The Weathermakers (1967) (20 page)

“At least it’s warm in here,” he said as he gestured us to chairs. “You two looked as if you’d walked all the way from Boston when you came in!”

“I feel as if we did,” I answered.

Ted laughed.

“I want to give you a firsthand report on where we stand with THUNDER,” Dr. Weis said, rocking back slightly in his big, padded chair.

“Before you do,” Ted interrupted, “you ought to know about the coming hurricane season. Ran a few preliminary checks last week. Kind of shaky, but it looks as if it’ll be the same kind of season as last year. Same number of storms, roughly. If we let ’em develop, that is.”

Dr. Weis reached for a pipe from the rack on his desk. “The prospect of killing hurricanes is very attractive, although extremely expensive. It’s about the only thing that can stand up to the pressure the Pentagon’s been putting on in Cabinet meetings.”

“It’s gotten to that level,” I said.

“Indeed it has,” Dr. Weis puffed his pipe alight. “But I think we have the edge. I’ve been claiming that hurricane killing will help Major Vincent and his people to learn some of the basic things they must know before they can start weather-modification experiments. So, in a sense, THUNDER isn’t stopping the Pentagon, it will be helping them.”

“Wait a minute,” Ted said. “Hurricane killing is only part of the show . . . and we’ll be killing tropical disturbances, not full-grown storms.”

“Yes, I know.”

“But the real aim of the Project is to learn how to control the weather well enough to steer hurricanes away from the coast. We’ll only hunt out tropical disturbances and smother ’em until we get smart enough to control the hurricanes.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Dr. Weis said. “This weather-control part of the scheme has drawn a considerable amount of criticism. And it’s come from several different sources.”

“But that’s—”

“Now hear me out, Ted.” Dr. Weis hunched forward and leaned his arms on the desk. “You admit that you don’t know enough to control the weather so that hurricanes will be kept away from our coasts. And even if you did, you’d have to control the weather over most of the continental United States . . .”

“And Canada.”

He nodded. “And Mexico, too, I’ll warrant.”

“Sure. So what?”

“It’s politically dangerous. Explosive. Too much of a chance that something might go wrong. Suppose you made a mistake? The consequences could be disastrous.”

“Now wait,” Ted shot back. “What do you think we want to do, divert the Mississippi through Arizona? We’ll control the weather, sure, but not enough to cause disasters. Couldn’t, even if we wanted to! Too much energy involved. We’re not going to make it snow in California or thaw out Alaska.”

“You and I know that, Ted, but what about the average voter? Lots of people get sore at the Weather Bureau when their picnics are rained out, or their crops get damaged. Do you realize what political dynamite it would be for the Government to accept the responsibility for controlling the weather?”

“It was a political bombshell to declare independence in 1776, too. Some things’ve got to be done!”

“Weather control will eventually become a reality,” Dr. Weis replied, his voice a trifle higher and more nasal. “But you can’t jump into it too quickly. Project THUNDER—the hurricane-killing part of it, that is—is an excellent beginning. After a year or two of successful demonstrations, we’ll be ready to try the next step. And, more important, the country will be psychologically prepared.”

“But we can do it now, this year! All we need is some time to check out the theories and we’re ready to swing it.”

“Technically ready, but not politically. And even on the technical side, the earliest operations in weather control will be little more than educated gambles.”

Ted slammed a fist on the arm of his chair. “Look, I don’t know what you’re scared of. It rains and snows on people now. We have floods and droughts. So the Government steps in and gets blamed for ‘em by a few weirdos and nuts. So what? How about the droughts the Government gets credit for stopping, or the floods that never happen, or the bumper crops that controlled weather can give you?”

Dr. Weis leaned back and shook his head. “Ted, you understand science, but not politics. It just doesn’t work that way.”

“Well, THUNDER isn’t going to work without weather control. It’ll be a waste of time and effort without it.”

“You won’t accept the Project without the weathercontrol feature of it?”

Ted said stiffly, “Killing the tropical disturbances is a dead end, a stopgap. Unless it leads us into real weather control, it’s the wrong way to fight hurricanes.”

Dr. Weis got up from his chair. “Well, come on, we’ve talked long enough. Let’s get this thing resolved.”

“What now, another committee?”

“No,” he answered, glancing at his desk clock. “We don’t give all our problems to committees. Come with me.” We followed him down a corridor and up a flight of stairs. We went through an unmarked door into a large, oval-shaped office that was dominated by a broad desk covered with papers and three phones of different colors. Behind the unoccupied desk was a pair of flags.

I looked at Ted. He seemed to realize whose office it was just as I did.

The door on the other side of the room opened and the President stepped briskly to his desk.

“Hello,” he said. “You must be Mr. Marrett and Mr. Thorn.”

He shook hands with us, his grip strong. He was taller than I had thought him to be, and looked younger than his TV image. He gestured us to the chairs before his desk. As we sat down, he tapped some of the papers on his desk. “Can you actually stop hurricanes?”

“Yes, sir,” Ted answered at once.

The President smiled. “There’s no doubt in your mind at all?”

“We can do it, sir, if you’ll give us the tools.”

“You understand, don’t you, that the Defense Department has also proposed a weather project? If I buck the Secretary of Defense on this, it could create ammunition for the opposition this November.”

“Hurricanes could be a voting issue all along the Atlantic seaboard,” Ted answered, “and the Gulf Coast.”

With a grin, the President said, “I didn’t do too well along the Gulf Coast last election. And if you fail to stop the hurricanes, I’ll do even worse. On the other hand, if I don’t give the go-ahead for Project THUNDER, hurricanes will remain strictly nonpolitical.”

Ted didn’t reply.

“Something else has come up,” Dr. Weis said. “Ted here feels that the Project should really be aimed at the broader goal of controlling the weather across the United States, rather than just stopping hurricanes.”

