The Weathermakers (1967) (14 page)

I was starting to stagger. “But we’ll need the cooperation of the Navy, the Air Force, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the State Department, just for starting! And what about the Canadians and the Danes? Or the United Nations. . .

He laughed at me. “Those aren’t technical problems, old buddy. I’m telling you what we need. How to get ‘em done is your end of the stick.”

“Thanks a lot. Anything else?”

I shouldn’t have asked. It took the rest of the morning for him to finish telling me.

“Ted, this is going to cost hundreds of millions!”

“Baloney! We’re only going to be operating long enough to shift the atmosphere back to its normal balance. Then we leave it alone. Three months ought to do it, maybe less. And the cost’ll be peanuts compared to what the drought’s costing.”

“And you really can do it?”

Tuli answered, “It will be slightly more difficult than our optimistic leader thinks, but he’s essentially right. It can be done.”

Ted grinned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

I was just beginning to realize, emotionally, what they had said. Talking about weather control and drought alleviation is one thing, but to see it actually begin to take shape, to see plans being laid for moving rainfall from one place to another . . .

I walked back from Ted’s desk to the mammoth viewscreen, fascinated by its swirling arrows and symbols.

“Ted . . . this . . . this is marvelous!”

“Does kind of shake you,” he agreed. “Makes me feel like that character that first climbed Everest.”

“Huh? Oh, you mean Hillary.”

“Or Tenzing Norka,” Tuli said.

“Tenzing, that’s the one. The Sherpa.” Ted sat on the desk, his eyes narrowing as if he were trying to picture the scene. “He was born right there, under the mountain. Spent all his life looking at it. Nobody had ever made it to the top. But he did. Some kick.”

Tuli’s round face was solemn. “Someday we may feel the same way.”

“Someday soon,” Ted added. “Nobody’s ever been able to change the weather. But we’re going to, friends. Sure as it rains on picnics, we’re going to. So let’s get to work!”

And we did. We all pitched into the job with an eagerness I’d never seen before. It was as if we had been hunting a crafty wild animal, on its trail for ages, and now we were closing in for the kill. Excitement crackled through the Lab. Ted and Tuli started working out the exact details of the modification missions they’d have to conduct: the chemicals to use, the amounts, the planes needed, the days they would operate, the effects they would have. My administrative staff began working on getting the men and materials we would need.

But beneath it all, I had the sickening feeling that it would never happen. I dreamed a lot of Rossman; wherever we turned, it seemed in my nightmares, Rossman would be blocking us, standing between us and our goal.

And the nightmare started to come true.

We had been conducting seeding experiments out over the open ocean for months, working on a month-to-month license granted by ESSA. Without it, we were prohibited from doing any seeding. Our application for the month of September was returned.

Refused.

It was a routine request, exactly the same as those we had put through since early in the spring. But ESSA rejected it. I took the tube train down to Washington the next morning.

It was brutally hot in the capital: even the air-conditioned taxis were muggy and sweltering. The trees were brown from lack of water and the sidewalks shimmered in the late August heat.

Everyone in ESSA, it seemed, was out of town. Everyone I asked to see, that is. A taxi hop across the blistering city brought me to the Pentagon. At least the military people had the courtesy to talk to me. But the Navy people flatly refused to cooperate with Aeolus’ modification work, and the Air Force officers said they could work with the Weather Bureau, but not with a private firm—unless we had Government approval for our drought-breaking operation.

I was shut out. I even had trouble finding Jim Dennis. Finally, I tracked him down in the Capitol Building: he was in a committee session, but came right out when he got my note.

“I hope I didn’t take you away from anything important.”

“No,” he said, grinning. “They’re talking about appropriations. We’ll go around the mulberry bush a few times before any real work gets done.”

We paced down the ornate hallway outside the committee room, and I told him about my shutout at ESSA and the Pentagon.

He shook his head. Looking out a window at the wilting city, he murmured, “They’ve been talking about putting a dome over the District, like the Manhattan Dome. We could use city-wide air conditioning on a day like today.” He turned to me. “What do you think Ted would say about that?”

