"I think we'd better have a Troupe powwow after this chase, and make ~ll of this very clear and straightforward to everyone."
"Good. Fine. If that'll make you feel better. But I can already tell you what's gonna happen. Nobody's gonna jump up and say, 'Oh wait, Jerry! A really big tornado? Nope, no, sorry, I'm too scared to go watch.' That'll never happen in eight million years!" She laughed. "You couldn't keep 'em away with a cattle prod."
"The F-6 is not just a spike. I'm thinking more and more... along the lines of a different order of storm, something unprecedented. We'll be going up against some-thing I don't understand. The Troupe are good people. They trust my judgment, and they might be killed because of that. It wouldn't be right."
"Jerry, we Troupers are like soldiers, we don't need any rights. Anyway, we'd all be chasing spikes even if you weren't around. If you think I'm doing all this just to please you, you can think otherwise. The F-6 is the big one, it's the payoff. It's what I want." She fetched up her granola bag. "I can get April Logan to come down here."
"Your design professor? Why?"
"April's way out of academia now, she's mega-big in netcritique! She has real influence! She's the heaviest net-friend I have. If April Logan puts the word Out that we have a hot presentation coming up, we can pull some mega postproduction people. People who can take our data, and do it up really right for once. We'll pull a major audience."
"Money, you mean."
"That's right, Jerry. Money. Pots of it." She shrugged. "Well, the net-equivalent. Attention, access. Fame. I can turn that into money. It ain't easy, but there are ways."
"I see."
"Good. So you can forget all that gallant stuff about protecting little me from the big bad storm."
"All right," he said. "That's good, Jane. You've done well and I've come to expect that from you. But what about after the storm?"
"What do. you mean?"
"That's the other eventuality, the one that really stuns 'me. Suppose that we survive the F-6. That we ace this.
That we nail it and make pots of money and fame, and we put it all behind us. What'll we do then? What will become of us? You and me?"
She was surprised, and more than a little alarmed, to hear Jerry bring this up. "Well, nothing has to change, darling! It's not like I never had money before! I can deal with money, you know I can! That's not a problem for us! We'll kick back on the off-season, like the Troupe always does. And we'll upgrade our hardware, really decently this time. You can write a paper, and I'll have plenty of network on my hands... . Then we'll wait for next season."
"There's not gonna be an F-6 next season. And with the global CO2 finally dropping, there may not ever be another F-6."
"So what? There will always be other spikes. Even if the CO2 drops, that doesn't mean the weather's gonna get any calmer. There was less CO2 in the air during the State of Emergency! Besides, CO2's just one part of the climatic disruption. There's still tropical deforestation and delayed ocean warming."
Jerry said nothing.
"There's thermal pollution from cities. And changes in the North Atlantic currents. Glacier retreats in Antarctica, and higher albedos in Africa, and CFCs in the ozone, and that permanent hitch in the ENSO cycle, and the solar variation... Christ, I can't even count them all. Jerry, the weather's never gonna calm down and be normal. Not in our lifetime. Probably not in three hundred years. We'll have all the spikes we ever want! You and me, we're disaster experts with an endless supply of disaster! And if you nail the F-6 while the feds are sitting on their hands saying an F-6 isn't even possible, then you'll be famous forever."
"Jane, I've been forecasting the F-6 for ten years. I don't just chase spikes, anyone can chase spikes. Spikes aren't enough. There are thousands of spikes, and thousands of weather people, but I'm different, and the F-6 is why. I've been so obsessed by it, so consumed and fascinated and intent on this terrible thing, that I have no real idea how I'll live when it's gone. Everything has been honed for this crisis, and we're in top condition to do it. we're all united to do this, to go through hell to nail this thing. But after that, what's to become of us?"
"Jerry..." She bit her lip. "Jerry, I promise you, as long as I'm m your life, you're never gonna lack things to do, and a reason to live. All right?"
"That's sweet of you, but it's just not like that," he said, sadly. "It's hard to explain, but... I have to have the Work. And it has to be big, bigger than myself, because the way I do my Work is with something that's too big. It's me all right, it's very much part of me, but it's not something I'm in command of, and I don't control it. It's like a force, a compulsion, that tears at things, and sheds them, and chops them up, and comprehends them, and I don't control it, and I never have. I can't. You understand?"
"Yes. I do understand. It's like a spike, inside."
"Yes." -"I have one of those too, you know. It's just very different from yours. And being with you, Jerry, it's helped me with it, and I'm better! What we have together, what we give to each other, it's not hurtful or doomed or destructive, it's really good and strong! We do see a lot of hurt. And I don't know, the world around us might be doomed. And we study destruction all the time, every day. But what you and I have, together, in the middle of all of that, it's really good and strong! There's nothing weak or frail about it. I'll never love anyone else, the way I've learned to love you."
"But when this monster has smashed everything, what if we're part of the wreckage?"
"I'll still want you and love you.
"I might become something very different, after the F-6. I know I won't be able to stand still. I'll have to change, there's no avoiding that. Who knows? I might be-come something like Leo."
She sat up very straight. "What do you mean by that? Tell me."
"I mean that I just bear witness, Jane. The Troupe, we all just bear witness. Half of Oklahoma could be smashed into rubble, and we'll just bear witness. But there are those who talk about the weather-as I do and you do-and those who do something about it. Leo, and his friends, his people, they all do things. He's a man of the world, my older brother, he's a man of competence, a man of influence. And it's a dreadful world, and my brother does some very dreadful things. I watch destruction, but Leo abets it. I'm nothing but eyes, but Leo has hands."
Jerry shook his head. "I don't know exactly what Leo's done, or how he's done it or who helped him-he doesn't tell me, for good and ample operational reasons, and I don't want to learn. But I know why. I know why Leo does what he does, and I know why the prospect of action fascinates him. You see, it's not just one spasmodic passing horror in a small locality, like a spike is. The modem world of global strategic politics and economics, that's Leo's world, and it's eight billion people who've lost all control over their destiny, and are gnawing the planet down to the bone. It's our civilization, turned -into an endless world-eating horror, just like the F-6 itself may well turn out to be. And Leo, he lives inside that, and feeds it energy, and tries to bend it to his will. He'd very much like me to join him in there, you know. To help him maneuver the chaos, by whatever means necessary. And I can understand my brother. I can sympathize. My brother and I, we have a similar affliction. We understand one another, as few people ever do."