Mother of Storms (45 page)
Authors: John Barnes
She nods, and as she walks off, Luisa says, “Our house had a big glass window on the south side, and aluminum siding from Sears that Mama was
very proud of, but it wasn’t put on very well, the people from Sears said there was nothing to attach it to … .”
very proud of, but it wasn’t put on very well, the people from Sears said there was nothing to attach it to … .”
Naomi folds her arms around the child and lets her sob against her. “I am here and you can stay with me. And perhaps we can find your mother. Some shelters, the door got buried and the people are fine inside but can’t get out right away. But you have a home, with me, as long as you need it. And as long as you are with me we will look for your mother together.”
Luisa doesn’t exactly stop crying, but she does drift off into sniffles. The two of them hurry together toward the shelter; already in the distance, the black face of the eye wall is crawling over the land, and the sun is about to set behind it.
When she gets done with all this, Naomi thinks, she is going to spend two whole weeks doing nothing but silly things that she enjoys but used to feel embarrassed about enjoying. And every night she will phone her parents and horrify them with describing it all. She laughs at her own joke, not caring if anyone sees her or misunderstands. There’s nothing like nearly dying to make you appreciate living.
John Klieg gets the report from Mexico with not much more than a smile. The Mexican government’s launch facility wasn’t able to put up packages of any real size and besides it was just a standard-model Japanese franchise launch port. No, the real prize is what his meteorologists are telling him—Clem Two’s eye is going to make it over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec just fine, move into the Bay of Campeche, and then set all hell loose. For all practical purposes, the clear pathway across the isthmus is marked on the map—Federal Highway 185 follows the low ground.
Thus far his little team—thrown together by the completely invaluable Glinda—has been matching NOAA and (because they’ve been working on a more tightly focused problem) occasionally beating them.
And if they’re right—then the Atlantic is more than ripe for a “cascade” of hurricanes. Clem Two should have an outflow jet soon after getting back over warm water. In the weak steering currents of the western Caribbean, Clem Two will sputter and spin, giving birth to many more hurricanes—and they in turn will give birth to more. The Atlantic is going to be boiling with them soon, and the methane injection has warmed it enough to allow hurricanes a full run along the Gulf Stream until they finally pound Europe itself.
The one fly in all this ointment, of course, is that Glinda is still at Canaveral, though that will be fixed quickly. She’s seeing to the evacuation of GateTech’s central team, which is being moved partly to Birmingham, Alabama (not quite out of hurricane reach but up where there’s a good chance
of riding it out), and partly to here, Novokuznetsk. With a bit of luck it will all be done in two days, and then she and Derry will be here like lightning.
of riding it out), and partly to here, Novokuznetsk. With a bit of luck it will all be done in two days, and then she and Derry will be here like lightning.
It’s a funny thing. He misses Glinda’s personal efficiency, and her sense of humor, and Derry’s little adventures and discoveries, and he certainly misses sex with Glinda, but more than anything else what he really misses is that sense of completeness, the sense that he’s building something for someone. He wonders how he lived without that for so many years.
He turns back to the wall of screens that he’s had built for himself here. It’s just as useless as the one at Canaveral, but since for most of his business career Klieg has been photographed in front of such a setup, it seemed like a good idea to to keep the locals reminded of who he was. Another Glinda inspiration … he ought to ask her if anything could be done to cause somebody to open up an English-speaking Shoney’s here.
There’s a blip on one screen, and he glances that way; the flashing icon means something significant has come in, and he stops to read it.
He purses his lips, whistles, and grins. Time to start playing hardball, no question. So, by a lot of fancy jockeying, not to mention a pretty elastic concept of property at Moonbase, they think they’re going to come up with a competing launch service, building and launching satellites in space? And no doubt they’ve also got something up their sleeves, now that his technical people have told them how, for getting a big dark shadow over the Pacific, using the same facility.
His first call is to Hassan. It’s not so much a matter of respect—the two of them respect each other but neither would have thought about that—or of getting additional input; it’s just that Hassan runs at least as many lines of influence as Klieg runs, all the time, and they need to stay coordinated on this point.
It takes him only moments to fill his partner in, and then Klieg explains, “Just offhand, there’s about a dozen congresspeople I can count on to tie things up in the States—our Congress usually makes sure the government buys from private business, even when that costs a lot more, because businessmen are the backbone of the country.”