I shrugged. “I think he’d rather put a dome on Rossman . . . or whoever’s slamming the door in our faces.”

“It’s Rossman, all right,” Dennis said. “The word is out. He’s got his own drought-control ideas. He’s keeping it very, very quiet right now, but I’ve been able to learn that he plans to start some limited experiments next spring. In the meantime, he’s going to do everything he can to keep you out of the picture.”

“But . . . it’s not fair. It’s not right!”

“I agree with you,” the Congressman said. “But what good does that do? Rossman is known and respected in the Weather Bureau. He’s got the power.”

“Well, can’t you do something?”

“If I were chairman of the Science Committee, maybe I could kick up a fuss. But I’m only a Congressman . . . and a pretty new one, at that.”

“There ought to be something we can do!” My mind was racing, trying to figure a way. “I low about arranging a meeting between Ted and Rossman? We can at least make him know we’re on to his game.
And
that we might complain to the Science Committee.”

He mulled it over for a moment. “I don’t know if it will help any. But I’ll do it. I’d like to see the two of them in the same room,” he added, with a grin.

Ted literally exploded when I told him that evening about my day in Washington. Tuli, Barney, and I had to talk with him for hours. He was all for racing straight to the newspapers and screaming his head off. Finally I explained that Dennis was going to get Rossman to sit down with us and talk the whole thing over.

He nodded. He didn’t speak, but merely nodded. I noticed his hands were clenching into fists, over and over again, like a gladiator testing his weapons in the final few moments of waiting before entering the arena.

The meeting took place in Congressman Dennis’ office in Lynn. It was a pleasant enough spot, in a small office building that housed lawyers and insurance agents. Both sides had agreed to it as neutral territory.

We sat around Jim’s desk, Dr. Rossman on one side and Ted and me on the other.

“I asked for this meeting,” the Congressman said from his leather desk chair, “because Jerry here feels that Aeolus Research is being stymied by the Weather Bureau in its attempts to break the drought. Since the subject is probably the most important one in New England at the moment, I think it deserves our careful attention.”

Ted and Dr. Rossman just glared at each other, so I said, “Aeolus is ready to start modification work in a week or two. If we’re allowed to go ahead, we think we can break the drought this year. If not, it’ll be another year—probably not ’til next autumn—before we have another chance to improve the situation.”

“That may be,” Rossman replied somberly. He had a paper clip from Jim’s desk in his hands and was twisting it incessantly. “We’ve been studying several approaches to modifying the drought condition at the Climatology Division. We expect to spend this fall and winter doing laboratory experiments. Some small modification missions might be run in the spring, if everything goes well.”

Ted couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Won’t work,” he said flatly. “Need the fall and winter precipitation. Otherwise the water table’ll never get high enough. Soon as the growing season begins you’ll be back where you started. Worse.”

“That’s only your guess,” Rossman snapped.

“No guess! You need the autumn rains and a winter’s worth of snow and runoff, otherwise the spring storms are only a trickle. You’d get wetter in a bathtub.”

“This autumn will be much too early to start full-scale modification work.”

“For you, maybe. You’re six months behind us. You’ll do a little tinkering in the spring, give it up when it doesn’t help enough, and then claim weather control’s a waste of time and money. We’re ready to go now. And we’ll do the job
right I
All we need is permission.”

The paper clip broke in Rossman’s hands. “You can’t fly out and try weather experiments just because you want to be first. Suppose the experiment doesn’t work? Suppose something was missing from the calculations? Suppose a modification boomerangs and makes conditions worse instead of better?”

“Suppose there’s an earthquake?” Ted mimicked, “or the sky starts falling in?”

“Let’s not . . .”

“Listen,” Ted said. “We’re not playing games. We’ve checked out the whole scheme. We’ve built theoretical models. We’ve done computer simulations. We’ve checked, point for point, exactly what’ll happen every step of the way. Ask the MIT people; they know what we’ve done. We’re ready to go now, and a year from now we couldn’t be more ready. I can tell you exactly what the weather will be over New England, day by day, for the next two months. And I can tell what it’ll be either way—with the modifications or without.”

