One of them had a 12-gauge shotgun. Remington 870.
The other an M3A1.45 submachine gun.
They were standing at Eric's front door talking to Annie and his mother when he rounded Blue Lake Drive. Immediately Eric jerked the handlebars, hopping the curb with a jolt. He pedaled furiously down the sidewalk, his legs pumping like steam pistons as he cut across his neighbor's immaculately manicured lawn, slicing a thin brown rut through the grass.
"Hey, buddy!" a harsh voice barked. "Hold up there."
Eric glanced over his shoulder, saw the two cars parked at the curb. A police patrol car and an army jeep. Three young soldiers were climbing out of the jeep, swinging their M-l6s in his direction. A uniformed cop leaning against the patrol car spit out his gum and unsnapped his holster.
The two armed men at his front door turned but made no move with their weapons. Eric could see Annie explaining to them who he was, her hands waving urgently. The man with the shotgun, also in police uniform, waved an okay to his partner by the patrol car. The man with the submachine gun, dressed in army khaki with a sergeant's stripes on his arm, nodded at his men by the jeep and they relaxed their weapons.
Eric squeezed the hand brakes, forgetting that the front ones were frozen with rust. The back brakes gripped the tire firmly, sending it skidding sideways in the grass. Eric climbed off the bike and let it drop onto the lawn. He left his briefcase stuffed in the bike's rear basket, leaving his hands free.
"What's going on?" he said pleasantly, but his eyes were dark, studying the men, the situation.
"Nothing," Annie jumped in quickly. She recognized Eric's calculating look, his measured walk. "This is Officer Perkins of the Irvine police and Sergeant Sutton of the army."
The uniformed men nodded politely. No one offered to shake hands.
"Are you Eric Ravensmith?" Officer Perkins asked.
"Yes."
Officer Perkins read from a wrinkled card in his hand. "We are authorized to search your house for any firearms," he recited with a bored monotone, "This is not to be construed as an accusation of any crime. Duly appointed officers are presently conducting house-to-house searches throughout the state in an effort to protect the health and welfare of all its citizens in this time of crisis. We appreciate your cooperation in this emergency." He tucked the card into his shirt pocket. "Questions?"
"You have a warrant? Something giving you the authority?"
"Yes, sir, we do." He nodded at Eric's mother who was peering through her bifocals at a piece of paper.
"Looks pretty goddamn official, Eric," she sighed, handing the paper to Eric.
He glanced at it quickly, turned to Annie. "Where are the kids?"
"Upstairs."
"Better check on them," he said slowly, his eyes fixed on hers. "Both of them."
"Okay," she said and disappeared into the house.
Eric handed the paper back to the policeman. "Statewide house-to-house, huh? Must take a lot of manpower."
Sergeant Sutton nodded, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at the parked jeep. "Yes, sir. That's why we've been using reserves to help out."
"They're a little trigger happy, aren't they?"
"Yes, sir," Sergeant Sutton shrugged disgustedly. "But that's what they gave me."
"I haven't read anything in the papers about this?"
"No, sir," the sergeant said. "They didn't want to give everybody a chance to go bury their guns someplace. It's gonna be hard enough as it is, what with people warning each other by phone. There was even some talk of cutting the phone service for a couple days. Nothing came of it though. Red tape, I guess. Or politics."
"What's the point of all this?"
"Well, seems like we've had more than a little looting since the quake. Folks are damn near scared of anything that moves. People been shooting each other all up and down the state. Anything that goes bump in the night, including relatives, neighbors and pets. Grocery stores have been robbed a lot lately, with bands of people stealing all the canned foods they could carry. It's a mess in some places. I guess they don't want it to get no worse."
Eric nodded. "Okay, gentlemen. How do we do this?"
"Well, Mr. Ravensmith," Officer Perkins said, "we'd appreciate it if you'd just give us all your guns. You'll get a receipt for each, redeemable at a later date."
"What date, officer?"
Officer Perkins shook his head. "Undetermined, sir."
"So, if I tell you we don't have any guns, you're going to take my word for it?"
"Not exactly, sir." Officer Perkins nudged Sergeant Sutton, who gestured over his shoulder at the three soldiers. Each slung his rifle over his shoulder and reached into the jeep, pulling out portable metal detectors. Officer Perkins looked into Eric's eyes. "Just in case you overlook a gun someplace."
