The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Ii Part 94

"Think about it!" gasped the Under-Secretary. "Think about it!"

"My client is a busy man--the busiest man in his field," Harry Bettis said.

The Under-Secretary smiled bleakly. "The only man in his field, you mean. That's why we need him."

"We'll send you a report in a few weeks," Harry said indifferently, "after we've had an opportunity to study the situation."

"But, Harry--" Johnny began.

"Johnny," Harry said. He did not have to finish the statement. It had happened before--"Johnny, I've made you a tremendous success. I'm your manager, aren't I? Let's leave it that way."

"If Johnny thinks he ought to help--" Jo-Anne said.

"Now, Jo-Anne," Harry Bettis scolded, and led the Under-Secretary to the door.

Three days later, the a.s.sistant chief of the F.B.I. came to see them. "We regret this, Sloman," he said.

"You regret what?" Harry Bettis asked.

"Defense allowed a report on its findings out. That was unwise. We'll have to give you around-the-clock protection, Sloman."

"Protection from what?" Johnny wanted to know.

"Enemy agents. The enemy is desperate. At all costs, according to their intelligence reports, they're out to get you."

"Get him?" said Harry Bettis. "You mean, kill him?"

"I mean, get him. Get him on their side. Because everything Johnny could do for the forces of peace and democracy, he could be made to do for the forces of aggression. You see?"

"Yes," said Johnny.

"No," said Harry Bettis. "This sounds like a government trick--to make Johnny go to work. To make him think it's his patriotic duty--"

"Well," said Jo-Anne sharply, "isn't it?"

Harry Bettis smiled. "When he gets as big as Universal Motors, he can become patriotic."

"Mr. Sloman," the a.s.sistant F.B.I. chief said, "they will either try to kidnap you outright, or work on you through someone you love. Therefore, our bodyguards--"

"Well, let them keep their distance, that's all," Bettis said. "Bad for business. n.o.body wants enemy agents hanging around."

"That's your final decision?" the F.B.I. man asked.

"Well--" began Johnny.

"Yes, it's our final decision," said Harry Bettis, showing the F.B.I. man to the door.

"I don't think you should have done that," Johnny said after he had gone.

"You just make the weather, Johnny-boy. I'll take care of business."

"Well--" said Johnny.

"Johnny!" cried Jo-Anne. "Oh, Johnny! Why don't you act like a man?" And she ran from the room, slamming the door.

After that, Johnny didn't see her again.

She was gone.

Really gone, for certain, not simply walking off in a huff.

Two weeks later, Johnny got the letter--unofficial--from the Enemy.

The F.B.I. was sympathetic, but the Chief said, "You can understand, Mr. Sloman, how our hands are tied. It is not an official letter. We can't prove anything. We don't doubt it for a minute, of course. The cold war enemy has kidnapped your fiancee and taken her to their motherland. But--we can't prove it. Not being able to prove it, we can't do a thing about it. You're aware, of course, of how readily the rest of the world condemns our actions. Not that they wouldn't be on our side if we could prove that this kidnap letter was the real thing, but you realize we won't be able to prove it at all."

"Oh," said Johnny. He went home. He saw Harry Bettis, who said he was shocked. The note read: Mr. Johnny Sloman: We have Miss Jo-Anne Davis here in the motherland. The only way she can live a normal life here is if you join her and work for us. We believe you know what the other kind of life is like here.

Bettis said, "It stumps the h.e.l.l out of me, Johnny."

"I'm just waking up," said Johnny slowly. "In a way, it's your fault."

"Now, don't be a jacka.s.s, Johnny."

Jacka.s.s or no, Johnny hit him. His knuckles went crunch and Harry Bettis' nose went crunch and Bettis fell down. He lay there, his nose not looking so good.

Now, when it was apparently too late, Johnny knew what his course of action should have been. Get rid of the money-grubbing Bettis. Go to work for the government unselfishly. Insure world peace.

Too late ... too late ...

Because unless he could somehow save Jo-Anne, he would never predict the weather again--for anyone.

"But what you ask is impossible!" the Secretary of Defense said a few days later.