“You haven’t convinced me or any other reputable meteorologist that your scheme will work.”

“You don’t
want
to be convinced!”

Ted was almost out of his chair. I reached up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Rossman,” I said, “perhaps it would help if you’d come down to Aeolus and let us show you what we’re planning to do. Perhaps then you could . . .”

Rossman shook his head. “I simply can’t allow modification experiments to take place until I’m convinced that every possible safeguard has been taken to make certain the results won’t be harmful.”

Ted slumped back in his chair. “Meaning six more months of diddling and cross-checking the work that’s already been done.”

“If necessary, yes.” Rossman turned to Jim Dennis. “Our first responsibility is to serve the public:
were
not in business to turn a quick profit.”

“Serve the public,” Ted muttered. “Serve ‘em another year of drought.”

Rossman got to his feet. “There’s no point in earning this argument any further. When you finally grow up, Marrett, maybe you’ll learn that being fast doesn’t always make you right.”

Ted growled back, “Age doesn’t make you any smarter; just slower.”

Rossman slammed out of the office. Jim Dennis shrugged helplessly. “I’m inclined to be on your side. But he’s got all the votes. The ones that count.”

We were a sad, dispirited crew when we got back to Aeolus that afternoon. Tuli, after hearing the news, moped in his lab. Ted sat at his desk, feet propped up, staring vacantly at the viewscreen map with the drought pattern on it. I couldn’t sit still. I prowled around the place, getting strange looks from the people who were still busily working without knowing yet that their work was going to be for nothing.

Barney showed up around five thirty. She had heard the news, I could tell from the look on her face as I met her in the hall.

“Welcome to the funeral,” I said.

“I came as soon as I could get away. The whole Division is buzzing about it.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Ted must be furious.”

“I think he’s in a state of shock.”

“Where is he?”

“Come on,” I said.

But he was no longer in his room. Nor in Tuli s lab; they were both gone.

“Let’s try the roof,” I suggested.

Sure enough, that’s where they were, standing amid the jumble of Weather Bureau equipment that made up the observation station.

“Come to see the sun go down?” Ted asked us. “And the future with it?”

“Is it that bad?” Barney tried to force a smile.

“Yep.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”

He shook his head. “Look around, what do you see? A few thousand dollars’ worth of equipment, all marked, ‘Property of U.S. Government: Do Not Touch.’ That’s where we stand. Surrounded by tools we can use better than they can . . . but we can’t touch.”

“Water, water everywhere,” I mumbled to myself.

“Rossman’s got the keys and we’re locked out,” Ted said. “Worst of it is, he’s not going to do the job right. By the time he works up enough guts to really grab the problem and fix it, the drought’ll be over anyway.”

“But there will be pressure on him to produce,” I said. “The farmers, the newsmen, the state governments, and Congress . . .”

Ted waved a disgusted hand at me. “What pressure? You heard him today, the Official Voice of Science. He’ll just tell ‘em the same fairy story he told Dennis . . . he’s protecting the public from harebrained schemes. Weather modification could make things worse instead of better. By the time he gets done talking, the newsmen’ll be down on their knees thanking him for rescuing ’em from kooky kids and their wild ideas.”

He turned away and looked out toward the harbor. From our perch on the rooftop, we could see pleasure boats crisscrossing the water. A jetliner screamed down the airport runway and hurled itself into the sky.

“Why?” Ted slammed his fist against the guard rail. “Why is he blocking it? He knows it’ll work! Why is he pussyfooting?”

“Because he wants the credit for being first,” Barney said, “but he doesn’t want to take the risks. He’s very cautious.”

“The plowhorse that wanted to win the Kentucky Derby,” Ted grumbled.

“He wants the glory very much,” Barney said. “He’s worked all his adult life in the Weather Bureau, and done some very good work, but he’s never been in the spotlight.”

“He’ll never get the spotlight unless he moves faster than he’s planning to,” Ted answered. “By the time he’s ready to do some real weather control, it’ll be old enough to write up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.”

“He can’t move faster until he’s perfected his version of your long-range forecasts,” Tuli said. “Until he does that, he must go slowly.”