Hollywood how she'd had to dump her bland and boring husband before she could have any fun or success. Well, now things were different. He and Maggie were together, older but not worn out. They enjoyed each other's company both intellectually and occasionally sexually, though, he had to admit, she still intimidated him. Just a bit.
'Anyway,' he continued, 'since Atlas did his little cha-cha, I've been interviewed by TV stations, radio, newspapers. I've had my picture in the L.A. Times. People magazine called yesterday as part of a profile of major geologists in the country. I've been invited to speak here, there, and the other place.' He grinned at Maggie. 'I've even gotten a few marriage proposals from ladies who caught me on the six o'clock news.'
'Probably watched while they were peeling onions,' Maggie said. 'They were overcome by the fumes. Only rational explanation.'
Trevor winked at Eric. 'Professional jealousy is so ugly.'
'Professional jealousy, my ass!' Maggie howled. 'We're just trying to get you back to the point you were making before you started giving us the grand tour of your ego. And undeserved fame.'
'Undeserved? Why I know more about California geophysics and plate tectonics than anyone else, including that big mouth Tripette up at Berkeley. Go ahead, ask me any question. Any question at all.'
'I've got one,' Annie said.
'Fine. Go ahead, Annie. We'll show your smug mother-in-law a thing or two. What's your question?'
'How come you always have a pipe, but you never light it?'
There was a slight pause, a look of confusion on Trevor's face, then everyone burst out laughing. Including Trevor.
He turned to Maggie. 'Are you sure she's not really your daughter and Eric's the in-law?'
'Family secrets,' she said, wiggling her eyebrows.
Annie turned to Eric. 'What have you got to say to that?'
'I wanted a girl just like the girl that married dear old Dad.'
She gave him a playful shove and he rolled back into the sofa.
'But I'll answer that question,' Trevor said, holding his pipe out in front of him. 'It's basically an affectation, one I picked up in graduate school when I thought the only way I'd ever get a job as a professor was if I looked the part. Baggy clothes, mussed hair, a slight British accent, which was not easy for a boy from Missouri. And of course a pipe. Trouble was, I hated the smoke. So I gave up smoking a pipe after one try, but kept it for a prop. After a while, just holding it became as addictive as smoking it for others. Simple, huh?'
'Simple-minded,' Maggie said.
He clamped the pipe between his teeth and sucked. The wind whistled through the tiny stem. 'Seriously, though, the most remarkable by-product of all this publicity-'
'Here we go again,' Maggie groaned.
'-is that my students, what's left of them anyway, are suddenly enthralled with the heretofore dry and dusty subject of geology. They can't ask enough questions. For the first time in my life, I'm a popular professor.' He pointed his pipe stem at Eric. 'Eat your heart out, you young scamps in the English Department.'
'I'm in History,' Eric said.
'Oh, right. Sorry.' He waved a dismissing hand. 'English, History, Theater. Everybody's young in those departments. That's how I categorize our departments now, the young ones and the old ones, according the average age of the teachers. Not very academic, I suppose.'
Maggie nodded. 'I've been doing the same thing for the past five years. Philosophy and Religion are old. Art and Biology are young.'
'Physics is young.'
'Sociology is old.'
Maggie and Trevor laughed; patted each other's hands.
Annie smiled, reached over and slipped her hand into Eric's.
'Well,' Maggie said, 'I didn't sacrifice my body to this old coot just to hear about his pipe. He's been telling us how much he knows, how he's the Answer Man. Let's make him prove it.'
'When did you sacrifice your body?' Trevor asked.
'You've forgotten already. My, my, at your age I guess your memory is the second thing to go.'
'What's first?'
She grinned wickedly. 'Don't ask.'
'I've got a question,' Eric said.
'Shoot.'
'Is the worst over?'
Trevor sucked his unlit pipe again. 'Boy, you don't ask the easy ones, do you? After all this buildup I hate to give you such an inadequate answer, but I don't know. No one does.'
Annie sat up. 'I don't understand. That was a major quake, right? I mean, 7.4 on the Richter Scale. All those people killed, the damage in the millions. We couldn't possibly have another one like that very soon, could we?'
'Possibly.'
'But not likely?'
Trevor shrugged. 'Impossible to say. There are over one million earthquakes a year in the world. One million. In California alone, we often have several a day, every day. Most don't measure more than 4.4 or reach a magnitude on the Mercalli Intensity Scale beyond V.'
'Whoa, Trigger,' Annie said. 'What's this Machiavelli Scale?'
'Mercalli. In 1902 he created a scale which modified De Rossi and Forel's scale of 1880, measuring-'
'Save it for your classroom, Trevor,' Maggie interrupted. 'Just give us chickens the plain feed. Enough so we know which way to run.'
Eric smiled. He knew his mother was almost as knowledgeable about geology as Trevor. If not from her studies as an archaeologist, whose awareness of earth movements is crucial to new discoveries, then from her years of close contact with Trevor. But playing ignorant was her way of not making Annie and Eric feel too dumb.
Trevor continued undaunted. 'Simply put, the Mercalli Scale measures the shock intensities of a quake. It ranges from roman numeral I, which is the mildest form, often not even felt by people, to roman numeral XII, in which damage is total, lines of sight are distorted, rivers are deflected. It all depends how close you are to the center of the quake.'
'But the Richter Scale-'
'The Richter Scale can be misleading unless you understand the mathematical formula in relationship to the logarithmic scale. Which means that every whole point you go up on the Richter Scale results in a tenfold increase in size of the quake over the preceding number. So if you compare a 4.3 quake with the San Francisco quake of 1906, which measures 8.3, you're talking about a quake that's ten thousand times as great. And the energy released would be ten million times as great.'
Annie blew out a long sigh. 'Scary.'
'Don't worry, honey,' Maggie said. 'The worst is probably over.'
'Perhaps,' Trevor said. 'But according to a couple scientists named Gribbin and Plagemann, the worst is just beginning.'
'The Jupiter Effect?' Eric said.
'Ah, then you're familiar with their work?'
'Vaguely. I read their book when it first came out back in '75. Then a few years later their The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered. Interesting.'
'Oh, yeah,' Annie said. 'Is that the book about sun spots and stuff you were telling me about? The one that predicted Mount St. Helens' eruption?'
'Not that event specifically, but occurrences like that.' Eric turned to Trevor. 'What do others in your field think about their predictions?'
Trevor laughed. 'Well, before Atlas, there was skepticism. But now, well, the proof is in the pudding, I suppose. They were right. The only question left is whether this is the big one they were talking about or just foreshock.'
