by Ben Bova
“And then what?” I asked.
“Get an instructor’s slot at MIT, I guess. Or go back in the Air Force. I won’t starve.”
“That won’t do,” Barney said. “You’d never be satisfied teaching freshmen from someone else’s textbook.”
“Doesn’t sound like fun, I’ll admit.”
He stepped away from the window and sat on the sofa, beside Barney.
“There are a few things I can do,” I said. “First off, don’t worry about expenses between now and June, Ted. I can take care of that . . .”
“No,” he said firmly. “Thanks Jerry, but nothing doing. I’m not a charity case. Not yet, anyway.”
“But . . .”
“No arguments. From here to June is no sweat, Be tight, but I’ll get my degree okay. It’s afterward that’s the problem.”
“You can come to work for Thornton.”
“Already thought of that. Thornton’s outfits don’t do the kind of work I want to do.”
“Then we’ll start a new office.”
“We’ll what?”
I was just as surprised as they were. The idea must have been in the back of my mind for several hours, but this was the first moment I had consciously recognized it.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not? We’ll set up a new Thornton company. Long-range forecasts can be a valuable service. We can make money on it! We’ll start our own business, with Thornton backing.”
For the first time that evening, Barney looked hopeful. We spent the rest of the night talking over the new idea. It was nearly dawn before we had agreed on the major points. The new company’s main product would be long-range forecasts. We wouldn’t try to compete with the Weather Bureau’s regular forecasting service, but would sell our predictions—for at least two weeks ahead—to private businesses, industrial concerns, and the like.
Most important to Ted, though, was that he would be free to conduct an extensive research program on weather control: that was the real objective, the goal we all wanted to reach. Thornton would supply the administrative manpower, the people who would run the office, keep the books, and handle the money. Ted would hire the technical staff, get the long-range forecasting service started, and then concentrate on weather control.
“And the first guy I’m hiring,” he said, “is an Oriental kineticist who doubles as the voice of my conscience.” Tuli, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the sofa, bowed his head. “I humbly accept the honor . . . depending, of course, on salary and fringe benefits.”
I told him, “Don’t worry about salaries. Thornton can do a lot better than the Government.”
Ted looked at me, a new light on his face. “Hey, I hadn’t thought about the money. I can get rich!”
Barney laughed. “Does the pay scale count for computer people, too?”
“No, you’re not coming with us,” Ted said, shaking his head. “You’re staying at Climatology.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“We’ll need somebody to keep an eye on the Division . . . especially on Rossman. Got a hunch he won’t take kindly to this new company.”
“But what can he do about it?” Barney asked.
“Don’t know. That’s why I want you there to watch him.”
Barney didn’t argue; she folded her arms and dropped her chin to her chest and pouted.
Ted insisted, “Listen, this is more important than making a social club. We’ll still see each other almost every day. And besides, if this idea flops and the company folds, you’ll still have a solid job at the Division.”
Her stubborn expression remained unchanged.
“You’ve got your uncle to think about too.”
“I can take care of him no matter where I’m working,” she said. “I hardly see Uncle Jan during working hours anyway.”
Ted ran a hand through his red hair. “Look. Rossman could foul us up in a lot of ways. We need somebody to watch him. You can keep tabs on any special jobs that’re being fed into the Climatology computer. Later on, after we get the company rolling and Rossman can’t really hurt us, I’ll snatch you out of the Division and put you in charge of our computing section. How’s that?”
Her frown melted. “I don’t have to be in charge of computing . . . I just want to be a part of what you’re doing.”
“You will be . . . an important part.”
“As a spy. All right, I’ll do it. But only for a while.”
“Okay,” Ted said, grinning. “That’s enough scheming for one night. Jerry, how soon can you get the ball rolling?”
“I’ll talk to my father tomorrow. He’ll probably be our first customer. And we’ll certainly need his backing. I think I can get my uncles interested in it, too.”
“Okay, sooner the better.”
“Has anyone considered naming our new company?”
Tuli asked. “An auspicious beginning should include an auspicious name.”
“How about ‘Marrett and Friends?” Ted asked, trying to look innocent.
We hooted him down.
Tuli suggested, “Perhaps the title should be quiet and humble, such as ‘Weather Studies.’ ”
“Or ‘Weather Dynamics,” I said.
Ted scowled. “Every twenty-cent company in Massachusetts has the word ‘dynamics’ in it.”
“Why don’t we get classical,” Barney said, “and look at the Greek roots—Aeolus was the god of the winds. We could name the company something like ‘Aeolus Research Laboratory.’ ”
We mulled it over for a few minutes. Finally Ted nodded. “That’s it.”
I called Father the next day, and made several calls more as the week wore on. I wanted him to come to Thornton, where we could thrash out the idea firsthand, with Uncle Lowell and Uncle Turner on board as well. He grumbled and groused about it. Finally I got Aunt Louise to invite him to my birthday celebration. There wasn’t much of an escape route for him then; he agreed to come.
