The Deadliest Moop

Walking into the dining room, he saw that Katerina had already arrived, and had gotten coffee. She waved him over to her table.

“My dog’s outside,” he said as he sat. “Do you want to talk to him, too?”

She laughed. “You’ll do, for the moment.”

They gave the waiter their lunch orders and then, rather like the appetizer to a meal, they started with small talk.

“I gather you knew Takeo before you came here,” said Alex.

“I studied under Dr. Wakabayashi in Berlin, before I switched from physics to biology.” She toyed with her coffee, stirring it despite having taken it black. “I don’t think he’s quite forgiven me.”

“He called you Katchen,” said Alex, reacting to her sorrowful expression. “That’s an indication of, well, endearment.”

Her lips formed a sad smile. “In this case, I think it’s more an indication of status… an adult addressing a child. Just as I call him Wakabayashi sama, a term of respect for his much higher status.” She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup, and stared at the black ripples on the surface. “Takeo has a theory,” she said, abruptly.

“Oh?”

“He believes that heavy particles, hadrons, moving at high speed loosen the binding of spacetime.”

“Huh?” said Alex under his breath.

“In the absence of mass,” said Katerina, pointing a teaspoon at Alex, “what is the nature of space-time?”

“Well… according to Einstein,” said Alex, proud of himself that he was conversant with modern physics, “it is flat.”

“But what use is space if there is nothing to put into it?” Katerina paused a few seconds and continued. “Takeo’s studies suggest—suggest strongly—that in the absence of mass, space-time becomes stochastic—essentially undefined.”

Alex leaned forward and tried to look intelligent.

“Takeo believes,” Katerina went on, “that mass binds space-time. It holds space-time together. And high-speed hadrons loosen that binding.”

“Hadrons from the Tevatron, I assume.”

“Yes,” said Katerina, “but mostly from cosmic ray bursts.”

Alex chuckled. “And what does all that have to do with my dog?”

Katerina smiled in return. “The loosening of space-time would be a new physics phenomenon—a phenomenon that I think some creatures might possibly sense.”

“What?” Alex narrowed his eyes in puzzlement. “But yesterday, Takeo seemed to be arguing against just that.”

Katerina nodded. “Oh, he was really arguing with me, over my theory.”

“Please.” Alex rubbed a hand across his forehead. “One theory at a time.”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right.” Katerina paused for a moment. “In his theory, the effect would manifest in massive objects—the Earth, for instance. He believes this loosening, these little rents in space-time, could be the cause of some earthquakes.”

“Ah,” said Alex.

“And my theory is that if there’s a macroscopic physics phenomenon, nature would have provided some creatures with a sense for it.” Katerina pursed her lips. “Wakabayashi sama thinks my theory is nonsense.”

“So that’s why you need a seismologist and a… a canine seismologist.”

Katerina nodded. “I’ve been looking for someone, a seismologist, preferably, with an animal that predicts quakes. But every seismologist I’ve talked to about it has said I should stick to biology.”

Alex brought a hand to cover his shirt pocket, as if about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. “Wegener and I… our hands and paws are at your service. How can we help?”

“Do you record all of your dog’s howls,” said Katerina, pointing at his shirt pocket, “in that notebook?”

“All the howls that I can’t explain. Yes.”

“Do you know about the ConneXion software package?” said Katerina.

“What?” Alex, surprised by the change of subject, shook his head.

“It correlates as well as anti-correlates just about everything accessible over the Web. It correlates against a set of inputted data and restrictions on the scope of the search.” She toyed with a table knife. “I’d like to see if Wegener’s howls really do correlate to quakes, and if those quakes correlate with cosmic ray bursts… or even with the Tevatron being active.”

“You’d like to borrow my howl-log.”

“Only for tonight.”

Alex withdrew the notebook and handed it over. “Maybe we could meet here for breakfast tomorrow,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too eager.

Katerina flipped through the pages. “I think I’m going to have a long night.” She closed the notebook. “How about a late breakfast or early lunch? Say at eleven?”

“Great!”

Late that night, Alex checked his e-mail.

Lieber Alex,

I have exciting news.

If you do not object, I’d like to invite Dr. Wakabayashi to our early lunch.

Viele liebe Grusse,

Katerina

The place was almost empty when, at ten of eleven, Alex walked into the restaurant. But at a table near a window sat Takeo. A leather-bound notebook and an open pocket chess set lay in front of him.

Alex, walking over, saw that no pieces had been moved.

Takeo gestured to a chair. “A game perhaps?”