Rick looked at the new faces. It was the first time he had seen them in daylight. Dr. Jeffrey Williams was a plump, round-faced man with a shock of pure-white hair. Dr. David Riddle was tall, dark, lean, and heavily tanned. He looked like a mining engineer, or perhaps a forest ranger. Bradley Connel was short, heavy set, with straw-colored hair and the kind of complexion that is always sunburned and peeling so long as the days are hot--which meant always, this close to the equator. "Let's get to work," Hartson Brant said. "It's obvious that visual inspection is not going to tell us much. We'll have to get tracings before we have any real idea of what's going on under us. Dave, have you found anything of importance?" David Riddle shook his head. "It's a typical formation. Nothing unusual about it at all. El Viejo is simply a dead volcano, its cone filled in, and plenty of jungle on the slopes. The hot springs are just a seepage point, as Dr. Balgos knows. So far as I can tell, they're the weakest point, so if the mountain lets go, that is where the blowoff will come. Of course, this could be wrong and there may be weaker channels we don't suspect. We'll know when we start shooting." Hartson Brant looked at Dr. Williams. "Anything to add, Jeff?" "Not much. I've gone over the seismic data Esteben got from the seismologists in the area, and it's clear that the epicenter of most recent earthquakes in the area is right under us. Something is happening down in the earth under the mountain, but I can't say what it is. It may be volcanism or it may be a fault shifting." Rick knew that a fault was like a great crack in the earth's structure, but he had thought the scientists had agreed that the earthquakes were caused by volcanic action. He asked, "Sir, doesn't the change in the springs mean something?" "Perhaps, Rick," Dr. Williams answered. "We don't really know. Dr. Balgos thinks they mean a great deal, and I have respect for his opinions. But I'm only a seismologist. I have to depend on traces from earthquakes, and the traces tell us nothing but the single fact that something is going on far below." Hartson Brant nodded. "The answer will depend on more data, so today we'll start to collect it. Rick and Scotty brought apparatus, and the governor has supplied us with dynamite and two experienced helpers, Ruiz and Honorario." "How do we split up?" Julius Weiss asked. "Into firing and recording teams. Since we have only two recorders, we can have only two teams for data collection. But we can have three firing parties. Dave Riddle will work with Honorario, Brad Connel with Ruiz, and Hobart Zircon with Rick and Scotty. Julius, you and I will form one recording party, and Esteben and Jeff will form the other. Each team will have a jeep. Now, if you'll all gather around this model the boys made, we'll pick approximate locations for stations."