"If I come back, if I'm successful," Johnny said quietly, "I'm your man, for as long as you want me, without pay."

"You mean that?" the Secretary asked slowly.

"I mean it."

The Secretary nodded grimly, touched a b.u.t.ton on his desk. "Get me Air Force Chief of Staff Burns," he said, and, a moment later: "Bernie? Chuck here. We need a plane. A jet-transport to go you-know-where. Cargo? One man, in a parachute. Can you manage it? Immediately, if not sooner. Good boy, Bernie. No ... no, I'm sorry, I can't tell you a thing about it." The Secretary cut the connection, turned to Johnny: "You leave this afternoon, Sloman. You realize, of course, there isn't a thing we can do to get you out. Not a thing."

"Yes," said Johnny.

"You're a very brave man, or very much in love."

Hours later, the jet transport took off with Johnny in it.

He came down near what had been the border of the motherland and Poland. He began to walk. A farmer and his son spotted the parachute, came after him. The son was a Red Army man on leave. The son had a gun. He fired prematurely, and Johnny ran. It was hopeless, he decided. He would never make it. He would never even reach the capital alive, where they were holding Jo-Anne.

He ran.

He wished for rain. A blinding rainstorm. The clouds scudded in. The rain fell in buckets. The farmer and his son soon lost sight of Johnny.

Just to make sure, Johnny ran and let it go on raining.

"Floods in their motherland," the Secretary of Defense told the President. "Naturally, their news broadcasts are trying to keep the reports to a minimum, but these are the biggest floods we've ever heard of over there."

"Our man is there?" the President asked.

"He was dropped by parachute, sir!"

It was snowing when Johnny reached the capital. He had been parachuted into the enemy's motherland, naturally, because propinquity alone a.s.sured the success of his strange talent.

He was tired. His feet ached. He'd been the only one heading for the capital. Hundreds of thousands had been fleeing from the floods ...

"There he is!" a voice cried in the enemy language. He didn't understand the language, but he understood the tone. His picture had been flashed across the length and breadth of the motherland. He had been spotted.

He ran. Down an alley, across a muddy yard, floundering to his knees, then his thighs, in thick mud. They came floundering in pursuit. They fired a warning volley of shots. He stumbled and fell face down in the black, stinking mud.

They took him ...

Dark room. One light, on his face. A voice: "We can kill you."

"Kill me," he said. "My last wish will be for rain. Rain, forever."

"We can torture you."

"And I will say, before you start, let it rain and go on raining. Let me be powerless to prevent it. Rain!"

"We can kill the girl."

"Your country will float away."

A fist came at him out of the darkness. Hit him. It was tentative torture. He sobbed and thought: rain, harder. Rain, rain, rain ...

Water seeped into the dungeon. This had never happened before. The fist went away.

Outside it rained and rained.

"What does he want, comrade?"

"We don't know, comrade."

"Give it to him--whatever it is. He has disrupted our entire economy. We face economic disaster unless he--and his rain--leave us in peace."

"Perhaps that is what he wants. Peace."

"You fool! We are supposed to want peace. Shut up!"

"Yes, sir. Comrade."

"Better ask the party secretary."

"Yes, comrade."

The party secretary was asked. The party secretary sighed and nodded.

Johnny saw the light of day. And Jo-Anne.

A month later, the Secretary of Defense told him. "Thanks to you, they agreed to a German settlement, stopped sending arms to their Red ally in Asia, withdrew their promise of aid to the Arab fanatics, and have freed all foreigners held in their motherland illegally."

Johnny listened, smiling at Jo-Anne. They had been married two weeks. Naturally, the enemy had been only too glad to see them leave.

"Just stay available, Sloman," the President beamed from alongside the Secretary of Defense. "As long as they know we can always send you over there again, they'll never try anything. Right?"

"Yes, sir," said Johnny.

They called him the Weather Man. They went on calling him the Weather Man, although he retired more or less--except during cases of dire emergency.

The world called him that, the Weather Man. And, because he had retired to enjoy life with his new wife, they began to suspect, as could be expected, that he had been a fraud.

But the enemy did not think so. Ever again.

And that was enough for Johnny.

THE END.

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