The Weathermakers (1967)

by Ben Bova

  “Pleased to meet you both,” I said. “I’m—”

  “Jeremy Thorn the Third,” Ted finished before I could. “Never met a Third before. . . or a Second, for that matter. Rocket in from Hawaii? Good flight? Sure dressed Island style.”

  “I . . . didn’t have time to change,” I fumbled. “Uh, is Dr. Rossman here? I was supposed . . .”

  Ted nodded. “Told him you were here. He’ll make you wait a couple minutes more before he lets you into his office. His way of getting even for making him wait.”

  “Getting even?”

  “Quitting time’s four fifteen around here; Rossman likes to get home to his wife and family. He was kind of sore about having to stay to five thirty, and you even blew that time.”

  “The helicab—”

  “Don’t worry, he’ll call you in any minute now.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “You weren’t staying late just because of me, were you?”

  “Oh, no.” Ted waved the idea away. Grinning toward Dr. Barneveldt, he said, “We were just gassing about weather control.”

  2. “. . . It’s Impossible”

  “WEATHER control?” I said. “That’s what I came for.”

  “I believe perhaps we should explain,” Dr. Barneveldt began to say, but a buzzer cut him off in mid-sentence.

  He carefully moved a stack of paper off the desktop intercom and touched a red-glowing button.

  “Has the visitor found the office yet?” a raspy voice asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Barneveldt said. “Mr. Thorn is here now.”

  “Good; send him in.” The intercom clicked into silence.

  Ted gestured the old man to stay in his chair. “It’s just down the hall,” he said to me, jerking a thumb in the right direction. With the beginnings of a grin, he added, “Good luck.”

  I walked down the short hallway to the door at the end, feeling kind of jittery. There was no nameplate. I knocked once, lightly.

  “Come in.”

  Dr. Rossman’s office was almost as small and tired-looking as the one I had just left. A metal desk, a row of file cabinets, a tiny conference table with chairs that didn’t match: no more furniture than that. Only one window; the rest of the walls were covered with charts and graphs that had been taped up years ago, from the looks of them.

  I had never before realized the difference between private industry and government, as far as floor space and trappings were concerned. If Dr. Rossman had been working for Father at an equally important position, his office would have been four times larger. And probably his salary, too.

  He was seated at the desk. “Sit down, Mr. Thom. I hope you didn’t have too much trouble finding us.”

  “A little,” I answered. “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you late.” He shrugged. He was lean and pale-looking, with a long, somber face that reminded me a bit of a bloodhound’s.

  “Well, now,” he said as I pulled a chair from the table toward the desk, “what can we do for Thornton Pacific?” I sat down and said, “It’s about these storms that have hit our mining dredges. They’re causing a lot of damage and expense.”

  He nodded gravely. “Yes, I suppose they are.”

  “My father wants to know what you can do about them. We’ve been forced to suspend mining operations for several days at a time. If something isn’t done soon to stop the storms, we’re going to lose a considerable amount of money. To say nothing of the lives of the men who are in danger.”

  “I understand,” Dr. Rossman said. “We’ve been trying to furnish the entire Pacific area with the most accurate long-range forecasts possible. Fully a third of my entire staff is working on the problem right now. Unfortunately, pinpointing storm development in the open ocean is a very, very difficult task.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “You see, Mr. Thorn, our long-range forecasts are made on a statistical basis. We can predict, with very good accuracy, how much rain will fall over a certain area during a given period of time—say, a month. But we can’t foretell exactly when a storm will form until practically the last minute. And it’s even more difficult to forecast a storm’s exact path, except in a very general manner.”

  “Yes, but when a storm’s going to affect a vital area such as our dredges,” I asked, “can’t you turn it aside or perhaps destroy it altogether?”

  He nearly laughed, but checked himself just in time. “Mr. Thorn, whatever gave you the idea we could do that?”

  “Well . . . aren’t you the people who do the weather-control work? I’ve seen stories about cloud seeding and hurricane patrols . . .”

