the Novorossiisk. He gave a brief, professional description of the fate of the Stinson and her crew, but Danielson felt his pain. She sensed that his personal loss spurred him on in this venture. She asked herself how much of his renewed enthusiasm for Operation QUAKER was a reaction to his grief, how much a need for retribution against McMasters, and how much a cool objective decision that he alone must shoulder the responsibility.
'If you're right about the Stinson and the Novorossiisk, then the whole situation we're caught up in now,' Danielson looked around and lowered her voice even further, 'the Russian satellite and our, uh, device, stems from whatever is causing the seismic signal.'
'That's my reading.'
Danielson leaned back in the booth, her mind swimming, trying to assimilate all that Isaacs had said. 'This damage,' she mumbled, almost to herself, 'how could the seismic signals I was tracking possibly sink a ship?' She looked directly at Isaacs. 'What could this thing be?'
Isaacs shrugged his shoulders and looked pained.
'I've asked myself that over and over. I don't have a single rational suggestion. Only a profound vague fear.'
'Could it be a Russian weapon of some kind? But why would they use it on their own ship? An accident? And why would they blame us? Bluster to cover up?'
Isaacs shook his head again in worried fashion. 'My instincts tell me the Soviets aren't behind this. They really don't understand what happened to the Novorossiisk. Everything else has followed naturally, god forbid.'
'Then who?'
'Who? What? No answers.'
Danielson was silent for a moment, thinking.
'What is the Navy doing about it? It was their destroyer that was lost.'
'The Navy is continuing its surveillance, but sporadically and from a great distance. Of course, they're on full alert as well, so the energies of any of their brass who could make some constructive decisions are focused on what they see as the immediate problem — trying to monitor everything in the world that floats and flies a red star.
'There's a self-defeating dichotomy in their approach. They don't really know what happened to the Stinson and won't officially admit any direct connection to its mission. And yet, they're afraid there was some direct cause and won't commit any ships or equipment to close surveillance. As it stands, they aren't learning anything new, not even establishing in their own minds that this thing is definitely dangerous.'
'But you think it is.'
'I'm convinced of it.'
'What you suggest is so totally inexplicable, maybe coincidence is the only reasonable explanation after all.'
'There's the slimmest chance that I'm overreacting to some outrageous coincidences. But I think the situation must be resolved one way or another. I'm certainly convinced that the present hiatus is unacceptable. Someone must take steps to determine what is really happening here.'
'Can't you go back to McMasters and appeal to him to reopen the file on its merits?'
'I tried that. I drafted a long memo setting out the case. It only succeeded in getting him more angry. He suspects I had some role in the Navy's interest, but can't prove it. In any case, he's clever enough to turn it around on me. He made an issue of the fact that there is no proof that the loss of the Stinson was not coincidence and that the Novorossiisk was not, after all, sunk, and hence that there is still no evidence that anything important is going on, much less for a connection between the two. I sent him the memo, what, eleven days ago, the day before the second laser was launched and we started this whole new loop. So he also gave me a healthy dose of 'Don't you know there's a war on?', ignoring my argument that the issues are one and the same. He also maintains that since the Navy now has some official interest in the phenomenon, there is no reason for the Agency to duplicate the effort.'
Danielson toyed with a small puddle of spilled tome on the table, tracing a random pattern with her finger. She looked up.
'AFTAC is still collecting the seismic data — and sonar data from the undersea network, from what you say.'
'That's right,' confirmed Isaacs, 'but the Cambridge Research Lab stopped analysing this particular signal, once we terminated our official interest in it. The AFTAC sonar data would help to pin down accurate positions, but since I didn't have enough sense to make the connection, there's been no analysis of it whatsoever. By rights the Navy should at least be studying the AFTAC sonar data, but from what I can tell, they're not.'
'So all the data are piling up,' Danielson summarized, 'but no one is looking at them.'
'True. And we can't get at it. None of this is official Agency business, so a special request through channels is necessary — and McMasters has that approach effectively blocked.'
Danielson concentrated. 'There are the data we gathered before the halt came. But that's all in the inactive file. I didn't save anything out.'
Isaacs punched a finger into the table. 'I flunk we must start there. I'll have to camouflage my request, but I can get some of that retrieved without it necessarily coming to McMasters's attention. Particularly if you can give me an idea of the few things, data tapes and such, which would be of greatest use.
'The problem,' he continued, 'is that I can't do any of the analysis. I'm rarely directly involved with raw data and computer analysis any more. If I were to go anywhere near that data on a regular basis, McMasters would be on my back immediately. Any kind of blowup is apt to foreclose the investigation completely.'
'On the other hand,' Danielson looked at him Godly, 'I interact with other data and the computer on a routine basis.'
Isaacs returned her level gaze. He knew he did not need to spell out the situation for her further.
Danielson lowered her eyes to the damp spot on the table again. Isaacs watched her averted eyes and noted the crinkling between her brows. When she looked up there was a hint of mischievousness and triumph on her face.
'I can do it! I can add a couple of subroutines to my fourier transform package. Then I can read in and print out the seismic data interspersed with the results of other projects at intermediate stages when no one routinely examines the output but me. The chances of someone noticing without going through step-by-step would be very small.'
'I'm sure you can do it. The question is whether you should and will. If we're caught at it, your job could be at stake. I would take responsibility for giving you the order, but that might not be sufficient. I'm asking a great deal of you.'
Danielson paused. 'Do you really think we can do any good? We can rehash the old data, but if that's all, can we accomplish any more than the Navy?'
Isaacs suddenly pounded his fist onto the table and then hunched in chagrin as the bartender looked up in their direction.
'We can think!' he whispered intensely. 'The Navy is sailing in circles, no one is really trying to understand what is going on!'
He relaxed and put his hand momentarily on hers. 'There's no doubt we'll be at a handicap. This analysis by subterfuge will be far less efficient and useful than the way we proceeded before. But we can use our heads on the data at hand rather than hide from it. Any effort at analysis will be preferable to the fiddling which is going on now. Our Rome is up there in orbit,' he glanced at the coifing, 'and it could burn any minute.'
Danielson looked at him. She concluded that he acted from a variety of motives, but that the overriding one was a deep concern to prevent the escalation of the conflict with the Soviets by understanding what was happening to the earth. She could not readily accommodate the notion that she might personally affect global power politics, but she keenly felt the need to come to grips with the mysterious motions in the earth that she herself had coaxed into rational form. Could the alignment of the Stinson and the Novorossiisk with the trajectory she had mapped out be only a coincidence? To believe that would be so easy, but, like Isaacs, she could not do so. The alternative was horrendous to contemplate, but impossible to ignore. Whatever drove the seismic signal, killed. What bizarre, implacable thing plagued them?
She recalled her notion that Isaacs might have had some romantic motive for this meeting. A wave of embarrassment burst upon her. How trivial that notion was compared to the fearsome reality.
