The Weathermakers (1967) Page 4

  “So all we can do is sit here and hope the Climatology Division can warn us of the storms in time to keep us from losing people?” Father’s face wore the expression he uses when he thinks about how much he pays in taxes and how little he gets back in return.

  “There’s another side to it, Dad. Some of the people at Climatology think weather control can be done. But not right away.”

  I told him about Ted’s hopes.

  “How serious is this fellow?” Father demanded. “Is he a pipe dreamer or can we depend on him?”

  “I think he’s dependable. This Dr. Barneveldt—he won the Nobel Prize, you know—he seems to be working with Ted pretty closely. So it can’t be completely haywire.”

  “Scientists can be wrong, Jeremy. Even Nobel Prize winners.”

  “Well, maybe. But I think I’d like to stay here a while and see what happens. Ted might have the answer we want. Even his long-range predictions by themselves could be very important for us.”

  Father nodded. “I agree, although I’m not certain you’re the one who should be keeping track of him. You’re a long way from home, young man.”

  “I can take care of myself. And the family’s just a few minutes’ drive from here.”

  “Have you seen your uncles or Aunt Louise yet?”

  “Not yet. But I’ll drop in on them.”

  “Yes, I suppose you couldn’t very well stay in Boston without visiting them,” Father said reluctantly. “Give them my regards. And don’t overplay this storm problem.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And stay as close as you can to this Marrett fellow. He may be a crackpot, but he’s the only hope we have.”

  Staying close to Ted was no easy task. Mornings he was at MIT, afternoons at the Climatology offices, and evenings he was apt to be working either at one place or the other. He was a man on the move.

  Barney tipped me off that he usually spent an hour or so Saturday mornings at the Cambridge YMCA, not far from the apartment he shared with Tuli.

  I cornered him there, in a small gym off the main basketball court, and watched him give a fencing lesson to Tuli. Standing still, in the heavy white jacket and fencing mask, he looked like a hulking, heavy-footed gladiator. I expected Tuli to outspeed him easily. But in action he moved with the lightning grace of a leopard.

  “Played halfback in college,” he explained at the end of the session, his face soaked with sweat. “Where I got my nose conked. Had a captain in the Air Force who liked fencing. He taught me and I’m teaching Tuli. Tried to get Barney interested, too, but she gave it up after a few weeks. Great stuff, you ought to try it.”

  We started out of the gym as Tuli said, “On alternate Saturdays we practice karate. Then I’m the teacher and he’s the student.”

  “Not enough action in karate,” Ted said, slinging his fencing bag over one shoulder. “Spend all your time in exercises and Oriental meditation.”

  As we headed for the locker room, Ted suddenly suggested, “How about a quick swim? We’ve got about twenty minutes to spare. Come on, Jerry, we’ll dig up a suit for you.”

  I agreed quickly. We raced two laps and I outdistanced him easily. “Doggone fish,” he called out, treading water. “Forgot you’re an Islander. Come on, let’s try it again.”

  It was a challenge to him. A test he couldn’t ignore. After half a dozen laps he was keeping up with me. He didn’t have the right coordination, but he thrashed along on brute force, just about matching me, stroke for stroke.

  “Looks as though you can do everything,” I said as we finally hauled ourselves out of the pool.

  “No sense trying to do anything unless you can do it right,” he answered.

  While we dressed in the locker room, Tuli said quietly to me, “He’s the type who either excels in what he’s doing, or simply doesn’t do it. He’s about as good in karate now as I am, although I’ve been studying the art for years and he’s been at it only a few months.”

  “He’s an unusual person,” I agreed.

  “When I first came to MIT last year,” Tuli added, “Ted was the only one to accept me right away. My English was terrible, of course. He shared his apartment with me and spent two solid months working on my pronunciation. There are not many like him.”

  After we were dressed, Ted suggested we get an early lunch.

  “Here at the Y?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “I’ve got to see some people in Boston,” I lied.

