Page 118 (1/2)

"Karla's grandfather was Lazlo Kovacs," Austin said "He encoded his work before he passed it down Thanks to Spider, we've figured it out Now that we've done all the hard work, can you build us an antenna?"

"Yes," Hibbet said "At least, I think I can"

"That's good enough for us Tell us what you need You've got all the resources of the US government behind you"

Hibbet laughed and shook his head "That's a lot better than dealing with the NUMA bean counters You don't know the trouble I've had trying to buy experiht "Even if I can whip soether, we'll still need a platforood"

"How big would this contraption be?" Austin said

"Big," Hibbet said "Then you'd need the generators to power the antenna And a way to transport sohs tons"

"That's the bad news," Austin said

"What's the good news?" asked Hibbet

Austin grinned "Necessity is the mother of invention"

The phone rang just then and Austin picked it up Pitta car over to pick him up

The earth seemed to be on fire in a hundred different places Volcanoes erupted like a virulent disease, spewing forth huge, glowing lava fields whose sinable pohipped the ed across continents Tsunamis slammed into the North American coastline on the east and the west and created a narrow continent squeezed by two angry oceans

Then the ie screen in the Pentagon screening roohts that had been dimmed for the presentation went back on, to reveal Austin and the stunned faces of a dozen or soaround a long conference table

"The computer simulation you just saas prepared by Dr Paul Trout, a coraphics expert at NUMA," Austin said "It presents a reasonably accurate picture of the consequences of a geologic polar shift"

A four-star general sitting across frohtening picture, if it's true But as you say, it's a coination as fact"

"I wish it were iination, General We didn't have time to prepare a written summary, so you'll have to bear withwith here The first link in the chain of events that led to this o with the work of a brilliant electrical engineer named Lazlo Kovacs"