"That's all," Hartson Brant said finally. "How does it look, Jeff?"
The seismologist shook his head. "Not good." He held his pencil almost flat to the paper and began shading in an area bounded by the points he had made. "According to what we have, this is the shape of a magma front." He drew in other lines, rising vertically through the earth into the volcano. "Apparently these discontinuities indicate old channels, now filled in. Notice that the magma is not following the original channels. This seems to confirm what Esteben has been telling us."
The volcanologist nodded. "It seems to. Jeff, do you have any doubt about this area being magma?"
"I'm afraid not. The data fits. Of course it's still pretty far below the surface."
Rick could see that the ominous shading was nearly twice as far underground as the top of the volcano was above sea level.
Julius Weiss spoke up. "The next step is to find out how fast the magma is rising."
"A series of shots every day for the next few days should tell us that," Hartson Brant agreed. "Hobart, you've been pretty quiet. Any comments?"
"None of any importance," the big physicist boomed. "Only this: what can we possibly do about a situation like this?"
Hartson Brant shrugged. "I don't know. At least we can keep track of the magma."
David Riddle, the geologist, added, "It will allow time to warn the population. I can see no other means of saving them except to get them off the island."