That Friday night saw a family reunion at Thornton. I asked Ted, Barney, and Tuli to come down the next morning. Friday night was for the Thornton clan. They were all pretty tense when Father arrived, and he was looking rather taut, too. Dinner was polite, but conversation stayed strictly on safe topics—nothing about Grandfather Thorn, or Father’s decision to stay in Hawaii and build his own life. After dinner, in the big living room with the fireplace large enough to walk into, they started talking about the rocket transports.
“You know,” Father said, “this is the first time I’ve actually ridden in one. They’re beautiful. Marvelous flight.”
I said, “And with the rockets, Hawaii’s just as close to New England as . . . well, New York, really.”
“That’s right.”
Father stared into the flames of the fireplace for a long moment. “You know,” he said, “it’s good to be back here, I’ll have to come more often.”
Aunt Louise seemed to reach toward him, even though she hardly moved, physically. “It’s very good to have you back again, Richard.”
The tension didn’t crack completely, but you could feel it go down a notch. It was going to be all right.
blocqsmalltextThe meteorologist’s map that night showed a steep pressure gradient across New England, the trailing side of a high-pressure cell that had kept the skies clear and bright. Now it was moving off and warm southwest winds were streaming into the area. There would be plenty of children flying kites tomorrow, he knew.
But to the young musician hurrying across the darkened campus that night, the wind was a wild, living force, warm and mysterious, tossing the newly leafed trees and sighing between him and the stars. It was an emotion, a melody he would try to capture on paper, a memory he would keep for years.
The airline pilot bringing his crowded jet into a landing hated the wind and its sudden gusts. He knew the passengers were blaming him personally for each bump and sickening lurch.
The farm wife sitting on the back porch next to her drowsing husband smiled up at the
night wind. It might bring rain. Rain had been scarce. Dryness was powdering the fields, putting worried lines into the sleeping man’s face.
Saturday morning Ted and Barney arrived. Tuli stayed in Cambridge to finish some schoolwork. I took them into the library, where Father and his brothers were already sitting around the long table across the room from Grandfather’s old desk.
Ted outlined his ideas for Aeolus Research Laboratory, pacing steadily from the table to the big French windows as he spoke. When he finished, there was a moment’s silence. Then Uncle Turner said quietly:
“This is a major undertaking you’re talking about.”
“It’s a risk,” Lowell agreed. “But what new venture isn’t? We can make a tax write-off of it.”
“Until we start showing a profit,” I said.
Uncle Lowell laughed. “He’s got the right attitude.”
“I don’t know about you two,” Father said, “but I need long-range weather forecasts. If you boys can do it, I’ll put up a third of the money to get you started.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?” Turner asked. “They’re going to need a building, staff, computers, experimental equipment—this can get pretty deep.”
“Got a list of the equipment and technical staff I want,” Ted said, pulling a wad of papers from his pocket. “Been working on it all week.”
He put the list on the table and we all hunched over to scan it.
“There’s nothing here for the office staff. You’ll need personnel men, accounting, purchasing, maintenance . . .”
Ted shrugged. “I’ll handle the technical problems. Administration is something else.”
“We’ll need a first-rate man to run the business aspects of the lab,” I said. “That’s important, Ted.”
“Okay, but he’s got to be in line with the technical work. I won’t have a paper shuffler telling the technical staff how to do science.”
“Certainly not,” Uncle Lowell said.
“Good administrators are hard to come by,” Father said. “Whoever he is, he ought to have a thorough knowledge of the purposes of the laboratory,” Uncle Turner said.
“And preferably be closely acquainted with the top technical people,” Father added.
Suddenly they were all looking at me.
“Me? Run the business? But I can’t. I don’t know how . . . I couldn’t!”
“Yes, you can,” Father said. “And you will.”
8. Aeolus Research
I DIDN’T argue with Father; that would have been fruitless. And, to tell the truth, I found myself curious to see if I could run our little enterprise.
We finished the conference, with my uncles and Father agreeing to finance a year’s worth of Aeolus Research’s operation. As the meeting broke up and the others walked out of the library, Father held me back.
“I want to tell you something, Jeremy.”
He paced slowly to the old desk. As he stood framed there by the big windows, I was startled at how closely he resembled Grandfather. I had never realized it before.
“Jeremy, you’re going to be running your own outfit for a while. I wish you every success, but . . . frankly, I think your laboratory will collapse before a year is out.”
“What do you mean? We—”
“Now hear me out,” he said, raising his hands to quiet me. “Your uncles and I will finance your work for a year and use your long-range forecasts. But what do you think is going to happen during that year?”
Shrugging, I answered, “We’ll have to learn how to provide the long-range forecasts at a profit.”
He gave me the kind of indulgent chuckle that fathers save for their naive sons. “Listen to me. Your friend Marrett is going to soak up money like an elephant draining a bathtub. You know that this long-range prediction business is already old hat to him. He’s not interested in turning it into a business . . . it’s only a means to an end for him. He wants to do research—expensive research on controlling the weather. For every dollar Thornton gives you, he’ll be spending six. When we stop paying the bills, you’ll go broke in a month.”
“I know what’s on Ted’s mind,” I said. “And weather control, when we get it, will be a much bigger business than long-range forecasts.”
