He rubbed his throbbing temples as he peered closely at his weather map. The dust storms swirling in the northern latitudes fascinated him. Driven by the energy released into the atmosphere by the melting polar cap, they appeared and vanished like ghosts. Unpredictable, so far. Toshima knew that in the spring season such storms could merge together, coalesce into a single gigantic storm that could blot out the whole planet for weeks on end.
He had no fear that these little storms would do that. What worried him was the cold front advancing southward across the broad sweep of Chryse Planitia.
As Martian weather systems went, that cold front contained considerable energy. Noontime high temperatures south of the front were still up into the midtwenties, Celsius. On the other side of the front they were below freezing, even at high noon. The front would pass the eastern end of the Grand Canyon complex during the night. Waterman and the others were more than a thousand kilometers west of there, but still Toshima worried about them.
He did not understand why he was worried. The rover was in no danger from the weather. The four men and women were prepared to face overnight lows of a hundred and fifty below zero. Why was a drop of thirty degrees worrisome?
Toshima felt an inner trembling take hold of him, almost like a sexual urge. There was something in the data before his eyes, something important that he did not recognize. He knew it. He could feel it within him. His subconscious mind was trying to tell him something, awaken him to a revelation, an important discovery. He bit his lips and squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating furiously. In vain.
His head pulsated with a dull pain. Again he kneaded his temples, then the back of his neck.
Opening his eyes again he took a deep breath, trying to calm the tension cording the tendons in his neck and cramping his shoulders. Turning slowly on his creaking stool he studied each of the display screens, one by one. The information is here, before my eyes, he knew. Yet he could not consciously grasp what his inner mind was trying to tell him.
Relax, said the long-forgotten voice of the monk who had guided him in childhood. Do not attempt to force your spirit, it will resist your efforts and cause you nothing but pain. Relax and empty your mind of all wants, all needs. Meditation is the key to understanding, the bridge to the great cosmic all.
Toshima closed his eyes once again, this time gently, without strain. He folded his arms across his chest, and let his chin droop to his chest. To a casual passerby it would look as if the Japanese meteorologist were taking a nap.
He tried to clear his mind by drawing up a picture of the divine Fujiyama, its exquisitely proportioned cone covered with snow against a clear blue winter sky. His thoughts drifted, slowly, languorously, from one past vision to another. He recalled the first time he had been in the U.S.A., in Boston, how cold the winter wind was at the airport, blowing in off the frigid water of the harbor. How the wind was even in the city, at the hotel where the world meteorology congress was meeting.
The towers of Boston’s Prudential Center created an inadvertent wind tunnel, he had been told. All the meteorologists marveled at the phenomenon. Even when the winds were calm elsewhere in the city, at the Prudential Center they screeched between the buildings so fiercely that they stirred whitecaps in the decorative ponds and fountains.
Toshima’s eyes snapped open. Wind tunnel!
He rolled his little chair to the keyboard in front of his master map and began pecking furiously, headache forgotten. What will be the effect of a strong pressure gradient on the long narrow corridor of the Valles Marineris? How will the approaching cold front affect the winds in Tithonium Chasma?
It took a good part of the night, but finally Toshima had his answer. He checked it, then checked it again. Yes, the result was certain.
Again he trembled, this time with the exultation of victory. And the knowledge of fear. He had made a great discovery. It told him that Waterman and the others were in grave danger.