With care, because their previous encounter suggested he might have a short fuse, she said, “You’re the geologist, Dr. Beynac. Could the local rock have unusual properties?”
“It does not,” he declared. “I investigated the area myself, two years ago. When the deposit was found, a student of mine, a good young man, he studied more precisely. If we had seen possible trouble, we would have warned.” Free of extreme stress, he spoke English with an accent mostly in the vowels and the lilt.
“Of course,” she said. “What I mean is seismic-type waves. How do they transmit hereabouts?”
“Hein? Moonquakes are negligible, of scientific interest only.”
“I know. But I’m wondering how the shock wave from the impact might have arrived.”
“Not enough to knock anything down,” he snorted. “You saw.”
Dagny bridled. “Yes. I also saw what did get wrecked. Forces had to cause that. Where’d they come from? The impact. How’d they get here? Through the ground.” Impulsively: “That should be obvious enough for anyone.”
He didn’t explode. Instead, his gaze grew intent and he murmured, “You have a hypothesis?”
“Fancy word for a wild-ass guess,” Dagny admitted. “Still, I have been thinking. How’s this sound?” She addressed Fuentes as well, and especially Guthrie. “A resonant frequency set that particular pylon vibrating. This in tun? sent a wave along the cable and made the gondola pendulum. If there was a rock layer down below that reflected the shock, the impulse would be repeated and the oscillations go crazy.”
Beynac sat t?olt upright. “Pardieu!”he exclaimed. “I sink per’aps—“ He leaned back, eyes half closing. “Perhaps. Let me too now think if this is possible. A transverse component—“ He withdrew into his brain.
“The probability is ridiculous,” Fuentes objected. “The system would have to have had the exact suitable loading and configuration at that exact moment.”
Dagny nodded. “Sure. What I’m proposing is a worse case than anybody imagined. It’s just that I haven’t got any better idea. Do you? They’ll have to collect data, and run lab tests and computer models, to check it out. But maybe today Dr. Beynac can tell us whether it’s worth checking.”
Guthrie’s words cut across her last few. “By damn, my guess is that you’ve got hold of its tail! Good for you, lass!” His grin and wink added: How I wish I could brag you up, granddaughter mine. “And if you’re right, why, we needn’t worry. I could draw a hundred royal flushes in a row before those conditions repeated.”
Beynac stirred, reopened his eyes, and growled, “Not true, mister.” Himself unwilling to wait out transmission lag, he went straight on: “This especial accident, yes,-I must do an analysis, but I believe today that Miss Engineer Ebbesen is basically correct. However, I am interested in meteoritics. That object was a member of the Beta Taurid Swarm. Orbital precession is making it once more, after centuries, a menace. Other strikes may well kill people in other ways. Take this that has happened for a warning. In every month of June, close down topside operations from sunrise to sunset.”
Fuentes stiffened. “Wait a minute! Do you realize what kind of burden that would be?”
Beynac shrugged. “Pft! I am a scientist. I shall make my honest recommendation. The costs, they are your department.”
Deferential, not obsequious, Fuentes signalled a pause for Guthrie.
The lord of Fireball smiled his oddly charming smile. “Gracias,” he said. “I’d been fretting about that on my own for a spell. Do me a favor and don’t stampede into a press conference, okay? We’ll assemble our facts and figures and calculations, and then go public. It’s that important. Major strikes are a threat to Mama Earth herself. The dinosaurs learned that the hard way; and if the Tunguska object had hit a few hours later than it did, it would’ve taken out most of Belgium.”
Beynac regarded the image with a freshened respect, Guthrie continued: “It could be that the human race makes a profit off the Rudolph smashup. We may get sentiment for a space patrol to track meteoroids, and deflect or destroy the dangerous ones.” He laughed. “Fireball will bid on the contract.”
Beynac surprised Dagny when he said, soft-voiced, “Another reason for humans on the Moon.”