“If you don’t go broke in the meantime.”
“Ted can work on a budget.” But I didn’t say it very loudly.
“Maybe,” Father said. “But the temptation of ‘free’ money from Thornton might ruin him and your laboratory. If you want my advice, you’ll spend this year beating the bushes for customers to buy your long-range forecasts. That’s the only way to survive after Thornton stops handing you golden eggs.”
I nodded.
“And another thing,” Father went on. “Sooner or later, Marrett is going to want to do some experimenting. Don’t be surprised if you run into some legal troubles with the Government.”
“Well, we’re expecting Dr. Rossman to try to block us if he gets the chance. But I think—”
“Don’t look on this as a personal duel between Rossman and Marrett. I said legal problems. Have you ever heard of the Environmental Science Services Administration?”
I shook my head.
“You will. They own the country’s air.”
“Own the atmosphere?”
“In a sense,” Father said, smiling at my confusion. “I did some checking before I left Honolulu. ESSA is the agency that runs all the Government’s programs on air pollution, oceanography, mapping, and all types of geophysical research. The Weather Bureau is part of ESSA, you know.”
“No, I didn’t . . .”
“Well, for something like the past fifteen years ESSA has had the power to grant or withhold licenses for weather-control experiments. They’ve turned down quite a few crackpots in that time. Now, what’s the difference between cloud seeding and air pollution? It depends on who you ask.”
“But they wouldn’t refuse a legitimate request . . . Then I realized what Father was driving at. “If Dr. Rossman wants to stop us, he could work through ESSA.” Father shrugged. “I don’t know; maybe that’s what he’ll do. I’ll bet he’s a lot better known at ESSA than your friend Marrett.”
I had no answer.
“You’re going to have an interesting year, Jeremy,” Father said, running a finger along the edge of the old desk. “A very educational year, I believe. I’ll expect you back home at the end of it, sadder but wiser, and ready to go to work for an established outfit—Thornton Pacific Enterprises.”
“Dredging sea bottoms?”
“It’ll look different to you twelve months from now.”
I didn’t waste time getting Aeolus Research started. I couldn’t, not with the memory of Father’s patient amusement fresh in my mind.
While Ted was finishing his last six weeks at MIT toward his master’s degree, I was shuttling back and forth along the Thornton East Coast offices, recruiting personnel in Boston, Hartford, New York, and Washington. My uncles complained—but laughingly—during weekends at Thornton. Talk of piracy filled the air as I lured some of their junior administrative staff people to Aeolus. But seldom did they refuse me someone I wanted to “steal.”
I even made a quick rocket trip back to Honolulu and changed the all-knowing smile on Father’s face into a thoughtful frown as I plucked the four best young administrators from Thornton Pacific. I knew Father’s people fairly well, and they knew me. A chance to be top men in a brand-new company, instead of waiting years for promotion, was too good for them to turn down.
By the middle of June Aeolus Research had a working front office: administration, finance, personnel, purchasing, maintenance, and me. We also had a technical staff—Ted Marrett and Tuli Noyon.
We found a near-perfect office location at Logan Airport in Boston, where we rented the entire top floor of a four-story building. The Weather Bureau’s main Boston station was in the same building, and since their observation equipment was mostly on the roof, their people got to know us
very well.
Barney and I schemed up a surprise party for Ted and Tuli when they officially received their degrees. I rented a banquet room at the hotel where I was living while Barney quietly invited everyone Ted knew—which turned out to be most of the Climatology people and seemingly all of MIT.
The party was a smashing success. It was the only time I’ve ever seen Tuli look shocked. Later, I must have looked the same way. That’s when I learned that Ted had promised jobs at Aeolus to practically everyone at the party.
It took a weekend to recuperate. Monday morning, Ted met with me and Paul Cook, Aeolus’ personnel manager, in my office at the Laboratory. It was a modest little room: one window that looked out on the airport and harbor, a plain wooden desk, a couch, a few chairs, and some paintings.
“Must be tough living so close to nature,” Ted cracked as he plopped himself on the couch. “Danish furniture. Domestic or imported?”
“It came from Sweden,” I said. “And the paintings are originals that I happen to like. But if they bother you we can take them off and have the walls painted Climatology gray.”
He looked horrified. “Even abstract paintings’re better than that!”
“Now that we’ve settled the decor,” Paul said, tapping a foot-high pile of papers on my desk, “how’s about getting down to work?”
The personnel manager was the “old man” of our staff—well into his thirties. He was chunky, balding, square-jawed, and outgoing.
“These job applications,” he said, “are all from people who claim to be friends of yours, Teddo. Did you really promise all of them positions here?”
Ted raised a cautious eyebrow. “Maybe I was a little too eager. But there’re some darned good people in that pile.”
“All right,” I said. “But we don’t want just good people—we want the best. And one of each, at least for the time being.”
“Know exactly who I want,” Ted said, serious now. “No sweat. I’ll get the technical staff set up in a week.”
Paul looked relieved. I said, “Good. In two weeks, I’d like to see us get out the first forecasts to our customers.”
