The Weathermakers (1967) (18 page)

“Okay,” Ted agreed. “But this whole military operation is wrong-end first. Been thinking about it. If they’re going to handle weather control like a secret weapon, the whole idea’s going to get bogged down in trouble.”

The wind had come a long way. About three weeks earlier it had been a cold, dry blast scouring the Siberian tundra as the November freeze swept southward past Lake Baikal. It blew out onto the wide Pacific, whipping deep swells and drawing moisture from the sea. The west wind invaded America on an eight-hundred-mile-wide front, sending California farmers to their smudge pots to prevent a freeze on the last of the fruit harvest. As it climbed over the Rockies, the wind dropped first rain, then a foot-thick blanket of snow as it surrendered its captured moisture. It was a dry wind again when it slid down the other side of the mountains and across the southwestern desert. It curved out toward the Gulf Coast, picked up a little more water vapor and—guided by the jet stream—rushed northeastward into New England. By the time it reached Boston it had cooled down to its dew point and sprinkled a fine powdery snow over the area. Delighted children rushed to their cellars to find sleds. Grumbling adults went to their garages, muttering about snow tires and New England winters.

Jim Dennis called a few days before Thanksgiving and invited the four of us to his house for the holiday afternoon.

“I want you to meet someone,” he said, “who’s interested in your problems with the Pentagon’s weather project.” Surprised, I said, “I didn’t realize you knew about it. The project’s supposed to be secret.”

“You’d be surprised what a Congressman hears,” he answered, with a sly smile.

I took Barney, Ted, and Tuli to Thornton for Thanksgiving dinner, and then we drove out to the Dennis house. It started to snow as we approached Lynn.

“Right on schedule,” Ted said, looking at his wristwatch. “Should be a snowy winter this year.”

The Dennis household was filled with children, friends, political aides, petitioning voters, and neighbors. Jim was shuttling back and forth between his office and the living room, which were separated by the house’s main hallway. The living room was crowded with politically minded adults of one sort or another. Business problems. We fit into that category, but Mrs. Dennis took us in tow first, introduced us to everybody in the dining room, where a second shift of Thanksgiving dinner seemed to be getting started, and ushered us back into the kitchen.

She had charge of the children and the nonpolitical adults. The dining room, kitchen, and all play areas were her domain. Somehow she managed to keep everyone happy and fed, and the children safely occupied, while still looking calmly unruffled. Barney watched her with unabashed awe.

“You can put your coats on the table next to the stove,” she said, pointing to a magnificent old black woodburner. “Jim might be tied up for a while. Would you like some dinner? How about fruitcake and cider? Or pie?”

We all declined except Ted, who could always somehow stow another piece of pie. It might have been an awkward half hour as we stood in the kitchen with a gang of strangers and children, but Mrs. Dennis managed to make us feel at home. She knew us all by name, and soon had us talking about the weather—and what we could do about it.

Ted was just starting to hit his conversational stride when Jim walked in, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie loosened, grinning happily.

“Holidays are kind of confused around here sometimes,” he said to us. “Sorry you couldn’t come for dinner. I ate enough turkey to make up for it, though.”

“We’ve been talking about the snow,” Mrs. Dennis said. “Ted thinks it’s going to stop in another hour or so.”

Jim laughed. “Ted doesn’t think. He knows.”

“Hope so,” Ted replied.

“Okay,” the Congressman said, “so don’t bother getting out the shovels and boots. Now, how about the four of you coming to the quiet end of the house. And Mary, could you bring us another pot of coffee?”

“That’s the only time I see you during the holidays,” she said, “when you’re hungry or thirsty.”

“Politics is a rough life.”

The Congressman’s office was small but surprisingly quiet.

“I soundproofed it myself,” he said. “With five kids and all their friends around the house . . . it was soundproofing or insanity.”

He gestured to the chairs. I picked a rocker. Three walls of the office were covered with bookshelves; the fourth had a pair of windows with several framed photographs between them.