  “You’re making a very common mistake,” he said, smiling patiently. “Yes, my group here has the responsibility for weather modification experiments. The Weather Bureau has been doing small-scale seeding trials and other experiments for years. But they’ve never amounted to anything. Nothing definite has been proven. No one can alter the course of a storm. No one can dissipate a storm.”

  I could feel myself sink in the chair. “But those people who fly into hurricanes..

  “Oh, that. Yes, for years they’ve tried to modify hurricanes. But there’s never been a firm connection established between what they do and the effect—if any—on the hurricane. Never has a hurricane been stopped, or even slowed down for long, as a result of seeding its clouds.”

  Leaning back in his swivel chair, he almost seemed to be enjoying himself. “There’s the Severe Weather group in Kansas City who’ve claimed they’ve prevented tornadoes—sometimes—by cloud seeding. But I’m not convinced, and neither is anyone else of any technical stature in the Weather Bureau. The results are far from conclusive.”

  I must have looked rather dumbfounded.

  “Look at it this way,” Dr. Rossman said, absently picking up a pencil from his desk. “A hurricane will expend within a few minutes as much energy as the Hiroshima A-bomb. In a single day, it will release the equivalent of a hundred ten-megaton hydrogen bombs. No one and nothing can destroy that!”

  “But . . . smaller storms: can’t you do something about them? Or at least try?”

  He shook his head. “It would be enormously expensive, and completely futile, as far as I can see. In fact, hurricanes are probably more susceptible to man-made modifications than any other type of storm—at least, they seem more delicately balanced, closer to instabilities.”

  “That sounds strange.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I suppose it does, to a layman. But it’s true. As far as talk about controlling the weather, though, I’m afraid that’s all it is—just talk. And I can assure you, no one from the Long-Range Forecasts Section will ever be involved in such foolishness as long as I’m in charge.”

  “Foolishness?”

  “Of course it’s foolishness,” he snapped, waving the pencil at me. “Weather control! All the experiments we’ve done have been meaningless. Even supposing we could alter large-scale features of the weather . . . divert one of the storms that’s been bothering you, or destroy it altogether. How do we know that we haven’t created a condition where an even worse storm will develop? Or perhaps caused some changes in the natural balance of forces that will cause trouble thousands of miles away. No, there’s too much involved, too much that we don’t understand and probably never will understand. Believe me, as far as weather control is concerned . . . it’s impossible.”

  “But those people in the other office—they were talking about weather control.”

  Rossman tried to smile again, but his eyes narrowed. “That’s Ted Marrett. As I just explained to you, there’s always a lot of talk about controlling the weather. Mr. Marrett is young and ambitious—going for his master’s degree at MIT and all fired up, the world-beater type. I’m sure you’ve met his kind before. He’ll settle down someday, and then he’ll probably make a very fine meteorologist.”

  “Then . . . then there’s nothing you can do to help us?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Rossman tapped the pencil against his chin for a moment.
“We can provide you with realtime service on our forecasts, for one thing. In layman’s terms, that means we can furnish you with our forecasts by computer link as quickly as they’re printed out here. I assume you’re getting your forecasts now by commercial videophone, which is twelve to eighteen hours behind our printers.”

  “I guess that’ll be some help,” I said.

  “You can also apply to the Government for financial assistance. Of course, you can’t have the entire mid-Pacific declared a disaster area, but I’m sure you can get some help from a number of Government agencies.”

  “I see.” Suddenly there was nothing left to talk about I started to get up from my chair. “Well, thank you for your time, Dr. Rossman.”

  “I’m sorry to have to disappoint you.”

  “My father’s going to be the one who’s disappointed.”

  He walked me to the door of his office. “Can you come back tomorrow? I can put you in touch with the people who will make the arrangements for this realtime forecasting.”

  I nodded. “All right. I wasn’t planning to leave until tomorrow afternoon anyway.”

