CHAPTER 4
Birdbath Bash

"Je-sus!" snorted Wilt. "As if this wasn't confusing enough already. Are we sure this is all connected? I mean, maybe Dad and Dr. Leong just went to consult on the mug thing with somebody at another university."

"For over a week?" said Frax. "Neither of them calling home? No, there's got to be something else. Let's assume the lab explosion in Madison has something to do with these mug things. How could that possibly be? What are they, alien weapons dropped from outer space on unsuspecting Indians 900 years ago? Except nobody's talking about finding old bomb craters, just strange farm fields."

Maud chimed in. "I think Frax has hit on something. No matter what the mug was for, originally, how could any kind of pottery explode like that? I mean, pit-fired stuff can absorb water, so if you heat it suddenly in a microwave you can get a steam explosion. But we're way, way beyond that here."

"Right," Sparrow agreed. "From what you described, it sure didn't sound like an ordinary explosion — more like everything just vanished. Isn't that what they're always saying about antimatter meeting normal matter, that they're supposed to totally annihilate into pure energy? Could that be what we're talking about?"

"Uhh, I guess," Wilt agreed. "But how could there have been antimatter in the mug? I mean, it was buried for hundreds of years, and people handled it for years after it was dug up, so presumably no antimatter — until it was in that lab. Unless we are saying the mug was somehow storing antimatter for all those years, and the lab broke the seal and let it out. But that won't fly, since from the `mug' description it sounds like the thing was basically an empty container. And even if it wasn't empty, I've heard antimatter is just about impossible to store even for a few seconds. You need strong magnetic fields and stuff."

"OK," said Frax. "Suppose their `non-destructive tests' involved some high-energy particle beam or radiation or something, which touched off the explosion when it hit an exotic material the mug was made of.

"But even if we can't come up with a theory about the explosion, or whatever it was, can we at least agree there was something definitely strange about the mug, definitely not an Indian artifact?"

There was agreement all around. Frax went on. "So where does that get us? We've got the fact that mugs were being studied by two groups, one in Madison and one here in Ann Arbor, and after the Madison mug went kaboom, the Arnold guys are suddenly interested in Ann Arbor. They have to be Feds of some sort, since Madison insurance guys wouldn't give a rip about Ann Arbor. No, I think they're after another mug."

"Wellll," Maud mused, "they could have been simply trying to warn the Michigan team about the danger of tinkering with it..." She paused for a moment, gazing into space as she recalled the scene. "No, that doesn't sound right. Wouldn't they have been giving me a line about how I needed to `help protect others', instead of getting mad at me? And they were asking only about Michigan people, not anyone else. But since they knew names, they could have just called those labs. So it was something they wanted to keep secret, not warn about."

"Uhh, Maud," Sparrow said soberly, "what if they followed you here? Or maybe planted some kind of tracking thingy on the car, so they only had to wait and see where you went? Or even just notified the police to watch for the car, once they found it was gone? I mean, if they're Feds, they could probably do all those things. Probably a lot more, like snooping on your cell calls. I'm not trying to scare you, but we don't want to get blindsided by these guys, no matter what they're up to."

Maud looked stricken. "Damn! I've been a complete idiot. I wonder if part of their act was to scare me into a blind panic. It sure seems to have worked."

"Now wait," soothed Wilt. "I don't think there's any real harm done. They already knew about all those names on your list. Seems to me if they're looking for the mug, they aren't going to do anything rash until they're sure where it is. And let's face it, we haven't got a clue about that."

After a lot of hashing and thrashing, the group decided the first priority was to locate the missing scientists, since those two presumably knew where the mug was. But caution was essential, since the Terminator Twins were most likely watching and waiting, ready to swoop down whenever the mug or the scientists were found.

"Wilt," said Sparrow, "I spent quite a bit of time going through as much of Dr. Leong's papers as I could find at home, trying to get some clue about where she'd gone. That's how we ended up here. There may be something more to be found at her lab, but before we tackle that I think we should check for any clues your father may have left. Then we can tackle his lab and hers. Sound OK?"

"Absolutely! Frax and I never got around to looking for clues or anything. As soon as we got in the house we saw that Dad must have been looking for something in a hurry here, apparently camping gear. And he left behind his wallet and complete key ring, including lab keys. I got nervous he might be in the studio — that's the garage, where he does his pottery — and was maybe overcome by fumes or something. So we checked, but nobody there. You guys came right after."

"How should we do this?" said Sparrow. "Maud and I are strangers here, and it wouldn't be right for us to rummage through your father's personal stuff."

