Dust & Rain

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

SADORIUS Han Chevonian dropped the pile of barygraph read-outs on his desk. Pages and pages of plotted squiggly lines slid over the wooden surface.

On top was a different sheet with a hand-drawn graph, a red line which jumped up sharply towards the right hand side of the page. He picked up that sheet, shook his head and frowned at the young man who had brought him these data.

“Up by this much?”

His new student, Vikius han Marossi, nodded. Silver embroidery glittered on the young man’s white tunic, showing the insignia of the Chevakian doga, the government assembly.

The young man had left the door open and sounds of voices drifted in from the hall, mixed with the slapping of sandals on stone. A breeze carried the tang of summer that ruffled the curtains and nudged at the lingering chill in the room, a hint of the fury of hot weather to come. As chief meteorologist, Sady knew all about the weather; he could feel summer in his bones. And yet . . .

He looked at the graph, as if staring at it would change that ominous red line, and shook his head again.

“What happened? When I checked a few days ago, sonorics levels were at three motes per cube, but now they’ve at twelve?” Three was normal for this time of the year; twelve was slightly above the highest average level in the middle of winter. He wiped sweat from his upper lip, re-checking figures in the table on the second page, in the idle hope that the attendant of the met station who had plotted the graph had mis-read. He hadn’t.

“It looks like we’re in for an interesting summer.” Sonorics dictated the weather patterns across Chevakia. Sonorics, the deadly rays that came from the southern land, an ice-covered plateau so mysterious that it didn’t have a name.

“I’m not sure I would call it interesting. I find it frightening.” Viki’s tone was timid. He held his hands clasped behind his back and stared intently at the desk.

“Viki, straighten your back and look up.”

The young man did as Sady told him, a startled expression on his face. Mercy, since when did the Scriptorium send him jackrabbits for students?

“Imagine you’re making an important announcement to the doga. They’re not going to listen to you if you mumble, and they won’t take you seriously if you slouch.”

“Uhm—I’m sorry, Senator.”

“Viki, if ever you’re going to be chief meteorologist, you will need to show more confidence. How else are you going to argue against selfish senators that no, their district isn’t going to get an allocation of maize production, because the air current predictions are wrong and the harvest will certainly fail?”

“Uhm . . .” Viki went red in the face and went back to staring at the desk.

“Stand up! Look me in the eye. Tell me what you’d say to them if you were in this situation.”

The young man straightened again, his eyes wide. “Uhm—I’d say that they were wrong asking for the allocation, Senator. I’d tell them about our high sonorics measurements and that they predict unseasonally cold weather in the south which means much less rain in the north. I’d show them the maps and show them how I calculated—”

“No, no, Viki.”

The student gave Sady a startled look. “But I have to—”

“You should always keep it simple. Don’t explain to them how you calculated the prediction. That not only bores them to tears, but it shows that you feel the need to justify yourself because you’re not sure of your calculations.”

“But—”

“Confidence, Viki. You’ll need confidence in your work or the farmers and the districts will howl you down, especially those in the North. They seem to think that the sheer act of predicting is going to make it happen.”

“But you can only predict rain when the circumstances indicate that there will be rain.”

“Exactly, but do you think they care? Rain is money to them. If I predict rain, the doga gives them money to plant crops, simple as that. Then of course, there is no rain, the harvest fails and the meteorologist gets the blame.”

“But that’s . . .” Viki’s eyes were wide.

“That’s how things go if you’re not careful.” Sady sighed and shuffled the papers on his desk. He felt no patience with his student today. Those data were really too worrisome to ignore. “Have you looked at any other border stations?”

Viki pushed another bundle of papers across the table; his hands trembled.

Sady leafed through the graphs. Same results. Automated barygraphs were all recording low pressure, and the manual measurements taken by faithful meteorology staff in the stations reported high humidity, low temperatures and out-of-season increases in sonorics. Not just one station, but Ensar, Fairlight, Mekta, all of them reporting levels of twelve, thirteen, even fourteen motes per cube.

Mercy, what was going on?

