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“I did,” Kurt said. “But forty days of rain would not drown the world.”
“Depends how hard it rains,” Joe said with a grin.
“It’s not happening worldwide,” Gamay said, taking him seriously. “Right now, India is facing a drought and Europe is dealing with a hot, dry summer. Besides, forty days of rain can only be powered by forty days of evaporation. It’s a closed system.”
Kurt intervened. “Brother Joe knows that, he’s just grasping at straws. Let’s move on.”
“What if the measurements are wrong?” Gamay suggested. “It’s notoriously difficult to measure actual sea levels when accounting for tides, waves and wind. Even landmasses exert a gravitational pull on the surface of the sea.”
“Been checked, double-checked and triple-checked using different methodologies,” Kurt said. “It’s not a data error. This is happening.”
“What if the water is coming from space?” Joe suggested.
Stern glances came his way.
“I’m being serious this time. Comets are made up of dirty ice. Many scientists believe that all the water on Earth actually came from comets to begin with. It was deposited here as they bombarded the planet during the first two billion years of its formation.”
Kurt considered this a legitimate theory, but . . . “Haven’t seen any in the sky recently.”
“They don’t have to be large and visible like Halley’s Comet. They could be small enough to not be seen. Or they could be pieces of larger comets that came apart. I was just reading about a comet called ISON that broke up and vanished. Instead of a flare in the sky with a long tail, all NASA found were millions of tiny flakes. If our planet was slowly passing through a field of deconstructed comets, we wouldn’t notice anything, but the falling ice would be caught in Earth’s gravity and dragged into the sea. If there were enough of them, it would add up rather quickly.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Kurt said. “But I think NASA might have noticed if we were passing through swarms of micro comets. And the sheer number of comets required to raise the sea level this quickly makes it unlikely.”
Joe shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got. Someone else take a shot.”
No one did and Kurt stood up. After three hours of brainstorming, they had little to show for the effort except bleary eyes and exasperation.
“Adjourning?” Gamay asked.
“Coffee break,” Kurt replied.
He walked to the coffeemaker in the corner of the room. “Believe it or not, we’re making progress,” he insisted. “With every possibility we eliminate, we must be getting closer to the real answer . . . whatever that answer turns out to be.”
“Great speech,” Joe said.
“Right . . . I didn’t even convince myself.”
Kurt poured himself a cup of coffee, decided against cream and sugar and then leaned against the edge of the counter. It dawned on him that Joe and Gamay had been very animated, but Paul had barely uttered a word.
That wasn’t a total surprise. Paul was the most reserved member of the team, to begin with, but as Kurt sipped his coffee, he noticed Paul scribbling notes on a legal pad. Scribbling furiously.
Stepping closer, he glanced over Paul’s shoulder. A long set of calculations occupied one part of the page, a paragraph of indecipherably small handwriting and the sketched image of a large bird with something in its mouth covered the rest.
“Something to add?” Kurt asked. “Or just bored and doodling?”
Paul looked up, appearing surprised that Kurt was so close. He must have been lost in whatever he was doing.
“Maybe,” Paul said, then added, “possibly . . . Actually, I don’t know.”
Kurt reached down. “May I?”
Paul released his hold on the pad and Kurt slid it free. In addition to the bird, Paul had sketched a jug with a curved neck that was half filled with liquid. There were calculations galore on the right side of the pad. And a name.
“Kenzo Fujihara,” Kurt said, reading aloud. “Either you’re planning a new career in animation or . . .”
Paul shook his head.
“All right,” Kurt said, handing the pad back to Paul. “Spill it.”