"Hah! You're just afraid you'll stumble onto a lingerie collection in his sock drawer — kidding, kidding! Seriously, whatever he's been working on, it'd be in his home office in the spare bedroom. I can go grab his laptop and any lab notebooks and bring 'em back here." Wilt hurried down the hall.

A minute later he was back. "Found the laptop, but the most recent lab notebook is from well before the mug discovery." While Frax cleared the empty pizza boxes from the coffee table, Wilt plugged the power brick into an outlet behind the couch, then opened the laptop.

After the usual excruciating delay, the password screen appeared. "Arghh! Might have known. Unless one of you is a super nerd like in the movies, able to guess any password in three tries, we're hosed."

"Hmm," said Frax. "We may not be able to crack it, but I guess we all know who can: Maud's `insurance' friends Grindl and —"

"Grashof and Prandtl," Maud corrected. "They probably can't do it themselves — all muscle between the ears — but you can bet they have access to a tame geek who does this kinda stuff all day long. We should probably hide the laptop in case they break in when nobody's around."

"Good plan," agreed Wilt. "But we're not sunk yet. Since this is a pottery project, his studio notebooks may have something we can use. He's very meticulous about recording glaze recipes, kiln firing schedules, and all that stuff. There's at least a chance he's got something in there about the mug artifact. Anyone up for a studio tour, now that Frax and I have pronounced it safe?" He got up and headed for the back door, then turned and said, "Frax, how 'bout grabbing the pizza boxes, and we can put them in the bins on the way out? The boxes go in Recycle, and the greasy cardboard discs into Compost."

They all filed out. From the left they heard the sound of a TV, loud but indistinct. "Guess it's time for Mrs. MacGruder's soaps." Wilt moved around the front of the garage to the studio door on the side, then stopped abruptly and turned back. "Crap! I must have left the key ring in the house somewhere. Play some Frisbee or something while I hunt it up."

Frax was just about to stuff the discs into Compost, but quickly swung around to sail one into the back yard. Taken by surprise for only an instant, Sparrow streaked after it. She scooped it up after it had bounced off the other neighbor's tall wooden-slat fence, and deftly fired it back. Maud snatched it out of the air before it reached Frax. These girls looked like they knew their way around flying discs!

He dashed past Maud and into the yard, hoping to snag her return toss. Looking over his shoulder as he went, then actually running backwards, he leaped up for a flying catch — then stumbled over a railroad tie bordering the garden, and crashed into a bird bath. He had missed the disc completely.

"Another great moment in sports history, folks, the likes of which may never be seen again — I hope!" More embarrassed than injured, he got up and rubbed an elbow, then twisted around to inspect his jeans and brush off dirt. He examined the damage to his unintended target; the top of the bird bath had been knocked from its pedestal, but fortunately nothing seemed to be broken. He and Sparrow picked up the top together and started to settle it into position.

"Wait... There's something strange about this setup. Let's set it back on the ground and check it out." Frax noted big notches all around the rim of the hollow pedestal, where the top would sit. The top itself had a wide ring hanging down to hide them, while leaving substantial gaps that air could flow through. But why would you want airflow under a birdbath? "Some kinda vent? Hey Wilt, is there a heat duct from the house to keep the birdbath water from freezing in winter?"

Wilt, returning with the key ring, strolled over to inspect. "Nothing I know about. Certainly wouldn't be like my old man to waste heat, but maybe he'd salvage waste heat from something else. No dryer lint on it; maybe from the hot water heater? No, that's electric. Maybe the last owner had a gas water heater?" He bent over to peer down inside the pedestal.

"Hey, I can feel air flow, like it's being sucked down into the ground!" He turned his head to put his ear to the opening. "And there's fan noise, not very loud but it's clear enough." He spun around to look at the studio. "There are vent fans to pull fumes from the kilns, and from the glaze spray booth. But why would anything be pulling from here?"

Maud looked thoughtful. "Mom's boyfriend Jim Sinclair has a geothermal heat pump system, with a bunch of pipes buried in his yard. Those carry water or coolant or something, but this could be a simpler deal: Instead of keeping little birdie feet warm in the winter, maybe this thing's for keeping human potters cool in the summer. If there's a bunch of air ducts buried deep in the yard, a fan could pull cool air through into the studio."

"Now that's what I call a `cool' idea!" praised Wilt. "And just the sort of thing Dad would go for. But it must've been done before we moved here. I was only four, but I definitely would remember heavy equipment digging up the back yard. At that age, my folks would have had to hire a separate crew just to keep me away from the site."

Frax and Sparrow replaced the top, and Frax stood back to check that things looked OK.