by Maurice Forrester

Ruiz stepped out of the hopper and sank to his ankles in mud. Rossenby Station was a ruin. The storm had shattered the dome that sheltered the weather station and had reduced the sophisticated monitoring equipment to rubble. Dazed technicians were unloading supplies from the hopper while the pilot shook his head in disbelief.

"I can't wait to get transferred off this damn planet," he shouted to Ruiz over the rumble of the engines. "The storms won't ever let you alone."

Without a word, Ruiz slogged through the mud to the temporary shelter that had been dropped in that morning. "Take yourself to some soft planet where you can grow fat," he silently told the pilot. The storms made Williwaw what it was. The planet demanded you be tough, and it demanded respect. It was no place for the weak that crowded Earth. That was supposed to be why the planet was run by a military government, but the military too had grown flabby. The officer who ran the station was weak-- a bureaucrat masquerading as a soldier--and could not control his staff. So a tough private citizen had to be called in to pick up the pieces. Ruiz almost smiled at the irony.

Captain Samuel Wall was sitting on the floor surrounded by filthy boxes of files. "Just a moment," he said without looking up. "It's a good thing I insisted on keeping paper files. We lost everything on the computers."

"Captain Wall, I'm here about a meteorologist you lost."

The captain's head jerked up, and he scrambled to his feet. "Are you from headquarters?" he asked, wiping his muddy hands on his slacks.

"Central Weather. We try to look after our own."

"Oh. I thought maybe the brass... I'm Sam Wall." The captain relaxed and held out his hand.

"I'm Ruiz. I'll need to talk to you first, then your staff. I'll also need a place to work and sleep. I'll be out of your hair as soon as possible."

"Oh, it's no problem Mr. Ruiz. You can have full access to my files." Wall swept his hand vaguely over the muddy boxes.

"Captain, I've got biographical data, psychological profiles, letters of commendation, and letters of rebuke. I know more about Lon Manning than his mother does. All I need from you and your people is some information on the week before the storm hit and then I'll know where to find the little bastard."

"You've got one hell of a chip on your shoulder, Mister. If Lon Manning walked out into that storm, he's a corpse by now. And if by some miracle he survived, I can handle him a lot better than you can. I've been handling him for two years." Wall's fists were clenched, and his voice trembled.

"Do you know anything about Manning's life before he came to Williwaw?" Ruiz asked calmly.

"He was from Earth..." Wall's voice trailed off.

"The man is a fucking genius. He's a first rate exometeorologist, and he headed his own section at the Weather Bureau when he was 25. He even designed some of this fancy equipment your storm smashed to pieces. And do you know why he was working as your second in command in this second rate weather station?" Ruiz only paused for a breath. "He's a quitter. He requested a transfer off Earth when his kid got hit by lightening and died a couple of years ago. Even left his wife there."

"I knew he'd had some problems, but... He still couldn't have survived the storm. It was the worst we've ever seen."

"He's a cagey one alright. I figure he waited until the hurricane started to die down and ducked out of the shelter. My report says your people didn't notice when he left."

"But why? Where would he go?"

"Manning thought he was going to get put in charge of a planetwide office, but he got stuck here because the psychological boys didn't trust his profile. This is his way of getting even. But he's only got three choices. All I've got to do is figure out if he went native up in the hills, is hiding out in some farming village, or is headed for the spaceport to try to hustle a ride back to Earth. And that's what you people are going to tell me."

Captain Wall licked his lips nervously. "I'll answer any questions I can."

"I'm sure you will, Captain, but now I think I'll start with your staff. I'll be back to talk to you later." Ruiz turned on his heel and marched out of the hut.

