Peter said, “Knowing the timing of the events, you can unwind the turning of the Earth to trace the path back beyond the planet to its origin, or destination. We can’t find a unique destination for our three tracks—but they do seem to have a common origin.The sun. Somehow the sun is firing out dark matter nuggets, and some of them are passing through the Earth. What does this mean? Damned if I know. But there’s more . . . I’m attaching a graphic file.” Which I wouldn’t be able to download here.

I skimmed Peter’s verbose description, trying to get to the meat. Apparently, this particular “linear track,” actually the second observed by the Slan(t)ers, wasn’t so linear after all. “A little while after penetrating the upper mantle,” said Peter, “this nugget’s track diverged through about forty degrees. Then it skimmed the core and shot out of the Earth, in the vague direction of Mars. George, you see the significance? Dark matter passes through the Earth’s core like a hot knife through butter. Earth’s gravity field isn’t intense enough to impose a deflection like that. This nugget changed course . . .”

-Coalescent, Ch. 37