Annie reappeared at the door. "The kids are fine," she told Eric. "I checked."
Eric smiled. "Then let's not delay these gentlemen any longer."
"I hadn't counted on this," Eric said, leaning against the kitchen wall. Overhead they could hear the soldiers clumsily searching every room. Occasionally one of their metal detectors would bang into the wall or bump a piece of furniture.
"They're paying for every chip and scratch," Annie warned.
"It's the goddamnedest thing I've ever seen," Maggie Ravensmith said. "And in sixty-two years I've seen a hell of a lot."
Annie poured Maggie and herself a cup of coffee. "The sergeant told me that they've even cleaned out the gun shops and sporting goods stores. They figure that even if they miss a few guns at least there won't be any ammunition around."
"Makes sense," Eric said. "Most people don't know enough about guns to handle one properly, especially in a situation like this. They're more likely to shoot their friends than anyone trying to harm them. I just wish I'd predicted this last month. I'd have hidden those guns I bought instead of stashing them in the bedroom."
Maggie sipped her coffee, the steam fogging her bifocals. "Well, at least you were smart enough to have Annie check those two bozos out before you let them into the house. So I guess your brain hasn't quite turned to mush yet."
Eric looked surprised. "You knew?"
"Ha, are you kidding? 'Check the kids, Annie. Both of them.' Meaningful looks." She knitted her eyebrows in an imitation of her son. "You might fool those guys, but not your mother. Who'd you call, Annie?"
"Local police station. Gave them Officer Perkins name and description. They verified him and Sergeant Sutton."
"That's my little superspy," Eric smiled, opening the refrigerator and plucking out a can of Pepsi.
Maggie Ravensmith looked at her son, then at her daughter-in-law. She removed her bifocals and began polishing them with the corner of her blouse.
"Uh oh," Eric said. "What's wrong, Mom?"
"What makes you say that?"
"The glasses-cleaning routine. You always do that when something's bugging you."
She frowned. "Now that they've taken your guns, where does that put you with Fallows?"
"Jesus, Mom, you get right to it, don't you?" Annie said.
"Have to, Annie. Not just for your sakes, but for the kids', too."
"We're covered," Eric said. "We've got alarms attached to every door and window. Nobody can get in without setting off the loudest damn siren you've ever heard."
"Yeah, but then what? How will you protect yourselves once they're in?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Ravensmith," Officer Perkins interrupted, stepping into the kitchen. "My men and I are done now."
"Find anything useful?"
"Nope. We checked the house and garage. The shotgun and the automatic you gave us were all you had. Except this." He opened his hand to reveal a gold earring in the shape of a palm tree.
"My God, I've been looking for that for six months," Annie said, taking the earring. "Where did you find it?"
"Back of the closet in the master bedroom," he smiled. "You'd be surprised what we find sometimes. Fillings. Bear traps."
"Bear traps?" Maggie asked.
"Yup. Seems some old geezer over on Alton thought he might catch his wife's lover if he ever tried to hide in their closet." He looked at Eric. "In your case we also came across these." He waved at someone behind him. One of the young soldiers came in carrying Eric's longbow and crossbow. "You a hunter, Mr. Ravensmith?"
"I have hunted."
"The reason I ask, this crossbow looks pretty new."
Eric drank from his Pepsi and shrugged. "So?"
"Nothing. It's just that I want to caution you about these things. They're as dangerous as rifles, but since we've been told to collect only firearms, I'm not taking it." He looked at it with appreciation. "It's a beaut, though. What kind?"
"Barnett Commando. Hundred-and-fifty-pound draw. The frame is aluminum, the barrel and cocking mechanism is brass."
"Cocking mechanism?"
"Yeah, instead of pulling the string back by hand, it has a break-action like a shotgun."
"Jesus," he whistled. "Looks like something outta Star Wars." He hesitated, as if hoping they could go on talking about bows and earrings and bear traps rather than searching another hostile house where somebody would scream in his ear about the Constitution and their rights, calling him Gestapo and worse. But when no one spoke, he shrugged, handed Eric a receipt. "You'll need this to redeem your guns. You'll get a notice in the mail. Thanks for cooperating."