  “Good. We’ll do everything we can for you.”

  I walked down the hallway, past the now-empty office where Ted and Dr. Barneveldt had been, and made my way back to the lobby. The building seemed completely deserted now, and I was feeling awfully alone.

  Ted was slouched across one of the couches in the lobby, thumbing through a magazine. He looked up at me.

  “Dr. Bee figured you might not have any transportation back to town. Tough to get a cab around this time. Need a lift?”

  “Thanks. Are you going into Boston?”

  “Live in Cambridge, just across the river. Come on.”

  His car was a battered old Lotus two-seater. He gunned it out of the parking lot and onto the beltway, engine howling, and roared down a manual-control lane. Probably the car had no electronic guidance equipment, I thought.

  It had been a long time since I’d been in New England in April; I’d forgotten how chilly it can be. Zooming through the twilight, and still wearing my Island sports clothes, I could feel my teeth start to chatter. Ted was happily unaware of this. He talked steadily over the growl of the engine and the whistling cold wind, gesturing with one hand and steering through the thickening traffic with the other. His monologue changed tack almost as often as he switched driving lanes: he talked about Rossman, Dr. Barneveldt, something about turbulent air flow, mathematics, air pollution, and even threw in a quick lecture on the peculiarities of Hawaii’s climate. I nodded and shivered. Every time he zipped past another car I wished we were on the automatically controlled section of the highway.

  He dropped me at the hotel I told him I wanted, after raising his eyebrows in mock respect at the mention of its name. “Fanciest place in town; you travel top class.”

  My room was comfortable. And heated. I was surprised, though, that the hotel wouldn’t give me a suite. Too many people and not enough floor space, the registration clerk told me. I ordered a wardrobe by viewphone—nothing too much, just some slacks and a jacket, and incidentals.

  Dinner felt strangely like lunch until I realized that my body was still on Hawaii time. I was far from sleepy even at midnight, so I watched the all-night TV movies until I finally drifted off.

  The sun rose brightly across the western half of the globe, its unfailing energy heating the seas and continents—and the restless, heaving ocean of air that mantled them both. Powered by the sun, twisted by the spinning Earth beneath it, the atmosphere moved like a living, throbbing creature. Winds and currents pulsed through it. Gigantic columns of air billowed upward for miles and sank again, absorbed moisture and released it, borrowed warmth from the tropics and carried it poleward, breathed life wherever they touched. Above this endless activity, the turbulent air ocean became more placid, except for the racing rivers of the jet streams. Higher still, electrical charges swirled through a darkening sky where meteors flashed and unbreathable gases blocked all but a small slice of the sun’s mighty radiance. Pulled by lunar and solar tides, mixed with magnetic fields and ghostly interplanetary winds, the ocean of air gradually thinned away and disappeared on the dark shore of space.

  I slept late, dressed hurriedly, and got a rental car for the ride out to the Climatology Division. While the auto guided itself through the impossible crush of Boston traffic, I bought the best breakfast that the tinny vending machine in the back seat had to offer: synthetic juice, a warmed-over bun, and powdered milk.

  I phoned ahead as the car threaded its way to the throughway and picked up speed. Dr. Rossman’s secretary answered that he was busy but would detail someone to meet me in the lobby.

  Climatology’s parking lot was jammed now, and the lobby fairly bustled with people. I announced myself to the receptionist, who nodded to a lovely slim blonde sitting near the desk.

  She was dressed in a light-green sweater and skirt, touched off with the fresh, outdoor fragrance of flower fields.

  “I’m Priscilla Barneveldt,” she said. “Dr. Rossman asked me to see that you got through the Services Section without trouble.”

  Her eyes were grayish-green, I noticed. Her face was a trifle on the long side, but well put together, with firm features and a determined little chin.

  “Well,” I said, “you’re the most pleasant surprise I’ve had in the whole Weather Bureau so far.”