After Mrs. Dennis delivered the coffee and we poured ourselves some, Jim began, “The Science Committee is going to start hearings in January about the Weather Bureau’s work. Naturally, your weather-control idea will become big news.”

“So that’s it . . .”

“Wait, there’s more. The Pentagon has been pushing hard to get their project going. Their work will be secret, if and when they get the go-ahead from Congress and the White House. In the meantime, it’s no secret that they’re driving for a weather-control project. It’s all over Washington, and it could become a political football, first class. Now if—”

The doorbell rang. Jim said, “I think that’s our mystery guest.”

He went out into the hall and greeted a man at the front door. “Glad you could come,” we heard him say. “Here, leave your coat on the telephone table and come in. They’re all here.”

We recognized the man who stepped into the office as Dr. Jerrold Weis, the President’s Science Adviser. He was small, slight, with a high nasal voice. He looked even more tanned in person than he did on TV. His handshake was strong and his gaze penetrating.

After the introductions, Dr. Weis wound up in my rocking chair. I found some leaning room on a windowsill.

“So you are the young geniuses,” Dr. Weiss said, digging a pipe out of his jacket pocket, “who broke up the drought.”

“And who want to control the weather,” Jim Dennis said. “Tell him about it, Ted.”

It took a couple of hours, and even some equation-writing on the Congressman’s stationery to settle some of Dr. Weis’ technical questions. Ted roamed the small room ceaselessly as he spoke, shaping ideas with his hands, going through the whole history of the long-range forecasts, Aeolus Research, the drought, and Major Vincent’s project.

Dr. Weis puffed thoughtfully on his pipe as he listened.

“I believe one point is clear,” the Science Adviser said when Ted finally slowed to a halt. “Unless we act to prevent it, there will be a classified military weather-control program underway within a year.”

Ted nodded.

“And a classified military program,” Dr. Weis went on, “will dominate the entire field of research. Congress won’t want to support two or three different Government agencies all doing the same work. If the Pentagon gets a weather-control program going first, they’ll force everyone else to work under their terms.”

“Is that so terrible?” Barney asked.

Ted answered, “Already making trouble for you and Tuli. Once they really get started, the Security lid gets welded onto everything. The work’ll be aimed at using the weather as a weapon. The push’ll be to do things that show a big effect; research and everything else has to have a payoff that the top brass can see right away.”

“It’s not the proper way to do this kind of work,” Dr. Weis agreed. “Weather control could be a powerful tool for peace. If we make a military project out of it, other nations will start emphasizing the military aspects of it, too. We could end up by making the weather a cause of war—cold or hot.”

“But the Pentagon has a legitimate need to study weather control,” I said. “There
are
military aspects to the situation.”

“Of course there are!” Dr. Weis said, nodding vigorously. “And Major Vincent and his people are going about their work in the way that is best . . . for them. However, I’m concerned about a bigger picture—one that includes the military needs
and
all the other needs of the nation.”

“So how do we stop the Pentagon?” Ted asked.

Dr. Weis took the pipe from his mouth. “We don’t. Not directly, at least. The only way to prevent them from taking control of this idea is to go to Congress with a bigger idea.”

“Bigger?”

Jim Dennis smiled. “I get it. Tell the Science Committee about a big, nonmilitary program that won’t be classified, that will be spectacular, and that can get the Congressmen lots of publicity in their home districts.”

Nodding, Dr. Weis said, “Exactly.”

“A big project,” I said.

“Spectacular,” Ted added.

“And you have between now and the second week of January to figure it out,” Jim Dennis told us.

Ted literally locked himself in his room at Climatology for the next few weeks, while Tuli set himself up in business in a private office near Aeolus. Ted was furiously searching for a spectacular project to spring on Congress. Tuli was shuttling back and forth between Aeolus and the Manhattan Dome, trying to learn why the “air-conditioned island” was suffering from air pollution.

