“We in this room have speculated that someone might have used electromagnetic transmissions based on the Kovacs Theorems to cause these disturbances. As you know, Gamay and I went to Los Alamos and talked to an authority on Kovacs's work. He confirmed our suspicions of human interference, and suggested the type of electromagnetic manipulation we've been seeing could cause a polar reversal.”

“I assume we're talking about a reversal of the magnetic poles,” Adler said.

“I wish that were so,” Gamay interjected. “However, we may be facing a geologic polar reversal where the earth's crust actually moves over its core.”

“I'm not a geologist,” Adler said, “but that sounds like a recipe for a catastrophe.”

“Actually,” Gamay said with a smile as bleak as it was lovely, “we may be talking about doomsday.”

A heavy silence followed her pronouncement. Adler cleared his throat. “I heard the word 'may.' You seem to be giving yourself some wiggle room.”

“I'd be happy if I could wiggle out of this situation entirely,” Gamay said. “But you're right in sensing that we've given ourselves room for doubt. We don't know how reliable our Los Alamos source is, so Paul has come up with a way to test the Kovacs Theorems.”

“How could you do that?” Adler said.

“By using a simulation,” Trout said, “much the same way you would re-create sea conditions in your lab using a laboratory wave machine or computer model.”

Hibbet said, “Kovacs only wrote of his theories in a general way. He left out some of the specifics.”

“That's true,” Gamay said. “But Kovacs self-published a more detailed summary of his theorems. He used it as the basis for his published writings. There is only one copy in existence.”

“If only we had it,” Adler said.

Gamay slid the Kovacs folio across the table without comment.

Adler carefully picked the papers off the table and noted the name on the cover: Lazlo Kovacs. He glanced through the yellowed pages. “This is written in Hungarian,” he said.

“One of our NUMA translators came up with an English copy,” Trout said. “The math is a universal language, so there was no problem there. Testing was another matter. Then I remembered the work being done at the Los Alamos National Laboratory where scientists have come up with a way to test nuclear bombs from our arsenal without violating international treaty. They test the bomb's components, figuring in factors such as materials deterioration, and they feed the data into a computer which runs a simulation. I propose to do the same.”

“It's certainly worth a try,” Hibbet said.

Trout tapped the keyboard and an image of the earth appeared on the screen. The globe had a section cut out like a slice of orange to expose the layers of the inner core: liquid iron outer core, the mantle and the crust. “Maybe you can explain this diagram, Al.”