Part 27 (1/2)
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.