"Sure thing," Eric said, ushering him toward the front door. As he closed the door behind Officer Perkins, Eric could see the crowd of neighborhood residents arguing with the soldiers. Before the earthquake, most of them wouldn't have even considered raising their voices at a policeman. But things had changed, more than just property damage and injuries. Attitudes.
Eric returned to the kitchen, opened another Pepsi. He'd decided not to tell Annie about the note he'd found pinned to his bike. She was already pretty jittery, and now that their guns were gone, the situation was worse. He would just have to lake more precautions now. Be extra careful.
He shoved his hand into his pocket, felt the crumpled note nestled among loose change and keys. Just touching it made his skin burn. A quote from Shakespeare. That was Fallows all right. He'd confided in Eric once that he'd been thrown out of three colleges before his wealthy father made a sizeable donation for a new library wing at a prestigious university. Young Dirk Fallows was immediately admitted and finally graduated from there two years later. He never mentioned what his major was, but even in Nam he was always quoting from Shakespeare. Not to show off, but almost as if in his violent rages he was unable to find his own words. That made it all the more frightening, because everything he quoted sounded sinister, evil. It was quite a sight to see this grizzled face leading an attack on Charlie, spewing obscenities and Shakespeare with equal skill.
Eric touched his scar, felt its shiny unnatural smoothness. What were the last words he'd heard Fallows say that day of the Easter Massacre, the hot, bloody bayonet still clutched in the bastard's hand? He was laughing. "Come not between the dragon and his wrath, Eric ole buddy. King Lear, Act I, Scene i, line 124." Then he'd stopped laughing, grabbed Eric's hair and jerked his sagging head upright. Even bound as he was to a hitching post, his face seared and bleeding, Eric had tried to lunge at Fallows. Fallows' face had darkened, his voice sharp and hard, but so quiet only Eric could hear it. "You were different than the rest, Eric. I was patient with you, tried to teach you, confided in you. I tried harder with you than with anyone else. Ever." He'd tightened his grip on Eric's hair, forcing his head back against the post. He spoke rapidly now through clenched teeth, but there was a hint of sadness in his voice. "I've never looked for a friend, never needed one. But you might have been. We could've owned this pissant country. What would it have cost you? Some respect, that's all. Was that too much to ask?"
Eric's throat was leathery, dry, his face aflame with pain. But he managed to choke out one word. "Yes."
Fallows' eyes widened with hate, his lips curled back into a death skull's smile. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Then he snapped his knee into Eric's crotch, lifting him off the ground, driving him into the post. Eric had mercifully slipped into semi-consciousness, though he could hear some of the other Night Shift soldiers gasp. "Remember," Fallows had said, though at the time Eric wasn't sure whether he'd been speaking to the men or to Eric. It didn't matter. Neither forgot.
The worst part of the note had been signing it with Luther's name. More of Fallows' black humor, Eric had felt personally responsible for Luther's death, and no amount of rationalization had been able to lighten that burden. Fallows would know that. He was not a stupid hick ex-soldier. He was the cleverest, most resourceful man Eric had ever met. Also the crudest, most ruthless. As a young kid in Nam, Eric had been tempted to accept Fallows' friendship. The patronage of an older, more experienced fighter, regardless of his methods, could mean the difference in how you got home: alive and with all your parts working, or an ugly, rotting lump in a body bag. For Fallows protected his followers with the same enthusiasm with which he destroyed his enemies. But somehow Eric had sensed it was not the way to go. That it would be the first step down a dark, winding road from which there was no return. That had only made Fallows more insistent. It became an obsession, a crusade. Until that last day.
Eric let his fingers skate across the icy surface of the scar again. He had to forget the past, ignore the future. Just concentrate on the present. Protecting his family. Staying alive. Don't let the rest of them know how he felt. He pulled on a casual smile, turned to his mother. "What time's your boyfriend coming over, Mom?"
"For God's sake, he's not my boyfriend," she scowled, but her eyes crinkled with delight. "Trevor and I have known each other since graduate school, before I even met your dad. Hell, the old fart helped me get my job. And yours too, I might add, young man."
Eric held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay."
"Besides, Trevor's brilliant in the one thing everybody wants to know about these days."
"What's that?" Annie asked.