  Shrugging, he said, “Okay. See you soon.”

  He turned for the locker-room door.

  “I wanted to ask you,” I said, walking alongside him, “how the long-range forecasts are going.”

  That brought a smile. “Great, so far. The hand calculation I did the middle of the week looks solid. This morning’s official forecast by the Boston Weather Bureau office is just the same as mine . . . but not as detailed, of course.”

  “And yours was made three days ago.”

  “Four. We’ve got the MIT computer running off the detailed forecast for the coming week. Should be finishing the run tonight. Then it’s just the dogwork of checking everything out . . . got the whole country to check on for the next eight days, Sunday to Sunday.”

  “And you have half the MIT Department of Meteorology and three-fourths of Climatology’s computer section helping you,” Tuli said, pushing the locker-room door open.

  “That many? Good . . . we’ll need ’em. And more.”

  I asked, “Does Dr. Rossman know about all this?”

  Ted winced. “Hope not. At least, not yet. If he finds out how much time and manpower we’re throwing into this bootlegged work . . .”

  “He might consider some Eastern methods we have of dealing with undesirables,” Tuli said, straight-faced.

  “By Friday we’ll have the predictions for the whole country checked out for most of the week. I’ll tell Rossman about it then . . . if everything’s working okay.”

  “Why don’t we celebrate?” I suggested. “We could go down to Thornton for the weekend.”

  “Thornton?”

  “My family’s place in Marblehead.”

  Ted glanced at Tuli. “Okay, why not? Maybe a celebration’ll be in order next weekend.”

  We shook hands on it, and I told them I’d ask Barney along, too.

  “I’ll ask Barney,” Ted said. There was nothing really hostile in his voice when he said it, but his tone was awfully firm.

  4. Barney

  IT WAS Sunday afternoon before I heard from any of them again. I was in my hotel room, watching TV, when the phone rang. To my surprise, it was Barney.

  “Ted just told me that you’ve invited us to Marblehead for next weekend.”

  “That’s right.” I nodded. “I hope you can come.”

  “I don’t see why not. And it’s very sweet of you to ask us. I just thought I’d warn you, though. I stole a look at Ted’s forecast for the area, and it looks as though it will rain right through the weekend.”

  Just what we need, I said to myself. Aloud, I told her, “That’s too bad; I had hoped to take you out boating. Maybe Ted’s forecast won’t turn out.”

  “Don’t say that . . . he’d be heartbroken.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I’d love to go sailing, though. It’s a shame . . . the weather’s going to be fine all week. Until late Friday.”

  I glanced toward the window. The Charles River was dotted with sails. “Maybe we could go during the week . . . just a short jaunt . . .”

  “You mean after work? Would there be enough time?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “All right,” she said happily. “How about Tuesday?”

  “I’ll pick you up at the Climatology building.”

  “Wonderful.”

  So that Tuesday, after a fast drive out to the suburbs and back to Boston, we went out on the Charles in a rented sailboat. We skimmed along the river, crowded with other boats and an occasio
nal powered cruiser zigzagging noisily through the flotilla. The sun was just starting to dip down behind the Back Bay complex of towers; we could see its flaming reflection in the windows of the MIT buildings on the Cambridge side of the river.

  “I’m really glad you were free tonight,” I said.

  “So am I,” she answered, raising her voice slightly against the wind that slapped the sails. She was wearing slacks and an oversized sweater that we had found in the boat’s gear chest. “Ted’s kept us all terribly busy with forecasts. But I think the computer can do the rest of the work without me.”

  I leaned back, one hand on the tiller, and let the breeze carry us along. Barney seemed to be enjoying herself.

  “Is Ted always like this?”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Well . . . sort of like an active volcano.”

  Barney laughed. “He’s very excited about this forecasting technique. This is an important week for him.”

  I had to tack for mid-river as we approached the Harvard Bridge. “You two spend a lot of time together, don’t you?”

