Vernon grinned. “Well, shoot, Emerson, it’s about time. Course, them scientists living in their ivory towers don’t know anything but theories. I’ve got what you call practical experience.”
Riley put the car into gear and drove down the driveway. “Vernon, do you know what a vulcanologist studies?”
“I sure do.” He ear-muffed Wayan Bagus. “It’s all about lady parts.”
“A vulcanologist studies volcanoes,” Emerson said. “You’re thinking of a vulva-ologist. And also, there’s no such thing.”
“Well, shoot. That’s disappointing.” Vernon removed his hands from Wayan Bagus’s ears and turned to his cellphone. “Emmie, I got another one of them emails threatening to sue us for defamatory comments in the blog.”
“Who’s threatening to sue us this time?”
“Government lawyers. They didn’t like the entry I posted last night.” He grinned. “It was awesome. I called it ‘Death Parks: Fact or Fiction?’ They say I’m causing irreparable damage to the reputation of the national parks and inciting panic.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard from Tin Man,” Riley said. “Shocking that he didn’t sneak into your RV and whack your laptop with his hatchet.”
Emerson looked over at her. “I suspect you made your statement in jest, and while it was a humorous thing to say, there is an underlying element of perhaps.”
“Perhaps what?” Riley asked.
“Vernon’s blog goes out at midnight. Two hours later someone inserted a hatchet into the hood of your car. Perhaps it was Tin Man. Think about it.”
“Okay, I might consider the possibility of a connection, but why me?” Riley said. “I didn’t write the stupid blog.”
“Perhaps he decided you were a good target,” Emerson said. “You separated yourself from the pack.”
“Yeah, and it would have been a bitch to stick a hatchet in the Maybach,” Vernon said. “That thing’s built like a tank.”
“I need to report the hatcheting to the police,” Riley said. “My insurance company is going to want a police report.”
“Waste of time,” Emerson said. “I’ll trade this car for your Mini. I can use the Mini for a lawn ornament. I like the addition of the hatchet.”
“I have destroyed the greedy pigs’ defenses,” Wayan Bagus said. “I have secured the survival of the angry birds.”
“That’s good, Little Buddy,” Vernon said. “Let’s see what you do when I bump you up a level.”
“Child’s play,” Wayan Bagus said. “I am the master of this game.”
Thirty minutes later Riley pulled into the Exploratory Hall parking lot at George Mason. A large, modern-looking brick building with a wetlands area behind it and a greenhouse on the roof, Exploratory Hall housed the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences.
Wayan set his iPad aside and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Am I to be the Dalai Lama today?” he asked.
“It’s not in my game plan,” Emerson said, leading everyone across the parking lot and into the building.
Vernon looked around. “I always knew some day I’d get to college . . . and here I am.”
“It’s vastly overrated,” Emerson said, stopping at the elevator, tapping the up button. “It’s far better to be born rich.”
“Contentment is the greatest wealth,” Wayan Bagus said. “It is better to be born contented.”
“Do we know where we’re going?” Riley asked.
“I want to talk to Professor Marion White,” Emerson said. “She’s on the third floor, and she’s currently having office hours.”
Marion White was at her desk when Emerson knocked on her open door. She was in her midthirties with dark brown hair pulled back and tied at the nape of her neck. A sliver of red tank top peeked out from under the deep V-neck of her white lab coat. The tank top showed a couple inches of cleavage.
“Do you have a moment to talk?” Emerson asked. “I have some questions about mantle plumes.”
“I’ll be happy to answer your questions,” Marion said, and she gestured toward some chairs surrounding her desk.
Her office was small and filled with books, papers, and various lava rocks. Scaled-down models of volcanoes covered a folding table set against one of the walls. Charts and maps and whiteboards covered most of the wall space.
Riley, Wayan Bagus, Vernon, and Emerson carefully walked around the stacks of books and took a seat.
“There are only seventeen known mantle plumes in the whole world,” Marion said. “It’s really one of the more interesting fields of study in geophysics.”
Emerson pulled Plumes: A Journey out of his knapsack. “I’ve read through this book. But it doesn’t completely explain the differences between volcanoes formed from mantle plumes and volcanoes formed by plate tectonics.”
“For one thing, volcanoes formed from mantle plumes are generally much larger. As you probably know, mantle plumes originate at the center of the earth. They begin as a relatively narrow pipe at the core and expand into a giant mushroom head by the time they approach the earth’s surface. Most of them are massive, up to two thousand kilometers in diameter. One of the biggest and most famous mantle plumes is responsible for creating the entire Hawaiian Islands chain.”
“Woo-wee,” Vernon said. “That’s mighty interesting. I sure would like to take you to dinner tonight and talk some more about eruptions and such.”
The little monk slapped Vernon on the back of the head.
“You got to pardon my grandfather,” Vernon said. “He’s old, and I’m the only one who’s willing to take care of him on account of his disposition.”
Marion looked at Vernon and then at Wayan Bagus. “Your grandfather is an Asian monk?”
“Oh, well, he’s adopted,” Vernon explained, putting his hand on the monk’s shoulder.
Wayan Bagus batted Vernon’s hand away.
“Maybe that’s what happened to my missing island,” Wayan Bagus said to Emerson. “Maybe it collapsed and sunk into the ocean.”
“You’re here about a missing island?” Marion asked. “It’s unlikely. Most mantle plumes form what are called shield volcanoes. They generally create landmasses, not destroy them.”
“Generally?” Riley asked.
Marion pointed to a map on her office wall of Pangaea, the ancient supercontinent that existed before separating into today’s seven continents. “Some people theorize that a mantle plume could cause a massive tectonic uplift, powerful enough to break apart a continent.”
Vernon opened his mouth to say something about powerful uplifts, looked over at Wayan Bagus, and decided it wasn’t worth getting slapped again.
“Is there anything of value in a volcano formed by a mantle plume?” Emerson asked. “Something somebody would want to steal?”
“Not really. Mostly just basalt and silica rock and sulfuric acid gasses. The lava does contain higher than normal amounts of rare earth elements, like osmium.”
“What’s osmium?” Riley asked.
“It’s similar to platinum, and it’s the densest naturally occurring element in existence. It’s worth about four hundred dollars per ounce but would likely cost more to extract than you could sell it for.”
Vernon picked up one of the model volcanoes and examined it. “I made one of these in seventh grade for the science fair.”
“That one’s a scale model of Krakatau,” Marion said. She turned to Emerson. “Mantle plumes also extrude some primordial isotopes from the earth’s core. They’re very rare but not valuable to anybody except an astrophysicist.”
“Why not?” Riley asked.
“It’s mostly just things like rare forms of helium. But primordial elements are materials that existed before the earth was formed. Sort of cosmic leftovers from the big bang. No one has really ever seen the earth’s core, so it’s kind of a clue to the forces of creation.”
Emerson thanked Marion for her time, and everyone trooped out of her office and out of the building.
“Now what?” Vernon asked.
“Now we go back to Washington,” Emerson said.
SEVEN