Maggie smiled. "Earthquakes."
Eric stood silently outside the door and listened.
"Cmon, one game. Please?"
"Get lost, creepface."
"Be a sport. Jenny. One lousy game, then I'll leave you alone. Promise."
"Grow up or get out. Can't you see I'm trying to make a phone call?"
"Big deal. Big deal phone call."
"I don't see anybody calling you up."
"Nobody's calling you either. You're the one making the call."
"At least I have friends to call."
"I have friends," Timmy protested.
"I mean normal friends, not those jerks you hang around with. Talking chess all the time. The Sausilito Defense and stuff."
"Sicilian Defense. And it's better than talking about who's wearing whose letter sweater at school. Or who kissed who."
Jenny giggled. "You won't think so in a couple years, gargoyle breath."
"How about a game after you're done with your call? I'll spot you a rook and a bishop."
"Unh uh, no deal. You'd win anyway. Why don't you play with that chess computer Dad got you? I thought you liked it."
"Yeah, I do. Only I like playing real people better." There was something sad in his voice that vibrated through Eric's stomach, caught in his throat.
Jenny must have heard it too. "Okay, as soon as I'm done talking to Lisa. But only if you're quiet while I'm on the phone. And one game, Timmy, I mean it. No begging afterwards."
"Great!"
"But I want a rook, a bishop, and a knight."
"Okay, but I get white. And no more-"
Eric moved away from the door and continued on down the dark hallway, smiling. This was one of his favorite pastimes, watching the kids from a distance, overhearing them playing or arguing. He wasn't spying, just delighting in their presence, an invisible observer to a world that made all others seem silly and useless by comparison. It wasn't innocence exactly; in Nam he'd seen enough of what horrors children could do under the right conditions. It was something else. Vulnerability? Trust? Yeah, maybe that was it, trust. Their innate trust that parents always knew what they were doing. It made you want to be more than you were, somehow better. To live up to their image.
It didn't matter that the kids weren't his biologically, he loved them as much as was possible, had even gotten used to thinking of them as if they really were his. They were young when he'd married Annie. Jenny was four and Timmy was two. Timmy had accepted him right away, curling up in Eric's lap every night and drooling on his pants. Jenny had been more reserved, even hostile, certain that her real father was coming home from Vietnam no matter what anyone said. Unfortunately, Eric knew differently because he had seen Lt. Stephen Finnegan's charred corpse still smouldering among the scattered pieces of twisted metal that once had been a helicopter. It was Lieutenant Finnegan's third mission as a chopper pilot. A barefoot woman not even five feet tall, with an AK-47 strapped to one shoulder and a three-month old daughter strapped to the other, had brought it down with three shots.
The Night Shift had come upon the scene just as the woman was poking through the wreck, stripping weapons and boots from the smoking bodies. Dirk Fallows had given her a burst from his M3A1 that disintegrated her left hand and arm up to the elbow in a pink explosion of blood and bone. Neither she nor her baby made a sound as she spun and dashed into the jungle, her left arm looking like a bloody shredded sleeve. They searched, but never found her.
Among the items that the woman had discarded as useless was a set of four drugstore photos of a young woman about twenty-one. In the first photo she was sucking in her cheeks and crossing her eyes imitating a goldfish. In the second she was nibbling a baby's ear; the baby was laughing. The third was of the woman's obviously pregnant belly, slightly out of focus from being so close to the camera. The fourth was the woman and baby smiling, holding a piece of notebook paper with "I LOVE YOU!!!" printed on it in lipstick.
From the dogtags on Lieutenant Finnegan's body, Eric managed to trace the woman in the picture, Annie, and wrote her his condolences. She wrote back, a chatty, friendly letter all about being pregnant, about her philosophy classes at San Francisco State, about the funeral. She seemed so healthy, adjusted. So damn normal.
He never wrote her again.
But he did keep the tiny, cheap photographs folded safely in his pocket for the rest of his tour. Every once in a while he'd huddle in the dark, damp jungle and take them out, a glimpse of normal, happy people, a family. Somehow it made the going easier, somehow saner.
It was a year after the court-martial when he finally met her. He was twenty-four now, back in college among a lot of eighteen-year-old kids who marched for open sex with the same ferocity that they marched against the war. He was sympathetic to their demands, their needs, but somehow he felt too remote from them to join, too burned-out to belong.
