But all the data was put online nowadays by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Australian Seismological Network, and the Slan(t)ers had been able to get their hands on it. And in the disregarded “noise,” they had seen “linear signals,” as Peter put it—signals that emanated not from a point, but from a straight line. “What you have is a track through the Earth’s layers,” said Peter, “as if you’d fired a bullet through a wedding cake.”

There had been occasional observations of linear signals for years. The Slan(t)ers, though, seeking patterns ignored by the seismologists, had found three such events in the last year.

Peter said, “Knowing the timing of the events, you can unwind the turning of the Earth to trace the path back beyond the planet to its origin, or destination. We can’t find a unique destination for our three tracks—but they do seem to have a common origin. The sun. Somehow the sun is firing out dark matter nuggets, and some of them are passing through the Earth. What does this mean? Damned if I know. But there’s more . . . I’m attaching a graphic file.” Which I wouldn’t be able to download here.

I skimmed Peter’s verbose description, trying to get to the meat. Apparently, this particular “linear track,” actually the second observed by the Slan(t)ers, wasn’t so linear after all. “A little while after penetrating the upper mantle,” said Peter, “this nugget’s track diverged through about forty degrees. Then it skimmed the core and shot out of the Earth, in the vague direction of Mars. George, you see the significance? Dark matter passes through the Earth’s core like a hot knife through butter. Earth’s gravity field isn’t intense enough to impose a deflection like that. This nugget changed course . . .”

Well, it was intriguing. But throughout my relationship with him, much of the information Peter tried to give me was simply too much for me—the ideas too big, too dislocated from the everyday, the stretching of my worldview too much to take. This was just such an example.

I sent him a note about how extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Then I shut down the system.

I ate that night in a little open-air tourist-trap restaurant, a complicated walk of a few blocks from the hotel. Most of the menu was seafood, served with or without pasta.

The next morning I walked around Rome. It was a voyage of discovery; I knew nothing about the city. My geographical research before setting off had been restricted to renting The Italian Job, which, it turned out, was set in Turin.