  “And that’s the most pleasant compliment I’ve heard all day . . . so far.” She spoke with a slight, unidentifiable accent. “The elevators are down this way.”

  “Don’t forget your glasses, Barney,” the receptionist said.

  “Oh, thanks.” She went back to the chair she had been sitting in and picked up the eyeglasses. “I’d be squinting all day without them.”

  “Barney?” I asked as we walked to the elevators.

  A trace of a smile shaped her lips. “It’s better than ‘Prissy’ or ‘Silly’ don’t you think?”

  “I guess so.” The elevator doors slid open and we stepped inside. “But isn’t it a little confusing?”

  She really smiled now. “I’m afraid I’m not a very highly organized person . . . not with people, anyway. Third floor please,” she said to the elevator control panel.

  It took nearly an hour for me to fill out the forms in the Services Section that would send Dr. Rossman’s up-to-the-minute predictions to our Honolulu offices. Barney helped me with them and fed the finished paperwork into the automatic processor that made up most of the Section.

  Then she said, “Have you seen the rest of the building? I could give you the official guided tour, if you like.”

  Nothing could have bored me more, I thought. Except sitting in the airport, waiting for the afternoon flight. “Okay, guide me.”

  The tour took the remainder of the morning. The building was much larger than it appeared from the outside, and even had an annex out back where the shops and maintenance equipment were kept. Barney showed me the laboratories where men and women were studying the nature of air at various pressures and temperatures—its chemical composition, the way it absorbs heat energy, the effects of water vapor, dust particles, and thousands of other things. Then we went through the theoretical section, on our way down to the electronic computers.

  “The theoreticians aren’t much to see,” she told me as we passed their cubbyhole office. “They sit at their desks and write equations that we have to solve down at the computations center.”

  The computations area was impressive. Row upon row of massive computer consoles, chugging away, tapes spinning in their spools, girls scurrying, print-out typers spewing out long folding sheets of incomprehensible numbers and symbols.

  “This is where I work,” Barney said over the noise of the machines. “I’m a mathematician.”

  I had to laugh. “For a not-very-highly-organized person, you certainly picked an odd occupation.”

  “I’m only disorganized with people,” she said. “The computers are differ
ent. I get along fine with the big machines. They don’t get impatient, don’t have tempers. They’re strictly logical, you can tell what they’re going to do next, what they need. They’re a lot easier to get along with than people.”

  “They sound pretty dull,” I said.

  “Well, some people are more exciting than others,” she admitted.

  “This place,” I said, watching the girls who were attending the machines, “looks like a meteorologist’s harem.” Barney nodded. “There’ve been lots of little romances blossoming here. I’ve often said we wouldn’t have half so many men from the staff coming over here with requests for special programming if we had male programmers.”

  “Girls work cheaper, I guess.”

  “And better, as far as detail and accuracy are concerned,” Barney said firmly.

  “Sorry . . . I spoke before I thought. It’s a bad habit of mine. I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “It’s all right,” she said, smiling.

  To change the subject, I said, “I met a Dr. Barneveldt last night. Is he your father or grandfather or . . .”

  “Uncle,” Barney answered. “Jan Barneveldt. He received the Nobel Prize for his work on the physical chemistry of air. He developed the first cloud-seeding chemicals that work on non-supercooled clouds.”

  It sounded important, even though I hadn’t the faintest idea of what she was talking about.

  “My father is Hannes Barneveldt; he and my mother are at the Stromlo Observatory in South Africa.”

  “Astronomers.”

  “Father is. Mother’s a mathematician. They work together.”

  I had to smile. “Then you’re following in your mother’s footsteps.”

  “Yes, that’s right . . . Come this way.” She took my arm and guided me through the ranks of computer consoles. “There’s something no guided tour would be complete without.”

  We stepped through a door into darkness. Barney shut the door behind us and the din of the computers was cut off. The room was cool and softly quiet. Only gradually, as my eyes adjusted to the low lighting level, did I realize what was there.