“I wish my current country were similarly enlightened.”
“You said it.” Klieg begins ticking things off on his fingers. “There’s a fair bit of concealed Japanese money in some of my operations, and that’s a favor I can call in—there’ll be a lot of trouble if it doesn’t stay concealed, and it won’t unless I see some protests and complaints about the American intrusion into the Japanese part of Moonbase. Same deal with the French, except that there I’ve got a couple of deputies in Paris, and there’s some more legislators in Brussels … and that’s before I start serious hassling in the General Assembly in New York.”
Hassan nods. “My friend, I see what you are up to, but do you expect it to work?”
After ransacking his memory, Klieg says, “To tell you the truth, Hassan, I don’t see why it won’t.”
The other man nods solemnly; the effect on the phone is somehow more impressive than it would be in person. “It seems to me that with predicted deaths pressing upward toward a billion or more, as your last estimates show—and I assume theirs are similar—faced with the literal complete destruction of several nations like the Netherlands and Bangladesh, with catastrophic damage and the destruction of whole cities … and with the instructive example of Honolulu in front of them … well, my friend. Do you think they will do business as usual?”
“Oh, only at first. And then it won’t matter. It’s like tying a guy’s shoelaces together. You haven’t crippled him, just slowed him down a little by making him stop to untie them. They’ll have to remove all my little obstructions—and any that you might throw in?”
“I was just thinking on that point.”
“Well, all we need are delays. A few of them. Once we have a head start, the public screaming for a solution will guarantee they’ll go with whatever’s fastest. And the PR goodwill from having done it should be just phenomenal—we can do just about anything we want from then on, for like ten years or so.”
Hassan nods. “It seems worth a play. There are a number of small governments I’ve got a friend or two in; I think I can help you with the ‘hassle’ in the General Assembly, especially since several of those little governments are quite jealous anyway of their Second Covenant rights. Have you given consideration to the media?”
“I’ve got my best person on it.”
“Miss Gray?”
“How did you know?”
Hassan gives him a deep, beaming grin that shows a lot of teeth and doesn’t have a drop of humor in it. “Who is my best person?”
“Pericles Japhatma, whom I’ve never met. I see. The point’s well taken.” Neither of them will ever again ask the other how he or she happens to know a thing. After a suitable pause, Klieg says, “Well, then, we seem to be agreed. The point is, hassles have to happen to this stupid idea of having the government do it. It’s really a matter of principle, too, you know—if you let the government, any government, do these things directly, it takes decades to get things on a private-enterprise profit-making basis again. Once you let socialism in …” Klieg sighs and spreads his hands.
“Exactly,” Hassan says. “This very nation is still recovering after all
these years. Well, then, shall we do the world some good—and ourselves as well?”
these years. Well, then, shall we do the world some good—and ourselves as well?”
“Only way to do it, buddy,” Klieg says, and this time the smiles exchanged are genuine. After Hassan clicks off, he works the phone hard all morning, and by the time Glinda calls with the other part set up, his calendar has a little flex in it.
Diogenes Callare knows it’s completely irresponsible of him—he had two phone calls while he was on the zipline, just to begin with—but he needed to see Lori and the kids, and he needed the rest, so he slept on the zipline instead of doing work, and since Lori just finished
Slaughterer in Yellow
, they end up going out to a nice restaurant—one with child care—for a long meal. It’s an indulgence of sorts, but “half an hour’s sales in the first week will more than pay for it,” Lori points out, when he mentions the concern.
Slaughterer in Yellow
, they end up going out to a nice restaurant—one with child care—for a long meal. It’s an indulgence of sorts, but “half an hour’s sales in the first week will more than pay for it,” Lori points out, when he mentions the concern.
“Yeah.” He swirls the warm red wine in his glass, looks at her over it. “It’s funny, you think about a lot of jobs—cops and firemen and soldiers and all—and none of those occupations see anything odd about the idea that you go out there to protect people like your own family, and your family gets protected along with all those strangers. But it’s not something you think about for weathermen.”
“Eat your lasagna,” she says, “you’re getting morbid.”
“Well, yeah, I am getting morbid,” he admits, “but the point is still valid.”