  “I suppose we do, between the office and this extracurricular work of his. We’ve even had dates together, now and then, when he’s hardly mentioned meteorology at all.”

  “That doesn’t sound likely.”

  “I know,” she replied, laughing again. “But it’s true. At first I thought Ted was only interested in getting some extra help for his computations. He’s not much of a mathematician, really. Perhaps it was only that . . . at first.”

  “And now?”

  “Now?” She brushed a bit of spray from her cheek. “You heard him last week . . . he said he’s threatened to marry me.”

  “And you’ve agreed?”

  “I haven’t really been asked, Jerry. I think Ted just assumes that I’m his girl and he’ll marry me some day—after he’s proven that he can control the weather.”

  “You mean he just takes you for granted like that?”

  Nodding, she said, “You’ve got to understand him, Jerry. He’s so wrapped up in his work that people . . . well, it’s not that they’re really secondary to him, but Ted simply doesn’t worry about people unless they force him to pay attention.

  “And he can’t possibly do what he wants to do all by himself. He needs people to help him. So I help, and try not to cause him problems.”

  “That makes it convenient for him.”

  “I hope so. I’ve never met anyone like Ted. He sees farther than anyone I know, dreams bigger dreams. I suppose I’m part of his plan for the future.” She hesitated. “I imagine I’m almost as important to him as controlling the weather.”

  “You deserve a better fate than that,” I said.

  “That’s what I keep telling him.”

  I headed the boat back to the dock, and then we drove to one of the better student restaurants in Harvard Square and had dinner. She began asking me about Hawaii and my family. By the time dinner was finished, she was telling me about the civil war in South Africa, and how her father had saved the 150-inch telescope there from being wrecked by a renegade mob.

  We took in the three-D show at the new Hologram Theater, and then drove back along the Charles to “Faculty Row,” where her apartment was. She lived with her uncle, who was a visiting professor at MIT as well as a member of the Climatology staff.

  “This was a lot of fun, Jerry,” she said as I helped her out of the car. “I enjoyed myself immensely.”

  “I’m glad. We’ll have to try it again, soon.”

  “Fine.”

  I wanted to kiss her, but before I could make up my mind actually to do it, she turned and walked up the steps to the apartment door. I stood there, feeling stupid, as she waved goodnight to me.

  Even during those bright days of late April, the air of the Arctic was heavy with cold. It sat atop the spinning Earth, imprisoned by a constant wall of westerly winds encompassing the Arctic Circle. But as the heartlands of Asia and North America warmed under the springtime sun, complicated readjustments began to take place in the moving, dynamic atmosphere. The westerlies faltered at one spot, briefly. It was long enough for a great mass of polar air to slide out of its Arctic prison and begin flowing southward, A long chain of events followed, a chain that stretched halfway across the world. The polar air mass pushed a weaker bubble of high pressure down across the great open stretches of northern Canada. Across the length of the continent the changes and counterchanges took place, as huge masses of air jostled each other, seeking a balance, a new equilibrium. The Bermuda High began to break up under the competing pressures of other systems. A tiny low-pressure cell, no more than a few clouds off the coast of Vera Cruz, felt itself being drawn into the trough of low pressure sandwiched between two westward-flowing Highs. The little storm headed northeastward, drawing moisture and power from the sea as it traveled.

  I spent the next morning at the Boston Public Library, gathering book spools on meteorology (most of which I couldn’t understand, as it turned out) and arguing the chief librarian into letting me borrow them even though I wasn’t a permanent resident.

  I went back to my hotel room, the spools under my arm. The phone was buzzing as I unlocked the door. I called out “Hello!” to make it open the circuit, thinking it might be Barney, but when I got into the room I saw Father’s face on the screen.

  “So there you are,” he said as I stepped before the viewscreen.

  I dropped the microfilm spools on the sofa.