In the meantime, I chewed fingernails fretting over the upcoming Congressional hearings, Tuli’s Security status, and everything else. It was really winter now, very snowy, as Ted had predicted, and bitterly cold. I thought sadly of the Islands every time I had to go outdoors.

Just before Christmas, Major Vincent called and invited us to Hanscom Air Force Base, where he was visiting for a few days. He sounded mysterious.

It was a gray, heavily cold day as I drove out to Climatology to pick up Ted. Then, together, we went to the Air Base. The major met us at the gate and guided us to the flight line next to one of the field’s two-mile-long runways. We parked and sat huddled in the car as the warmth of the heater seeped away.

“What are we supposed to be seeing?” Ted asked.

“Wait a minute; it’ll be here soon.”

An air policeman, complete with white helmet and sidearm, walked over to check on us. When he saw the major he snapped into a salute.

A somber, featureless cloud deck had blanked out the sun, and a raw wind swooped out of the distant hills, unobstructed across the open sprawling airfield. The wind and dampness made it seem even colder than it really was, and the smoke from the Air Base’s power generating station seemed almost to congeal in the heavy frigid air.

“What is this, an endurance test?” Ted growled.

Then we heard a plane overhead.

“Here she comes!” Major Vincent hopped out of the car.

As we followed him, he pointed to a distant speck that had just broken through the clouds. Quickly it grew to solid dimensions: an airplane circling the field once, twice, then lining up for a runway approach.

“Big one,” Ted said as it made its final bank and glided down to the ground.

I could see multiwheeled landing gear extended from pods along her fuselage now. For a moment she seemed to hang in midair, as if reluctant to come back to earth. Then her tires screeched on the runway and she rolled toward us.

Ted was wrong, she wasn’t big. She was immense. A huge, straight-winged, six-engined propjet, she loomed gigantically as she taxied to the flight line where we were standing, her turbos whining painfully in our ears. She looked like an ocean liner that had grown wings. Her tail soared impossibly high above us; her fuselage looked big enough to hold a whole city’s bus fleet.

“She’s brand new!” Major Vincent was practically bubbling with enthusiasm. “The first of a new series. This is her maiden flight—the Dromedary, we call her.”

Ted shrugged. “One hump or two?”

“No humps. And no crew!”

That stirred Ted. “Landed automatically?”

“Right. This is the first time she’s touched ground in three days. She’s been aloft, flying automatically, for three days! That’s classified information, by the way. Don’t tell anyone who’s not cleared.”

“What’s this got to do with . . .” I started to ask.

But Ted was ahead of me. “She could be an unmanned weather-observation plane . . . better than a satellite some ways because she’s flying through the air you want to measure, instead of way above it. Could record temperatures, pressures, humidities, the works.”

lie looked up at the huge plane admiringly now. “How long has this been in the works? Can we go inside and look around? What instrumentation do you have on her? What about—”

The major held up his hands. “Okay, okay, come on aboard and check her out. She wasn’t originally designed for weather observation, but some of our people think we can convert her to that mission.”

“Great!” Ted beamed as we headed for the plane’s forward hatch. “And she could carry plenty of seeding material for modification missions.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Major Vincent said. “But I wanted you to see the plane. Working with the Pentagon won’t be
all
red tape.”

Ted glanced at me, and I could see our meeting with Dr. Weis flash into his mind. For once, though, he kept his silence.

He was still silent as we drove back through the late-afternoon darkness toward Boston.

“It looks as if the Pentagon is moving pretty fast on their weather project,” I said.

Ted nodded. “Too fast. It’s going to take something really big to get the ball away from ’em.”

Without taking my eyes from the snaking line of red tail lights building up on the road ahead of us, I asked, “Do you have any ideas about what—”

“Hurricanes,” Ted said, more to himself than to me.

“That’s the only way to stop Vincent.”

“What?”

“We’ve got to give Weis a big program that’ll make weather control a front-page business and keep the Pentagon from gobbling it up. Hurricanes’ll do it. We’re going to stop hurricanes.”