They Also Serve: A Jump Universe Novel Part 27

Ray roused himself, told the priest quickly what he'd found, and headed back to see Kat. She called in a middie, who tracked the weather along with several other jobs. "Sorry, sir, I don't spend much time there, it's fully automated" was her initial response as she called up a global map.

"The usual pattern," she explained, "is a large stream of cool water flows down from the arctic area, swings around this continent, then loses itself in the ocean out there." She frowned at the east coast of Santa Maria's one human-settled continent. "But this year, the stream is closer to sh.o.r.e. That's causing the cool, damp weather we've gotten lately. That means the center of this large ocean area hasn't gotten anything to cool it. It's very warm, and that could cause the hurricane season to start early."

"Which direction will they head?" Ray asked.

"Usually north, to blow themselves out deep in the North Continent. However, we have core samples that show some real bad storms slamming the lowlands along our coast. Not in the past three hundred years, but four or five times in the past million. Refuge, Richland, and even New Haven were under water."

"Whose side is the Weather Proctor on?" Ray whispered.

"Will it matter?" Kat asked.

"What's the weather right now?" Ray asked urgently.

The middie worked the board rapidly, calling up satellite pictures, then backtracked to gather the past three days' worth. Four cyclonic wind patterns showed along the equator, lined up one after the other, moving east. "Will they go north or south?"

"There's a ridge of high pressure over the main continent," she pointed out. "The hurricanes can't go north. They have to go east or south. And, sir, we've had a low sitting on top of us for the past month. I'd say they're headed our way."

"How bad are the hurricanes?"

The woman studied her workstation, frowned, reran her last checks. "Sir, I don't know how this happened. We've got auto alarms rigged on this system, but they've been turned off. Those are force five hurricanes. The alarms should have been screaming at us for weeks."

"Lek"-Ray tapped his commlink-"I've got evidence of tampering with our weather net. Check it for fingerprints. I want to know how it happened."

"On it, sir."

"Holler when you have anything, an itch, a hunch. Anything. Lek, I don't like it when I can't trust our gadgets."

"Me neither, boss."

Ray started to leave, paused. "What's the tidal situation?"

The girl had gone pale after spotting the hurricanes; now she went translucent. "Highest of the summer, sir, are due in the next week."

Ray kept his pace carefully measured as he marched straight to Mary's desk. "How long can you tread water?"

She looked up, eyebrow raised. "How long do I need to?" Ray explained the problems lining up off their coast. Mary reacted stronger to their net being compromised. "s.h.i.t, if we can't trust the data we're looking at, how do we make decisions?"

"Don't know. a.s.suming the worse for the purpose of discussion, what do we do now?" Mary converted her station into a topographic map of Santa Maria's populated area, then added the data from Harry's core samples. Half the occupied land turned a muddy brown. "Storm surge never got as far as the base," she noted.

"No, this time we'll have a population surge."

"If we tell them, sir." Mary gave Ray a very bland look.

"Three, maybe four million dead if we say nothing," Ray breathed. "Is that what you're suggesting, Captain?"

"Haven't thought it through enough to make any suggestion, Colonel, just making the initial data identification."

Ray noted they'd both fallen back on military rank and big words. It was so much easier to discuss ma.s.s murder when you put on your armor and held the thoughts at arm's length. "I want fortifications around this base, ditch, and wall," he said.

"We can do that. Use local labor. They sure as h.e.l.l ain't bringing in any crops. What do we do with the locals?"

"Offer to move them inside the wall. We may need them as reserve police."

"All of them, sir, no matter how big their tumor?"

Ray rubbed at his eyes. Could he order a husband to leave a wife outside? A family to abandon a child? h.e.l.l, he had the biggest tumor of all. "ID cards for all. Tumor size listed in the data. If we start having problems, we'll isolate the large tumors somewhere under guard. Any problems with that?"

"Not now. Maybe later. What about the food supply?"

"Do nothing for now. Everyone's scared. We start buying food up, it'll start a panic and make us look like the bully. What else?" They made their list, trying to guess what they'd need in a long, painful siege. Lek interrupted long after Ray had expected.

"Colonel, I got no idea how the alarm got turned off. It's off, been off for two weeks, and I can't tell you who or how."

"Somebody had to access it. That somebody's got a code."

"Yes, sir, to both. Don't matter; the weather watch system was accessed and no record of it kept."

"Another human, or my super-computer friend?"

"I'd prefer to think computer, sir, since I don't want to admit some human outsmarted me, but truth be told, boss, with no evidence, I'm only guessing."

"Anyplace else hit?" Mary asked.

"Ma'am, officially, the weather wasn't hit. Only way to know is to check everything and see if it's still the way we want it. One hundred percent eyeball review. We got time for that?"

"No," Ray snapped. "Lek, get me Vicky Sterling, San Paulo, and Chu Lyn on the horn. They need to know what we know."

Lek snorted. "Won't be easy getting the first two."

"Get Chu, then tell the others I'm telling her something of critical importance to all three. They can get it secondhand from her, or they can get it straight from me."

"You bet, boss."

"There's going to be one h.e.l.l of a panic," Mary said. "I better get a crew working on that wall. What do I tell folks?"

"Nothing for now. It'll be common knowledge by supper."

"Better pull back our deployed teams. Blimps will have to be deflated before the hurricanes. .h.i.t."

Ray's first call was to Ca.s.sie. She was surprisingly recalcitrant to pull out of Refuge, even after Ray painted her a very deep and wet picture. "There'll be panic in the streets, sir. They'll need us."

"We're going to need you more here. I can't afford to lose you. Move your team out now; a blimp is already on the way." After getting a reluctant "Yes, sir," Ray punched up Harry.

"We'll be ready when the blimp shows up. What about Jeff?"