“Unh-hunh. And the lasagna is still hot.”
She’s right, it’s very good. After a while he takes her hand and says, “It’s just … well, you know, I love spending time with you. I never realized before this month how much I like usually being able to work at home. And since the methane levels in the air are going to stay elevated for ten years—”
“That’s close to shoptalk,” she warns him, smiling and pressing her index finger on his nose. “Eat. Or talk about trivia. Or flatter your wife, considering I only knew an hour ago that you were coming home, I asked you out then, and here I am, stunning.”
He can hardly help smiling at that, and the truth is, to him, she is stunning. He studies her carefully for a long minute, taking in the sweep of blonde hair, the big twinkling eyes … letting his eyes run over her pink sweater (it really does flatter her) … “Well, yeah,” he says. “In fact, I think you’re the best-looking person in the joint.”
“That’s more like it. I know you’re worried about the hurricane coming
into the Caribbean, and for that matter I suspect what’s really worrying you is Jesse, Di.”
into the Caribbean, and for that matter I suspect what’s really worrying you is Jesse, Di.”
He shrugs with one shoulder, a little gesture that doesn’t mean much except that he’s heard what she’s said. “He’s a grown-up, at least sort of, and he can probably deal with whatever comes his way, at least as long as he doesn’t do anything dumb to start out with. I wish I knew what was up with him, but chances are at the moment he’s sitting on his duff in a not-verycomfortable shelter, hoping things will calm down soon. At least if civilization manages to survive the storms, he’ll have a good set of stories to tell. Meanwhile I can’t do a thing for him, and he’s okay, more likely than not.” He notices he has just drunk his glass of wine a bit faster than he intended to.
Lori sighs and takes his hand. “You don’t really have to look after the whole world, love. You really don’t.”
He grins, squeezes her hand. “It wasn’t shoptalk before, you know,” he says. “As long as there’s so much extra methane in the air, we’ll have giant hurricanes, and NOAA will be on this crisis footing—”
She puts her hand on his lips again, and when she is sure she has silenced him, she pours him another glass of wine. “Drink.” Her head tilts a little to the side and she seems to look at him like a robin that isn’t quite sure whether the object in front of it is an earthworm. “Now,” she says, “listen carefully to your spouse. There are two possibilities here. One, civilization
doesn’t
survive the storms, and you and I and the kids have to make our way through the mess. Very tough and frightening, but it’s not going to be improved by your passing up the pleasures of a civilized dinner tonight. Two, civilization survives but the hurricanes go on for years. Then all this becomes routine—and once it’s routine, you’ll have time off again. That’s all.”
doesn’t
survive the storms, and you and I and the kids have to make our way through the mess. Very tough and frightening, but it’s not going to be improved by your passing up the pleasures of a civilized dinner tonight. Two, civilization survives but the hurricanes go on for years. Then all this becomes routine—and once it’s routine, you’ll have time off again. That’s all.”
It makes sense, and he nods and eats. Every so often he steals a glance at her, trying to catch her looking sad or pensive, but whether she’s being stubborn, or it’s just her natural optimism, she keeps right on smiling at him, and between the wine, and the love, and
not
having to sleep over in a hotel in D.C. tonight, he’s actually very cheerful by the evening’s end. They even dance a couple of times to the little band up on the upper floor, before they reclaim the kids, pile into the car, and set it for home, all of them sleeping in a sprawl as the car drives them home. The only trouble with how wonderful it feels to be in his own bed with Lori is that he’s not aware of it for long—he falls asleep quickly.
not
having to sleep over in a hotel in D.C. tonight, he’s actually very cheerful by the evening’s end. They even dance a couple of times to the little band up on the upper floor, before they reclaim the kids, pile into the car, and set it for home, all of them sleeping in a sprawl as the car drives them home. The only trouble with how wonderful it feels to be in his own bed with Lori is that he’s not aware of it for long—he falls asleep quickly.
By the time he’s on the zipline the next morning, he is all but ready to think of the problem as tractable.
Because the eye of Clementine misses them, Jesse, Mary Ann, the Hererras, and the kids never have an interval when they can go outside, but it matters very little. It occurs to Jesse that there’s a good chance that neither the Herreras nor their grandchildren, nephews, and nieces have ever lived this well before.
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