The hopper that had brought Ruiz in had left, but another one was dropping off tents to be used as temporary housing, its jets stirring up clouds of dust on the plateau. The sky was swirling with clouds of every color in the spectrum, and the air was charged with oxygen. Ruiz breathed deep and looked past the landing copter to the snow-capped mountains, then turned to look past the cliffs to the choppy, blue-green ocean. There were only a few planets among the hundreds that had been discovered that could support human life as it was supported on Earth. No world had yet been discovered with intelligent life, but scientists had originally thought Williwaw might finally prove the exception because of the favorable ecosystem. Here on Williwaw, men could breath the air, drink the water, and eat from the vegetation. Scientists were disappointed when no higher animals were discovered, but the politicians were pleased. With a dying Earth growing more crowded every day, new worlds were needed to handle the overflow. The only obstacle was the storms.

For half of Williwaw's year, the storms swept north from the equator and battered the coast of the narrow continent. The most sophisticated weather equipment in existence had been brought to bear on the problem: satellites tracked the storms, probes reported on wind speed before being ripped apart by the storms, and exometeorologists and technicians manned weather stations all along the coast to compile data. Still, the storm movements went unpredicted. Storms headed out to sea suddenly reversed direction and headed to the coast. Storms died and then revived for no apparent reason. During the other half of the year the settlements were safe; then it was the turn of the unsettled continent in the southern hemisphere to be battered by the storms.

But the storms did not concern Ruiz. He was a security chief at Central Weather, and his only concern at that moment was to find the best exometeorologist in the whole sector. After picking up his supplies from one of the techs, Ruiz headed for the station's junior meteorologist. He recognized Rebecca Smith-Jones from the picture in her file. She was a thin, bony woman with a plain face and dark, straight hair. Ordinarily, Ruiz wouldn't have looked at her twice, but here at this desolate weather station, she looked almost attractive.

Rebecca was supervising the setting up of the tents. After introductions were made, she took Ruiz to the far side of the station where she sat on some rocks overlooking the sea. "I know what happened to Lon," she said.

"Go on."

"He used the hurricane as a cover for committing suicide. He wasn't a happy man, you know."

"I know. But he doesn't fit the suicide profile."

"Oh, all sorts of people commit suicide. He used the storm to cover it up so people wouldn't know. Lon and I were lovers. I got to know him quite well. He was always moody, but after I broke off our relationship, he got worse. He needed someone to care about him, and I turned him away. Really, I blame myself."

"Why hasn't anyone found the body?"

"The storm could have ripped him to pieces. Or look at the sea. He could be out there somewhere."

"How did the relationship end?"

Rebecca was standing up now. The wind was blowing through her long, straight hair. "It just didn't work out. We weren't right for each other."

Ruiz stood up. "What was it he said about you? Too suffocating? Was that it?" Rebecca's shoulders slumped, but she didn't answer. "He ended the affair, and you're the one who thinks about suicide. But don't do it yet. I may need to ask you some more questions"

"I loved him," Rebecca said as Ruiz walked away. "I would have done anything for him. Anything!" Ruiz kept walking.

Manning's work area had been in the underground portion of the weather station, just above the shelter where the station's staff had waited out the storm. Unlike Manning's sleeping quarters, it had survived more or less intact. On the floor, there were a couple of inches of water that seeped into Ruiz's shoes. A bank of shorted out computers lined the wall to the right, a long work bench filled the middle of the room, and boxes were piled to the ceiling at the far end. A couple of temporary lights had been strung up over the computers, but nothing else appeared to have been touched.

Ruiz headed for the work bench. It was piled with electronic equipment, parts, and tools, some of it quite old. Underneath some parts from a disassembled weather probe, Ruiz found a couple of pages of handwritten notes. They looked like the start of a computer program, but the weather stations all used intelligent, self-programming computers. There was a moan from behind the boxes, and Ruiz quickly stuffed the pages into his pocket.

"Who's out there?" asked a slurred voice.

Ruiz walked to the back of the room where a thin, glassy- eyed workman was huddled behind some empty crates. The man was dressed in dirty coveralls, and he wore a transmitter in his ear. "You must be Eb," Ruiz sneered at the buzz head. "This station must be home to all the rejects on Williwaw." Eb was the station's maintenance man. According to Ruiz's files, he was a rehabilitated buzz-head, but Ruiz had never put much faith in rehabilitation.

