He headed for the shore. The staff followed, babbling. Somebody's mathematics would be verified, and with it his views on the possible effects of terrestrial magnetism on objects approaching the earth.
"We ought to get these plastic things to Manila," Davis said slowly. "They need to be compared to others. But I think we'll wait and see this bolide first."
A heated argument started in the tracking station staff. From Dr. Morton downward, almost to the station's cook, the most varied predictions were made. The official computation from Washington, made from the observed course and height and speed, predicted that the bolide would land somewhere in the South Pacific. Dr. Morton predicted a fall in the China Sea, within a certain precisely stated number of miles from Thrawn Island. Other predictions varied.
At exactly fourteen minutes after eight—a time way ahead of the official schedule but exactly as Dr. Morton had predicted—the bolide passed overhead. It was an amazing spectacle. It left a trail of flame behind, across thirty degrees of sky. It went on and on....
Less than ten minutes later the short-wave radio informed the island that the shooting star had been seen to fall in the sea. It had been observed by a plane which was then circling over the area in which the Esperance had encountered the circle of shining sea. The plane was there to see if the phenomenon would occur again. It didn't.
But the plane saw the bolide as it struck the sea, and huge masses of steam and spray arose. The bolide was not white-hot, then, as when it passed over Thrawn Island. It was barely of dull-red brightness. It hit the sea and sank, leaving steam behind.
The water was forty-five hundred fathoms deep at that point.
Six
Fourteen hours later the Esperance made ready to sail from Thrawn Island. Her purpose was to carry the plastic objects to Manila, where they would be turned over to specialized laboratories to be studied. Five such objects had been found before: one in the Thrawn Island lagoon, while the satellite-tracking station was under construction, and four attached to exotic fish brought to market by the commercial fishing boat La Rubia. Now there were eight more, of four different kinds. To the laboratories would go Terry's observation that one kind of these objects absorbed sound at audible frequencies and retransmitted it at much higher ones, but only under water. All this was very interesting and very puzzling.