Trout nodded. “A tall and loud Captain Kangaroo.”

“Kurt is going to owe us after this one,” Gamay said with a sigh. “I'd rather get sucked down into a whirlpool.”

The road went higher, winding through the hills above the town. Houses became fewer and farther between. The sedan turned up a short gravel drive, bouncing like a rubber ball on its worn-out shock absorbers, and parked in front of a doll-sized adobe house. The yard was filled with electronic junk, resembling a smaller version of the Black Hole.

As they walked the path between piles of rusting rocket casings and electronic housings, Froby waved his arm expansively.

“The labs have an auction every month to sell off their stuff. Guess I don't have to tell you that I'm at every sale,” Froby said.

“Guess you don't,” Gamay said with an indulgent smile.

They went into the house, which was surprisingly well ordered in contrast to the haphazard nature of its surplus landscaping. Frobisher ushered them into a compact living room furnished with institutional leather-and-chrome office furniture. A metal desk and two metal filing cabinets were pushed against a wall.

“Everything in this house comes from the national lab,” Frobisher bragged. He noticed Trout looking at a
RADIOACTIVE
warning sign on the wall and gave him a horsy grin. “Don't worry. That's there to cover a hole in the wall. As president of the Lazlo Kovacs Society, I'd like to welcome you to the world headquarters. Meet our founder.” He pointed to an old photograph that hung on the wall next to the sign. It showed a fine-featured man in his forties with dark hair and intense eyes.

“How many members does the society have?” Gamay said.

“
One.
You're looking at him. As you can see, it's a very exclusive organization.”

“I noticed,” Gamay said with a sweet smile.

Trout gave his wife a look that said he was bolting for the door at the first opportunity. She was busy scanning the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that filled a good percentage of the wall space. Her female eye for detail had seen what Trout had not: judging from their titles, the books were on highly technical and arcane subjects. If Froby understood even a fraction of his reading material, he was a very intelligent human being.

“Please have a seat,” Frobisher said. He sat in the desk chair and swiveled around to face his guests.

Trout sat down next to Gamay. He had already decided that the best way to end the conversation was to begin it. “Thank you for seeing us,” he said as a prelude to saying good-bye.

“My pleasure,” Froby beamed. “To be honest, I don't encounter much interest in the Kovacs Society these days. This is a big deal. Where are you folks from?”

“Washington,” Trout said.

His baby blue eyes lit up. “An even
bigger
deal! You'll have to sign my guest book. Now, tell me, how did you come to be interested in Lazlo Kovacs?”

“We're both scientists with the National Underwater and Marine Agency,” Gamay said. “A colleague of ours at NUMA told us about Kovacs's work, and said there was a society here in Los Alamos that had the most complete files on the subject. The national lab's library has very little on Kovacs.”

“That bunch over there thinks he was a quack,” Frobisher said with disgust.

“We got that impression,” Gamay said.

“Let me tell you about the society. I used to work as a physicist with the national laboratory. I played cards with a bunch of my fellow scientists, and invariably the work of Nikola Tesla came up. Some of us used to argue that Kovacs was overshadowed by Tesla's flamboyant style and deserved more credit for his discoveries than he had been given. We named our poker group the Kovacs Society.”

Trout smiled, but he was groaning inwardly as he thought about the time being wasted. He cleared his throat.

“Your society was named after a
poker
group?”

“Yes. We thought about calling it Poker Flats. But some of the fellows were married and thought a discussion group would be good cover to put their wives off.”

“So you never did discuss the Kovacs Theorems?” Gamay said.

“Yes, of
course
we did. We were bad poker players but good scientists.” He reached over to a shelf on his desk and pulled out two booklets, which he handed to the Trouts. “We ran off these copies of the original article in which Kovacs discussed his revolutionary theories. This is an abstract of a conference on his work held here about twenty years ago. It was mostly a dump-on-Kovacs affair. They're on sale for $4.95 apiece. We've got biographies you can buy for a little more, to cover the cost of printing.”

Paul and Gamay perused one of the booklets. The dense text was written in Hungarian, and was heavy on long, incomprehensible mathematical equations. Trout gave his wife a “That's it” grin and leaned forward, preparing to launch his tall body from the chair and out the door. Sensing his impatience, Gamay touched his arm.

“The books I see on the shelves are highly technical, and you said you were a physicist with the lab, so we'd value your opinion. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you must know that there has been a great deal of controversy over Kovacs and his theories. Was Kovacs nothing but a brilliant quack? Or did he have something?”

“He
definitely
had something.”

“But he never proved it by experiment, and refused to release details of his findings to the public.”

“That's because he knew the information was too dangerous.”

Gamay smiled. “Forgive me, but that sounds like an excuse to hide his failure.”

“Not at all. It was a respect for mankind.”

Trout sensed that Gamay had a plan, and went along with it.

“If he cared about mankind, why did he work for the Nazis?” Trout said.

“He
had
to work for the Nazis. They threatened to kill his family.”

“I understand that's exactly what happened,” Gamay said. “It's all such a shame, don't you think? The man's wife and children died for
this
.” She slapped her knee with the brochure. “An empty theory about deadly extra-low-frequency electromagnetic waves.”

Frobisher's pale cheeks turned the color of boiled lobster. After a moment, the frown on his face dissolved into his big-toothed smile.

“That was a skillful job of baiting me.” He looked from face to face. “Now, please tell me who you
really
are.”

Gamay glanced at Paul, who nodded his head.

“We're with NUMA's Special Assignments Team,” she said. “Would you like to see some ID?”

“I believe you. What are a couple of people from the world's largest ocean studies organization doing in Los Alamos, far from the Atlantic and the Pacific?”

“We think that the key that will unlock the mystery of some unusual ocean disturbances can be found here in New Mexico.”

He furrowed his brow. “What
sort
of disturbances?”

“Whirlpools and giant waves big enough to sink ships.”

“Please excuse me, but I still don't know what you're talking about.”

“One of the NUMA scientists we talked to suggested that the disturbances could have been caused by disruptions in the earth's electromagnetic flow. He brought up the Kovacs Theorems.”

“Go on,” Frobisher said.

Taking turns, they told him about the ocean disturbances, and the speculation that they were man-made.

“Dear God,” Frobisher said, his voice hoarse. “It's happening.”

“What's happening?” Trout said.

“NUMA or not, you've blundered into something much larger than anything you could imagine.”