He was running across the quad trying to make his 2:00 Renaissance Europe class, when he got tangled up in a Vets Against the War rally. A bearded guy in an army fatigue jacket and a red bandanna tied around his forehead was shouting into the microphone, describing the atrocities he'd seen. There were a couple hundred students gathered around and more drifting in all the time. Eric didn't pause to listen, he'd seen much worse than what was being described.
As he shoved brusquely through the horrified crowd, something-a flash of light maybe?-stabbed in his eye. He stopped, looked around. Over next to the makeshift stage and leaning on a battered, psychedelic VW van, was a shaggy rock 'n' roll band tuning up their guitars. And a woman with thick, long hair past her waist and a clipboard was gesturing at them as if giving them last-minute instructions. The sun kept reflecting off the metal clip as she waved her hands. She had a sleeping baby strapped to her back and a tiny girl tugging on her patched jeans.
It was Annie.
Eric shifted directions, winding through the crowd until he was standing directly behind her. He didn't know why he was doing this, what he would say.
"I want you guys to lay off smoking this shit until you're done here. You're supposed to be volunteering your services for the cause, and we're paying you plenty of money, so look sincere about ending the war. Got me?"
"Hey, lady, we're against the fucking war," one of them said, his long, black hair tied in a pony tail with a tiny American flag.
"Yeah, right," she nodded with disgust, "that's why you made us pay you up front."
"Expenses. That's all. Travelin' bread."
"Just put on a good show, okay?"
"Shit, no sweat, lady."
Annie shook her head, "Right. No sweat." She sighed, turned around and half-sprinted into Eric, "Oh, sorry. I didn't see you there."
"My fault," Eric said. "Didn't mean to sneak up on you."
"Is the kid still asleep?" she said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder. The little boy's face was pressed against her back, his eyes closed, a large wet spot on her cotton blouse where he'd drooled in his sleep.
"Yeah, but your blouse will need washing."
She laughed in loud spasms, like a frightened whooping crane. A couple of people in the crowd turned to look at her. "Tell me about laundry, man. When they film my life story, it'll be shot in a Laundromat. Faye Dunaway will never look so good as when she's pouring Tide."
"Mommy," the little girl said, pressing her knees together. "I gotta go."
"Okay, Jenny." Annie nodded at Eric and took off in sudden clipped walk, holding Jenny's hand. As an afterthought, she called over her shoulder, "Nice meeting you."
Eric tagged along. "That group. They didn't look like they even knew there was a war, let alone protest against it."
She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. They're pretty well known locally, so they'll help draw a crowd. We've got a couple reporters and camera crews coming by in an hour, so we'll want to have as large a crowd as possible for the early news show." She stopped, looked up into his eyes, her jaw firmly set. "And don't give me any crap about how that's deceiving the public or any bullshit. We're not here to win Eagle Scout medals, just end the damn n war.
He stared back at her, a smile playing on his lips. "I'm Eric."
"So what?" she said, her eyes locked with his. Then her harsh expression began to change, melt slowly into something like recognition. A tear rolled out of one eye. "My God," she said.
They were married within the year.
Eric flipped the light switch in the bedroom, checked the fuses in the box he'd installed recently, the one that controlled the security system he'd built into the house. The fuses were fine. He dropped to his knees and checked the crossbow under his bed, the quiver with hunting bolts next to it. Light glinted off the brass plating, making it look ominous, hungry. He'd been practicing with it and his long bow for several weeks now until he was almost back to his old marksman self. Still, tomorrow he would take a little trip to downtown Los Angeles and shop around for a gun where, as long as you have the cash, no questions are asked.
The doorbell chimed.
He heard happy chattering drifting up from down-stairs.
"Eric," Annie shouted. "Drag your keester down here. Trevor's brought another cheap wine he insists I ruin my magnificent dinner by serving."
Eric scanned the room one final time. Everything was in place and working. The alarms, the weapons. He wouldn't be caught off-guard again. He glanced out the window, down into the dark yard below. The street lights hadn't worked since the quake. Every shadow looked dangerous, threatening. Lurking.
"Eric! Your mother's faint from hunger. Let's go."
