The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories by Connie Willis

She put the phone up to her ear and listened for a moment. “Mr. Mowen…” she said hesitantly.

    “I suppose Research says it’ll neutralize the sulfuric acid that’s killing the statues and sweeten and deodorize at the same time.”
    “No, sir,” Janice said. “Research says they’ve already started the temperature-differential kilns, and you should be seeing something in a few minutes. They say they couldn’t wait any longer.”
    Mr. Mowen whipped back around in his chair to look out the window. Thepicture of Sally teetered again, and Mr. Mowen wondered if she were home from college yet. Nothing was coming out of the smokestacks. He couldn’t see the candlestick-base kilns through the maze of fast-food places and trailer parks. A McDonald’s sign directly in front of the smokestacks blinked on suddenly, and Mr. Mowen jumped. The smokestacks themselves remained silent and still except for theirblinding strobe aircraft lights. He could see sagebrush-covered hills in the space between the stacks, and the whole scene, except for the McDonald’s sign, looked unbelievably serene and harmless.
    “Research says the kilns are fired to full capacity,” Janice said, holding the phone against her chest.
    Mr. Mowen braced himself for the coming explosion. There was a low rumbling like distant fire,then a puff of whitish smoke, and finally a deep, whooshing sound like one of Janice’s sighs, and two columns of blue shot straight up into the darkening sky.
    “Why is it blue?” Mr. Mowen said.
    “I already asked,” Janice said. “Research says visible spectrum diffraction is occurring because of the point eight micron radii of the hydrocarbons being propelled—”
    “That soundslike that damned pressrelease,” Mr. Mowen said. “Tell them to speak English.”
    After a minute of talking into the phone she said, “It’s the same effect that causes the sunsets after a volcanic eruption. Scattering. Research wants to know what staff members you’d like to have at the press conference tomorrow.”
    “The directors of the project,” Mr. Mowen said grumpily, “and anyone over at Research who can speak English.”

    Janice looked at the press release. “Bradley McAfee and Lynn Saunders are the directors,” she said.
    “Why does the name McAfee sound familiar?”
    “He’s Ulric Henry’s roommate. The company linguist you hired to—”
    “I know why I hired him. Invite Henry, too. And tell Sally as soon as she gets home that I expect her there. Tell her to dress up.” He looked at his watch. “Well,” he said. “It’s beengoing five minutes, and there haven’t been any harmful side effects yet.”
    The phone rang. Mr. Mowen jumped. “I knew it was too good to last,” he said. “Who is it? The EPA?”
    “No,” Janice said, and sighed. “It’s your ex-wife.”
    “I’m shut of that,” Brad said when Ulric came in the door. He was sitting in the dark, the green glow of the monitor lighting his face. He tapped at the terminal keys fora minute more and then turned around. “All done. Slicker’n goose grease.”
    Ulric turned on the light. “The waste emissions project?” he said.
    “Nope. We turned that on this afternoon. Works prettier than a spotted pony. No, I been spending the last hour erasing my fiancée Lynn’s name from the project records.”
    “Won’t Lynn object to that?” Ulric said, fairly calmly, mostly because he did not havea very clear idea of which one Lynn was. He never could tell Brad’s fiancées apart. They all sounded exactly the same.
    “She won’t hear tell of it till it’s too late,” Brad said. “She’s on her way to Cheyenne to catch a plane back east. Her mother’s all het up about getting a divorce. Caught her husband Adam ’n’ Evein’.”
    If therewas anything harder to put up with than Brad’s rottenness, it washis incredibly good luck. While Ulric was sure Brad was low enough to engineer a sudden family crisis to get Lynn out of Chugwater, he was