  “Jeremy, we just got the first of the fast predictions from the Weather Bureau, together with an analysis of the coming month’s weather trends.”

  “How does it look?”

  Father shook his head. “Not good at all. I’m going to shut down all the dredging operations for the rest of the month. Three days’ advance warning of a storm—which may or may not hit us—just isn’t enough to work with. I’d rather close down and lose money than have the dredges wrecked or somebody killed.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “It’s not your fault. You’ve done the best you could. The trouble is, if we default on this contract with Modern Metals, the word will go ’round that deep-sea mining isn’t reliable. That’s what can really kill us.”

  I sat on the edge of the sofa. “Father, how would you like to have pinpoint predictions, a week or more in advance. Fully accurate.”

  He grunted.

  “That’s what Ted is working on. By the end of the month, he might be able to run off a set of predictions for us that will forecast the weather for the entire area where the dredges are working. The predictions will go two or three weeks into the future.”

  Father rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “If he can do that, we could keep the dredges going . . . just shut them down temporarily in advance of storm weather and then reopen them afterward. But we’d need a week’s warning to make the system work.”

  “Ted can do it, I’m sure he can. Two weeks, at least. Then you’d know exactly when to shut the dredges down, how long they’d have to stay shut, and when you could open them again. You could schedule the storms’ effects right into the operation.”

  “Can he really do it . . . this Marrett fellow?”

  “We’ll know for certain by the end of this week.”

  Father mulled it over for a few moments. “All right, Jeremy. I’ll keep the dredges open until the end of the week. Just pray that we don’t get caught with another bad storm in the meantime, that’s all.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

  Without realizing it, I had committed Ted to a very stiff assignment—without his slightest knowledge. I tried to call him, but he couldn’t be reached. So I got through to Barney, in the computations section.

  “I don’t know when you’ll be able to see Ted,” she answered me. He’s going to be busy tonight checking his forecasts . . . I’ll be helping him. Why don’t you join us there?”

  “Where?”

  “At Ted’s place. We’re going there right aft
er work. We’ll eat there. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “Okay, fine.” Then I remembered what Ted considered food. “Um, maybe I’ll meet you after dinner.”

  She smiled as though she could read my mind. “I’ll be the cook tonight, so you might be doing the smartest thing.”

  “No, I didn’t mean . . . that is—”

  “It’s all right, Jerry. Don’t apologize. I wouldn’t want to eat soyburgers either when I could have a real steak.”

  “I guess I’m just a foolish snob.” Then I got an idea. “Say, why don’t I bring the dinner? I could have them cook up something here at the hotel and pack it in plastic dishes. You won’t even have to clean up afterward!”

  She looked doubtful. “That might be a little too fancy for Ted . . .”

  “I’ll make it simple. And it’ll save you time and trouble. Okay?”

  “All right, you talked me out of working. Thanks.”

  I got to Ted’s apartment, following Barney’s directions, just about five o’clock. The back seat of my rental car was filled with cartons. I buzzed Ted’s number at the lobby phone and asked him to come down and help with the packages.

  He was downstairs in half a minute, peering into the packages on the seat.

  “CARE comes to Cambridge,” he muttered.

  We carried the cartons upstairs and had dinner. The food was excellent; even Ted seemed pleased.

  “I’m beginning to see it pays to have rich friends,” he said, sprawling on the little room’s only sofa. “Better be careful or you’ll soften me up, Jerry.”

  “I thought it would be easier on Barney this way.”

  “Get more useful work out of her, reduce entropy. Guess I can’t complain about that.”

  Within a few minutes after finishing the meal, the one-room apartment was converted into a meteorology workshop. The only table, the sofa bed, even the sink and range in the kitchenette were covered with papers: maps, graphs, calculations, scribblings, stacks of computer print-outs. Ted and Tuli soon lapsed into a cryptic shorthand dialogue, while Barney fed them sheets of paper to read.

  “Indianapolis,” Ted called out.