Eric studied the shadows a little longer, then pulled the curtain shut. "Coming," he said.
"I've never been so popular in my whole life!" Trevor Graumann laughed, waving his unlit pipe in the air. "Not since dear old Atlas hit-"
"Atlas?" Annie asked.
"That's what he calls the damned quake," Maggie explained. "Quaint, huh?"
"Yes, Atlas," Trevor said defensively. "It's the perfect name. He carried the world on his shoulders. One shrug from him could bring everything down. He was-"
"Yes, yes, yes. We all know about Atlas, Trevor."
Trevor Graumann frowned at Maggie, shifted his slightly rotund body, and sucked on his unlit pipe. He ran a pudgy hand over the top of his bald and freckled head as if checking for any new growths. It was habit more than hope. He'd been bald since he'd first met Maggie forty years ago in graduate school. She was one of the few women there who actually took her education seriously. She was going to be an archaeologist and a teacher, by God, and that was that. Her intensity had intimidated him a bit back then-hell, quite a bit-and he'd ended up marrying the secretary to the Dean of Admissions. A pleasant young girl who miscarried twice in their first year of marriage before deciding she'd rather be a movie star. Not an actress, mind you, a movie star. So one day she cleaned out the joint account and took off in his Buick, never to be seen or heard from again. For forty years Trevor had avoided going to the movies for fear he might see her in one, perhaps under a flamboyant stage name, even if only in a bit part. He knew it would hurt him unbearably, make him feel as if she'd been telling everyone in 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."
"Foreshock?" Annie asked. "What's that?"
"Usually it's a minor movement that precedes the main shock, may even trigger it. Problem is, they're impossible to determine as a foreshock until much later. Bloody mess, actually."
"Uh oh,'' Maggie laughed. "Here comes the British accent again. Just ignore the Missouri twang, Sir Trevor."
"Sorry. Sometimes I slip into it unconsciously."
Annie stood up with her coffee cup. "More coffee anyone?"
"I'll get it," Eric said, taking her cup. "You're looking a little shaky."
"Good, because I feel a little shaky. He's almost got me believing California's about to slide into the ocean."
Trevor handed his cup to Eric. "It's quite possible."
"Perfect," Annie said, collapsing onto the sofa.
"For God's sake, Trevor," Maggie said, "don't you know when you've said enough?"
"I'm sorry, but it is quite possible. Naturally it depends upon the size of the quake, but one big one could set off a chain reaction, resulting in part of California separating from the coast. After all, it's a fairly common belief among scientists that all the continents of the Earth were once one giant land mass. What with sea floor spreading and giant earthquakes and such, the continent broke apart to form what we have today. And it's more than likely that they'll keep changing. If we could come back to the Earth fifty million years from today, we probably wouldn't recognize the continents."
"But California as an island?" Annie shook her head. "Disneyland wouldn't stand for it."
Eric returned with steaming coffee, handed a cup to Trevor and one to Annie, and sat down. "What do you think, Trevor? Do you personally, in your expert opinion, think we're in for another major quake?"
Trevor blew a wisp of steam from his coffee, sipped, set the cup down. "Well, if we consider what we know about moonquakes, volcanic seismicity in the Galapagos Islands, solar flares-"
"This isn't Channel 7, Trevor," Maggie sighed. "Just answer the damn question."
"I can't. Not the way Eric wants me to. Probability dictates that we won't have another major quake for a while, perhaps years."
"But?" Eric prompted.
"But, personally, I suspect we will. If Gribbin and Plagemann are right, solar activity and the alignment of the planets suggest we're in for more activity. Much more."
Annie pushed her coffee away. "Then how come you're still here? Why haven't you moved back east like a lot of others?"
"Where to? Another university? I've taught here for more than thirty years. I have no family and all my friends are here, so why should I fight the floods, tornadoes, blizzards and hurricanes that the rest of the country faces. Besides, even if a really major quake hit, one bigger than the San Francisco disaster, chances are I'd still live. I've done everything to my house that can be done within my modest means, and I've stored food and water to last for several months. I hope you've done the same."
"Food, water, clothing. The works."
"And a weapon, my boy," Trevor warned with his pipe stem. "People can get very ugly under pressure. Very ugly indeed."
"Yes," Eric nodded. "So I've heard."