"Whuddya want?"

Ruiz yanked the plug out of Eb's ear. "You're the only one here who spent much time with Lon Manning. What do you know about what happened to him?"

Eb rubbed his temples trying to bring back the high. "He walked out into the storm. What else is there?"

"When?"

"I dunno. When the storm got quiet. When the whuddya call it was over the station."

"The eye. Why?"

"I dunno. I gotta get to work."

"Why did he do it?"

"He said he knew something about the storms. Why don't you leave me alone?"

Ruiz reached down and pulled Eb up by his collar. "You'll never work again if you don't answer my questions. Why did Lon leave the shelter?"

"I said I dunno. Somethin' that would make him a big man. Can't I please go now?"

"Anybody down here?" The voice came from the door to the work area.

Ruiz dropped the shaking maintenance man and stepped out from behind the boxes. A technician was looking through the material on Lon's workbench. "Oh, excuse me sir," he said. "I'm just looking for some cable for our satellite link-up."

"I thought the monitors wouldn't be up for a few days," Ruiz said as he walked towards the tech.

"We have to get it running sooner than we expected. It looks like that big storm is headed back this way."

Ruiz left the work area and headed for his tent. Far out over the ocean the sky had grown dark. The hoppers had all gone, and a salty wind was blowing inland. Except for some technicians scurrying into the shelter erected that morning, the camp looked deserted.

In the tent, Ruiz flipped on a light and pulled out the papers he had lifted from Lon's workbench. They were notes for a computer program for the drones sent out to monitor storms, but Ruiz lacked the background to determine exactly what the program was supposed to accomplish. Copies of Lon's files at the home office were included and Ruiz plugged them into his computer. He had read them all before and remembered all that he had read, but having them in front of him again helped focus his attention. Little went on at any of the weather stations in Ruiz's jurisdiction that escaped his attention. All the data pointed to one thing: Lon was a quitter. He wasn't suicidal, and that reminded Ruiz that Rebecca's suicidal tendencies seemed to have gotten worse. He would have to file a new report on her. Lon wasn't a buzzer; Eb was the only addict at Rossenby. If he left the underground storm shelter when the eye of the storm was over the station, he might have been able to get to another shelter. But where would he go? To a cave nearby in the hills? He didn't seem the type to go native but maybe he would if he broke under the pressure of the planet.

Ruiz awoke to the sound of rain drumming on the tent. Eb was outside, gathering up debris that had blown out of the destroyed dome, and he looked suspiciously at Ruiz as the investigator approached.

"You went native a few years ago," Ruiz said.

"Yeah. For a while."

"Did you ever talk to Manning about it?"

"Yeah," Eb answered. "But Lon wouldn't have gone native."

"Why did you come back?"

Eb shrugged. "It didn't feel right. I felt like a parasite living where I didn't belong." He pointed to the mountains that overlooked Rossenby.

Ruiz had never understood why some settlers went native. They left their settlements and went up into the hills where they lived alone in crude huts. If they were responsible, they could live like that for years. The few who had been interviewed said they wanted to become part of the planet, but some, like Eb, came back saying they didn't fit in. What was there to fit in to?

Ruiz left Eb and headed for the temporary command center. The crew was silently huddled around a row of computer monitors. As Ruiz entered the cluttered shelter, Captain Wall separated himself from his crew.

"Well," he said. "Now you'll get to see what you think Manning walked into. The storm that hit us so hard moved one day out to sea, stalled, and now its coming back."

"It is getting rough out there."

"This is nothing. We should really start to feel it in a few hours."

"Shouldn't we get in the shelter if that storm is coming back?"

Wall shrugged his shoulders. "We will if the storm passes over us. It still might turn away."

"You people should be able to predict these storms," Ruiz said. "What have you been doing?"

"Nobody can predict the storms. You know that." Wall started to walk towards the computers. "Sometimes I think this whole damn planet is alive and hates me."

