Ear to the Ground by David L. Ulin Page A

began to name the constellations—Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and the three sharp points of Orion’s Belt. If he listened closely to the silence, he could almost hear his father, the astronomer, dismissing his grandfather’s work. “Long after the planet has disappearedinto the sun,” Charlie’s father liked to say, “the stars will continue to exist. Of what importance will earthquakes be then?” In a way, Charlie knew, he was right, but there had always been a coldness to the heavens that could not compete with the warmth of the world, the way a stone kept its heat long after the sun had set. The stars were distant, beautiful like diamonds, but unfeeling, abstract. Thinking about it, Charlie realized his father was much the same way, which, he suddenly understood, explained a lot.
    Charlie removed a sample tray from his rucksack and slipped down into the fault. As he scraped some dirt from the bottom of the fissure, the earthquake struck. At first, there was a low rumbling, like the sound of an oncoming train, then the ground started twisting in a side-to-side motion, and the walls of the San Andreas shook like something from a bad horror film. Charlie tried to stand, but was thrown to his knees. Reflexively, he put his hands out, one on either edge of the fault. The vibrations moved from the earth through his palms, and up his arms to his heart.
    When the temblor was over, Charlie lay in the fault fissure and drew a deep breath. His whole body rang from the shaking; his legs were weak and spent. He tried to catalog what had happened. Intense as it seemed, this had been a small earthquake, probably no larger than a 4.5. The jolt couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, but from where Charlie sat, the world felt upside down. I just rode out a quake from the center of the San Andreas, he thought, but his mind wouldn’t grasp the particulars, and it was all he could do to scramble up the side of the ridge. Although it didn’t look like there’d been any substantial slippage, he scooped up some additional soil samples to bring to CES.
    Back at the car, Charlie retrieved his laptop and ran the simulation program, extending the parameters to see what might happen next. The San Andreas was becoming increasingly active—he’d known that since Indio—but withoutthe exact epicenter of this event, it was impossible to tell what anything meant. He needed more information, to see what the numbers looked like now. Charlie loaded up his rucksack and started on the long ride home.

RECOMMENDATION: PASS
    DRIPPING PICTURES
    Title: Ear to the Ground
    Writer: Ian Marcus

    Recommendation: Pass
    Writer: Maybe
    Log Line: A journalist, unable to sleep for fear of earthquakes, finds out the Big One is coming to Los Angeles and that seismologists know about it. What they don’t know is how to alert the city without plunging the populace into turmoil.
    Comment Summary: This story alternates between gentle earnestness and biting sarcasm. Earthquake meets Network. There’s more science than there needs to be, and I’m not sure audiences will buy the paranoid theory behind it.
    Synopsis: BILL MARTIN is a razor-stubbled reporter at the Los Angeles Sun. He’s frequently at odds with his editor,GERARD CONSINO, a small, wiry man with little vision. Bill can’t sleep nights, what with recurring nightmares of the earth opening up and swallowing his Silver Lake apartment building whole. At an editorial meeting one morning, he proposes the idea that earthquakes can be predicted, but the techies are holding out. “Another one of your conspiracy theories?” Gerard asks him.
    This angers Bill. He imagines his colleagues talking behind his back and begins to worry that the slightest vibration—a refrigerator’s hum or the passing of a bus—is an earthquake. His bad dreams become more frequent, and one night he is compelled to walk through the streets of Los