Kristal chose to run and fight.
Breaking away, she drove them flat out back across the level plain. The other snowmobiles followed, digging riverine furrows in the snow. The white fury poured into the basin after them: death as a cloud, too heavily laden to reach the sky.
There was no shame in this hasty retreat, only dire uncertainty. Kristal strained Leela‟s trust to the limit, driving one-handed while she shouted into her radio. Marotta, give us all the covering fire you can, then fall back after as!‟
A moment‟s static seemed to scoff at her. ‘You want me to shout at the storm?’
„Save your questions! Have Landers drop some shells in there for good measure! Now!’
Leela fancied she had many more questions than the Sergeant, but she took Kristal‟s command to include herself.
She held on in dread silence, prepared to endure the chaos of her thoughts so long as the chaos behind them was determined to give chase.
„Typical: playing with dynamite before you‟ve discovered fire.
A few decades attempting to turn out psionic James Bonds and they think they can command the weather?‟
Morgan Shaw had been trained to withstand interrogation, but the Doc‟s interview technique was relentless and curiously wearing. Still, the guy had summed up the essence of Operation Grill Flame pretty accurately: it had all been about psi spies back then.
This convoy was taking its own sweet time. There were two-thousand-and-one things he‟d rather be thinking about instead of arguing ethics with some mad-professor-type from UNIT who‟d wandered into his investigation unsolicited.
Whether McKim had been the right choice for watching the house, whether he‟d been right to take Kristal‟s sixth-sense report at face value, for a couple of instances.
Morgan cleared his tired throat and hoped each answer would be the last required.
„Not command exactly. Just give the occasional nudge. It‟s no more than Bernard Vonnegut‟s cloud-seeding experiments back in the 40s. right? Just a hell of a lot more precise and effective. We‟re talking about the potential to end drought in the Third World, all of that. You‟re not about to tell me that‟s immoral, are you?‟
The Doc looked surprised. Oh. I‟m not debating the morality. I‟m talking about the danger - to everyone and everything on this planet.‟ Morgan glanced at Derm to see what he was making of this melodrama. But the Doc hadn‟t done with his lecture: „Even based on what you‟re choosing to tell me. this Operation Afterburn of yours amounts to a great deal more than firing silver iodide into the sky. You‟re talking about herding clouds around like sheep and I can assure you. Captain, the weather is a very ornery beast indeed.‟
„Listen, Doc,‟ Morgan levelled with as much patience as he could muster, „we appreciate the environmental concern, but the boys down at Fort Meade must have thought this through before they handed it down to us.‟ He settled back and let the vibrations of the Snowcat‟s engine pummel him a while. He tried to think of it as a rough kind of massage after a morning jog. They gave us Kristal. and I‟m telling you I‟ve seen her work miracles with that Stormcore: she taps into the Earth‟s biorhythms, whatever she does, and she never has to do another raindance.‟
The disapproval was evident in Derm‟s impassive silence.
Grill Flame was old news - and the aims of the project, if not the true results, were public knowledge. Even the limited stuff he had let slip about Afterburn could have Morgan court-martialled and watching his back for NSA hitmen for the rest of a short life. But he tried to view each serving of information as an investment in the Doc‟s eventual productivity.
„That‟s all very well and good, Captain, but the gentlemen at Fort Meade appear to have overlooked one vital consideration.‟ Captain Shaw glanced out the window opposite, hoping to recognise some landmark that would tell him
Breaking away, she drove them flat out back across the level plain. The other snowmobiles followed, digging riverine furrows in the snow. The white fury poured into the basin after them: death as a cloud, too heavily laden to reach the sky.
There was no shame in this hasty retreat, only dire uncertainty. Kristal strained Leela‟s trust to the limit, driving one-handed while she shouted into her radio. Marotta, give us all the covering fire you can, then fall back after as!‟
A moment‟s static seemed to scoff at her. ‘You want me to shout at the storm?’
„Save your questions! Have Landers drop some shells in there for good measure! Now!’
Leela fancied she had many more questions than the Sergeant, but she took Kristal‟s command to include herself.
She held on in dread silence, prepared to endure the chaos of her thoughts so long as the chaos behind them was determined to give chase.
„Typical: playing with dynamite before you‟ve discovered fire.
A few decades attempting to turn out psionic James Bonds and they think they can command the weather?‟
Morgan Shaw had been trained to withstand interrogation, but the Doc‟s interview technique was relentless and curiously wearing. Still, the guy had summed up the essence of Operation Grill Flame pretty accurately: it had all been about psi spies back then.
This convoy was taking its own sweet time. There were two-thousand-and-one things he‟d rather be thinking about instead of arguing ethics with some mad-professor-type from UNIT who‟d wandered into his investigation unsolicited.
Whether McKim had been the right choice for watching the house, whether he‟d been right to take Kristal‟s sixth-sense report at face value, for a couple of instances.
Morgan cleared his tired throat and hoped each answer would be the last required.
„Not command exactly. Just give the occasional nudge. It‟s no more than Bernard Vonnegut‟s cloud-seeding experiments back in the 40s. right? Just a hell of a lot more precise and effective. We‟re talking about the potential to end drought in the Third World, all of that. You‟re not about to tell me that‟s immoral, are you?‟
The Doc looked surprised. Oh. I‟m not debating the morality. I‟m talking about the danger - to everyone and everything on this planet.‟ Morgan glanced at Derm to see what he was making of this melodrama. But the Doc hadn‟t done with his lecture: „Even based on what you‟re choosing to tell me. this Operation Afterburn of yours amounts to a great deal more than firing silver iodide into the sky. You‟re talking about herding clouds around like sheep and I can assure you. Captain, the weather is a very ornery beast indeed.‟
„Listen, Doc,‟ Morgan levelled with as much patience as he could muster, „we appreciate the environmental concern, but the boys down at Fort Meade must have thought this through before they handed it down to us.‟ He settled back and let the vibrations of the Snowcat‟s engine pummel him a while. He tried to think of it as a rough kind of massage after a morning jog. They gave us Kristal. and I‟m telling you I‟ve seen her work miracles with that Stormcore: she taps into the Earth‟s biorhythms, whatever she does, and she never has to do another raindance.‟
The disapproval was evident in Derm‟s impassive silence.
Grill Flame was old news - and the aims of the project, if not the true results, were public knowledge. Even the limited stuff he had let slip about Afterburn could have Morgan court-martialled and watching his back for NSA hitmen for the rest of a short life. But he tried to view each serving of information as an investment in the Doc‟s eventual productivity.
„That‟s all very well and good, Captain, but the gentlemen at Fort Meade appear to have overlooked one vital consideration.‟ Captain Shaw glanced out the window opposite, hoping to recognise some landmark that would tell him
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