Ruiz walked back to his tent to get his notes. The wind was at his back and pushed him along. This storm seemed to exist solely to cover Manning's tracks: it was here when Manning disappeared and it came back when Ruiz was trying to track down Manning. Ruiz pulled his notes and his computer out of the tent. As he turned back to the larger shelter, a gust of wind tore his tent loose and it was whipped across the compound.

"I don't have time to talk." Back at the command center, Ruiz was trying to talk to Rebecca, but she was monitoring the storm's progress.

"You don't have a choice. As soon as I track down Manning, I'll be out of your hair."

"I've got a job to do, Mister. Go bother somebody else."

"It's okay, Rebecca," Captain Wall said. "The techs will let you know if anything happens in the next few minutes."

"Thank you," Ruiz said sarcastically. He led Rebecca to the far corner of the building and took out the papers he had found on Lon's workbench. "What are these?"

Rebecca sighed and took her eyes away from the monitors. "Notes for a computer program. Are these Lon's?" Ruiz didn't answer. "It looks like he was reprogramming the probes."

"Why?"

"I don't know. We get those from Central all ready to fire off. It looks like he wanted the probe to broadcast on a different frequency. Here's the wavelength he wanted to use." Rebecca circled a figure.

"Why that frequency?"

"I don't know. It's one we never use on Williwaw. There's too much natural interference. Sunspots or something."

Ruiz took the papers back. "Thanks," he said. "I'll be in Manning's work area for awhile."

Little had been done to clean up the exometoerologist's workshop. Boxes still filled the back of the room, and the workbench was still cluttered with equipment. Next to the workbench was a locked cabinet that Ruiz had not gotten to the first time he went through Manning's effects. It was a low-tech padlock, and Ruiz quickly pried it off. Inside, along with some expensive computer equipment, was an old fashioned radio.

Ruiz hooked up the radio and tuned it to the frequency Rebecca had circled. There was a lot of static, but as he adjusted the antenna, a familiar pattern could be heard above the rest: three long, three short, three long.

"Lon! You're back!" Eb came stumbling out from behind the boxes. He staggered to a halt as he saw Ruiz. "Whuddya want this time?"

"Did Lon use this much?"

"Yeah, sometimes. Why?"

"That's an SOS signal. I think he's in some trouble. Where's the mike?"

"Ain't no mike. Lon used it to send those dots and dashes."

"Morse Code!" Ruiz exploded. "Nobody uses that anymore."

"He even made me learn it," Eb said proudly. "Said I might need it sometime."

Ruiz grabbed Eb's arm. "Quick. Answer him. Find out where he is."

Eb fished a keypad out of the cabinet and plugged it into the radio. Slowly, he tapped out a message then listened to the reply. Outside, the wind was howling louder, and inside, the lights dimmed.

"I musta missed part of that," Eb said. "He's sayin' he's in the storm."

"What's he in? A boat or a plane?"

As Eb tapped out the question, the rest of the crew entered the room, their clothing soaked with rain. "We'll have to go below," Captain Wall said to the two men. "The storm's getting worse."

"He said it again," Eb said to Ruiz over the sound of the crew tramping down to the lower level. "He said he is the storm."

Ruiz walked to the stairway and looked up at the ruined weather station. The rain stung his face, as he watched the winds whip the debris across the plateau. Rebecca and the techs pushed past him to get down to the shelter. Captain Wall took his arm, but Ruiz shook him off. "The storms are alive," he said to himself. "The whole damn planet's alive."

"Excuse me," Eb said as he stepped by, his voice clear and firm. "I'm going with him. Lon promised he'd come back for me if he found a way. If he found a way to live on this planet without feeling like a leech." Eb's voice trailed off as he climbed the steps, and he whispered the last words.

Ruiz watched as Eb walked into the hurricane.

Maurice Forrester lives in Syracuse with his wife, Lori, and three year old son, John. He is a Ph.D. student in the history department at Syracuse University where he is doing research on American religious Perfectionism and antebellum reform.

mjforres@suvm.acs.syr.edu

Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
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