"I want them all back in. Things may get ugly fast."

"I'll corral him."

A half hour later Lek had all three women on the line. "What do you want?" Vicky glared. "Why is Ca.s.sie leaving?" San Paulo demanded. Chu Lyn stared from her third of the screen.

"May I ask a question first?" Ray began. They neither refused nor agreed. "Someone or something entered our net and turned off the alarms we have on our weather forecasting system. Did any of you have anything to do with that?"

"You're the one who b.u.t.ts into our systems," Vicky spat.

"I'm aware of the ill feelings that has caused. I wondered if any of you had sponsored a t.i.t-for-tat comeback." No one responded. "Then I'll a.s.sume the intervention came from another source," he sighed. "That may make matters worse."

"Your super-computer boogeyman got you." Vicky cackled, causing Ray to wonder why he'd included her in the call. Then again, he couldn't let a million Richlandites drown to spite Vicky.

"When we reactivated our weather alarms, we found four hurricanes lined up, pointed straight at us." Ray put the satellite picture on their displays.

"That's impossible," Ms. San Paulo insisted. "The season hasn't started."

"The weather has been very strange this summer," Chu pointed out, though from the looks on the other faces on Ray's screen, the other two were not listening.

"Based on our a.s.sessments of core samples taken here, it appears this type of weather has. .h.i.t South Continent five times in the past. Storm surges flattened everything far inland." Ray replaced the first picture with the map of human occupation on South Continent; half was covered with brown.

"It can't go that far inland," San Paulo sniffed. "The barrier islands don't even let the worst waves into our harbor."

"Those are level five hurricanes, four in a row. The first one will flatten your islands. By the third, open ocean waves will be smashing into Refuge. By the fourth, they'll be washing Richland out to sea," Ray said with deadly calm.

"That could not happen," Vicky insisted. "Impossible," San Paulo snapped. "Oh, Lord," Chu Lyn breathed. "We have to get people moving inland immediately."

"That would be my suggestion," Ray answered Chu.

"That will panic everyone," San Paulo charged.

"It will if Chu starts moving her people and you don't. Let this information come as a rumor, and people will run wild."

"We don't have to act right away," San Paulo insisted. "If the first storm is as bad as you say, we could start moving people inland then."

"Over storm-ravaged and flooded roads," Ray countered. "It's only going to get worse."

"I will announce this within the hour," Chu said with the finality of death. "What you others do is your decision."

"We'll all have to start moving," Vicky growled, "and this man will have won over us again."

"What are you going to do?" Chu asked Ray.

"I'm organizing people out here to provide food and shelter. And since this seems to be coining from the super computer I think lives in your planet, I'll be seeing what I can do to stop it."

"I wish you luck," Chu said as they all rang off.

"Well, that was no worse than I expected," Ray grumbled as he looked up from the screen.

Mary was at his office door. "Harry called. He's on his way back, but Dumont and Jeff pa.s.sed up the ride. Du says if you're putting everything you've got here, they better find the vanishing box, 'cause sure as h.e.l.l, with both Refuge and Richland gone, the only target left is us."

"That would solve my problem," Ray sighed. He pushed back from his desk, put his feet up, and relaxed into his chair. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. I've got to talk to my favorite computer and see just how much we can help each other."

Mary closed the door; Ray concentrated. Nothing happened. After ten minutes he moved from his office to his quarters, laid out full on his bed...and went to sleep despite his worries.

Mary woke him three hours later. "Why'd you let me sleep?" Ray grumbled groggily, "We've got things to do."

"And they're being done, sir," she answered way too cheerfully. "We're doing quite well without you."

"Just who's in charge here?" Ray growled, rubbing sleep from his eyes and trying not to smile.

"Me." Mary grinned unrepentantly.

"You don't have to be so obvious." Out the window, the gray day was just starting to fade. Near the base perimeter, people were digging. "You got started fast."

"I'll show you after chow."

At supper, portions were smaller. No one went hungry, but the farmer who'd been fattening pigs on the base's slop had better think of slaughtering his newly expected wealth. Talk around the dining hall was subdued. "Word already out?"

Mary shrugged. "Leaked a little. No worse than your average volcano. We'll need to address it up front."

"Time for a walk around."

"Looks that way, sir." Mary had a mule waiting.

"I can walk," Ray snapped, feeling rather good on his feet.

"The entire base perimeter is a bit more exercise than I care to take," Mary answered, slipping into the driver's seat.

Ray settled down beside her. "How are people taking this?"

"Most are still in shock. n.o.body really wants to believe everything they've worked for and built is about to be washed out to sea. Any chance we can stop that?"

"Don't know. The computer ain't talking to me."

The base perimeter came in view. Up to now it had been marked by little more than a rough path for the perimeter patrol. Now surveyor's sticks marched in both directions, forming three long rows. Villagers cut the sod, rolled it, and put it aside, then torn to with shovels and picks, digging a trench and piling the dirt on the inside edge. People waved when they saw Ray, shouting "Thanks for the job" and "Glad to have a place to stay." Ray waved back, then signaled Mary to halt. The little priest was out with his parishioners, wielding a shovel.

"Father Joseph, isn't this a little out of your line?"

"Since when can't a man put his back into a job?" the priest answered, but used the pause to wipe sweat from his brow.

"Does everyone understand what we want?"

Mary scowled; the priest smiled. "Dig a ditch ten feet wide, six feet deep, and a wall about the same size beside it. You're expecting a lot of rain, aren't you?"

"What have you heard?"

"Forty days and forty nights, or something like it."

"May not be off by much," Mary quipped.

"We're saving the sod. When you have your wall built, we'll roll it back down along it. That ought to keep the rain off the wall, but the ditch is going to be a muddy mess."