“Senator, begging your permission . . . I made this.” Viki put a roll of paper on the desk. Sady frowned and unrolled it: a map, showing isobars across the country.

It was a neat piece of work, impressively detailed. He gave Viki an appreciative look. “Now that is what I call initiative. That’s what I’d like to see more.”

The young man blushed.

Sady moved some papers aside and spread the map out over the table. Wavy lines ran parallel to the escarpment that formed the border with the southern plateau, a pattern that sometimes occurred in mid-winter, but even then the pressure lines were usually less crowded. There was a huge low pressure system building up.

Sady met the student’s eyes.

“Any idea what it means?”

“Uhm . . .” The young man’s cheeks went red.

Sady sighed. “Viki, this is not a trick question. I don’t know either. Nothing like this has happened before. This is not a seasonal pattern. At this time of the year, we’d expect the low pressure systems to retreat to the far south and the air flow to swing around to the north.”

The young man looked up, his lips forming the letter o. “Well, in that case, I was thinking . . . I mean . . . Low pressure is usually associated with a rise in sonorics, because sonorics tends to increase the air humidity.”

“Yes, but why?”

Viki hesitated. “What if . . . if the people in the City of Glass were releasing sonorics deliberately . . . Could they, if they wanted to?”

Sady shrugged, uncomfortable. They knew so little of the workings of the southern land and the source of its deadly rays that influenced far too much of Chevakia’s weather. Some sort of machine, the classic works said, somewhere under the City of Glass. No one knew if this supposed machine was a physical thing or a myth. Sady wasn’t sure the southerners themselves knew what it was. Then, fifteen years ago, after the border wars, the barriers went up and no one travelled to the south anymore. Right now, he certainly didn’t want to worry about whether southerners could manipulate it, although the thought chilled him. Sonorics were deadly to Chevakians.

“Viki, I want you to give the Most Learned Alius the message that I wish to see him.” Sady didn’t really expect much help from an academic who did not share his practical experience, but his old tutor had made an extensive study of sonorics and was without a doubt Chevakia’s most knowledgeable on the subject.

“Certainly, Senator.” Viki bowed and left the room at a trot.

Sady grimaced. Really? Am I that frightening? I must be getting old.

He shook his head. No need to worry too much over this student. After his traineeship, Viki would probably choose to move on in favour for a career in academia, or so Sady hoped, because the youngster really hadn’t the aptitude for a life as doga meteorologist.

Sady rose and went to the window.

Laid out before him in perfect geometric patterns, the splendour of Tiverius spread towards the horizon. Rows terracotta roofs basked in the sun. Perfect straight streets, stone buildings with columns. Trees bloomed along the roadsides, even numbers on both sides. Down in the courtyard, a man with a water truck was watering the flowers in the planter boxes.

A warm breeze stirred the curtains. A few moon cycles, and it would be mid-summer. Not at all the time high sonoric levels usually happened.

Sonorics levels wouldn’t need to rise that much before they caused trouble. At twenty motes, it would taint the harvest, at thirty, set off the first alarms, and affect exports to Arania. Chevakia couldn’t afford not to harvest in the southern border provinces. The northern region was too dry to produce much more than camels and the occasional crop of maize.

He didn’t want to start panic, but . . . why now? Why at the start of summer, when the annual cycle should be approaching its lowest level.

Back to his desk, where he pulled out a writing pad. He scrawled on the top page, Authorise dispensaries to start stocking salt tablets for general public use. Authorise protective suits to be taken out of storage and sent to border regions.

This he took to his secretary in the next room, who took the note, looked at it and met Sady’s eyes in a wide-eyed look.

The expression of worry cut Sady deeply. He only vaguely remembered the time of uncertainty before the barriers went up, but he had heard the tales told by older folk. The young man would have seen the barygraph readouts this morning. He would have heard the tales, too.

“Just to make sure,” Sady said, hoping he exuded a confidence he didn’t feel. A confidence that, following such a rapid rise, the levels wouldn’t hit twenty motes per cube and trigger the lowest-level warning.

The man nodded, but similarly didn’t look convinced.

Not good. Not good at all.