“Controlling the weather.” The President turned from his Science Adviser to look squarely at Ted. “That seems . . . fantastic. The weather is so violent, so vast and wild. I can’t imagine man ever controlling it.”

“We can do it,” Ted answered firmly. “It only looks wild and violent because you don’t understand it. There’s logic to the weather; it obeys physical laws, just like an apple falling off a tree. We’re starting to learn what those laws are; once we’ve learned enough, we can control the weather. Just like fire—once it was wild and dangerous and mysterious. But man learned to tame it. We still don’t know everything there is to know about it, but fire’s as commonplace as sneezing.”

The President pursed his lips thoughtfully. “So there’s a logic to the weather? Certainly there’s a beauty to it, even when it’s storming. Tell me, Mr. Marrett, do you know enough about the weather’s logic to be to tell when this snow’s going to stop? I have to fly to Chicago this afternoon.”

Ted grinned. Looking at his wristwatch, he said, “Should be stopped now.”

“You’re sure?” the President asked, turning toward the window drapes.

Nodding, Ted answered, “It’s got to be.”

The President pulled the drapes open. The sky was dazzling blue, with just a few departing clouds. The sun sparkled off the heaped snowdrifts across the lawn.

“You apparently know what you’re talking about,” he said. “But controlling the weather is a big step. A very big step.”

“I know,” Ted replied. Then, speaking slowly and very carefully, he explained, “With full-scale weather control, the cost of keeping the country free of hurricane damage will probably be lower than it would be if we had to hunt out every threatening disturbance in the ocean and kill it. And weather control is the ultimate objective. It’s going to be done sooner or later . . . I’d like to see it done now, by this Administration.”

“I hope to be here another four years,” the President replied laughingly.

Ted went on to repeat most of the arguments he had used with Dr. Weis; the Science Adviser went through his counterargument, too. The President sat back and listened.

Finally, he said, “Mr. Marrett, I appreciate your dedication and drive. But you must remember that the Government bears the responsibility for the well-being of the whole nation. It sounds to me as if your ideas might work. But they’ve never been tested on the scale that you yourself said would have to be done. If you’re wrong, we could lose much more than an election; we could lose lives and a staggering amount of property and resources.”

“That’s true, sir,” Ted said. “But if I’m right—”

“You’ll still be right next year, won’t you? I like Project THUNDER. I think stopping hurricanes will be a tremendous gift to the nation . . . and a big enough job for the first year out. Are you willing to settle for that part of it, and let weather control wait for a while?”

Nodding glumly, Ted said, “If that’s the way it’s got to be.”

The President turned to Dr. Weis. “We’ll still be sticking our necks out, you realize. THUNDER is something of a risk, and going against the Pentagon isn’t always good politics.”

“But the return could be immense,” Dr. Weis said.

“Yes, I realize that. And I suppose the benefits of stopping even one hurricane are more important than a few million votes this fall.”

Dr. Weis shrugged. “Politics is an art, Mr. President. I’m only a scientist.”

He laughed. “We’ll make a politician out of you yet. You’re strongly in favor of THUNDER?”

“Of the hurricane-stopping part of it, yes.”

“Strongly in favor?”

“Strongly, sir,” Dr. Weis said.

“All right, then. If Congress will authorize the funds, let’s go ahead with it.”

We chatted for a few minutes more, and the President even kidded me about my Massachusetts uncles working for his opponent last election. I quickly told him that Father had been on his side. The President’s secretary came in and reminded him of the next appointment, and we were politely ushered out of the office after another round of handshakes.

“Good luck with THUNDER,” the President said to us as we left. “I’ll be watching your progress closely.”

Ted nodded. Outside in the corridor, he muttered “We’d make a lot more progress if he’d bought all of THUNDER instead of just the safe part.”

I
T WAS
a wild four months. Between March and July we had to organize a project that involved Air Force planes, Navy ships, NASA satellites, and a good percentage of the Weather Bureau’s talent and equipment. The Project staff was drawn mainly from Ted’s small group at Climatology and my people at Aeolus. I was also in charge of hiring new people, who officially worked for Aeolus, but actually were THUNDER personnel. And, since the Project was not a military one, Barney and Tuli were free to work with us.

Finally, the first week of July, we were ready to leave for Miami. Dr. Barneveldt saw us off at Logan Airport, together with a crowd of newsmen and photographers. We were no longer hidden from the public view; in fact, there was a major news conference scheduled for later that afternoon, in Miami.

After a few final words of parting, we took off in the executive jet. Inside it, we still had work to do. I was reviewing a draft of our agreement with the British government concerning the island of Bermuda. Ted had decided that THUNDER would protect the mainland of North America and the Caribbean islands; but he wanted to leave the open-ocean storms alone, he had two reasons. First, he needed a scientific control on the THUNDER experiments, and the storms we didn’t touch could be used as a comparison against those we worked on. Second, we simply didn’t have the resources to tackle every disturbance in the whole ocean.

But storms that stayed well away from the mainland still threatened Bermuda, so we had worked out an agreement with the British that Bermuda would not be protected.

While I read through the State Department’s paperwork, Ted and Barney, across the aisle from me, were talking about the press conference we would be facing that afternoon.

“It’s important to give the newsmen the correct impression,” Barney was saying. “We’ve got to show them that THUNDER is strictly an experiment.”

Ted nodded impatiently.

I looked up from my reading. “Ted, don’t forget that Dr. Weis is going to be right there on the platform with you. You’d better not say anything that sounds like weather control.”

He shot me a surly glance.

“And don’t try to predict the future,” Barney added. “Just talk about the work we’re going to do for the Project. Don’t let the newsmen work you into a position where you’re making any promises . . .”