Outward Borne (3 page)

Chapter 3 Tidal Tales

There was not much interest in the
day-to-day weather on ObLa for the weather hardly varied, besides,
the ObLaDas did not wear clothes and did not care if it rained or
was clear. Clear being a dim damp, foggy oily mist for there had
never been a sunny day. The ObLaDas did not even know they had a
sun, and so they did not miss it, but they did want to know if
there was to be a storm. On ObLa, a storm meant wind and they did
have winds, especially in the northern and southern regions that
were both dangerous and destructive.

Even so, the Center for ObLa
Weather was far from the forefront of ObLa life, unless you
happened to work there. The COW had a long history of tracking
weather patterns, issuing boring weather forecasts, and maintaining
centuries-old weather records, but there were enough storms that
caused enough damage to make it politically prudent to improve said
projections. RaLak LemTer, the Senior Scientist at the Atmospheric
Research Office of the Center for ObLa Weather led a large team to
revise the Atmospheric Disturbance Projection Program. No easy
task.

Forecasting of day-to-day weather
was quite accurate, for one day was like another, but predicting
the rather rare storms was difficult and frustrating, and it was
the only prediction that anyone cared about. Problem storms were
caused by a coalescence of large upper atmospheric fronts and high
velocity wind streams that stirred up enough turbulence to
influence the surface air flow patterns. There was no way to know
what was going on in the upper atmosphere; so the windstorms
appeared to reach down from above in a random touch of
havoc.

For all their efforts and
upgrades, the new Atmospheric Disturbance Projection Program
achieved no more than a modest improvement in prediction accuracy,
which RaLak LemTer found to be a frustrating and intrinsically
unsatisfying result. His next project, he vowed, would be simpler,
one that depended on manageable data that would lead to a
straightforward conclusion. Little did he know!

The Fickle Flow of Filim was a
well-known natural phenomenon on ObLa, or what passed for a natural
phenomenon on ObLa. There was not much else in the small catalog of
natural wonders on this gray, flat, featureless, fogbound, smelly
planet. The Fickle Flow was an occasional change in the direction
of flow between Foot Lake and the neighboring Head Lake. A narrow,
deep channel connected Head and Foot, and that was where the change
in flow occurred. Since there were two good-sized streams entering
Head and one fairly small river leaving Foot, the flow of water
through the connecting channel, named after the local village of
Filim, was from Head to Foot, except when it wasn't.

The Filim Flow was rather erratic,
sometimes being quite rapid, sometimes static and, on occasion, it
went the wrong way. There were no rapids or anything spectacular
about the channel even at its most extreme. In fact, you rather
needed to sit and stare at it for a few hours to notice any change
even when there was one, but it was just the thing for the
kinetically oriented ObLaDas who were prone to notice nothing but
change. So, RaLak LemTer set about planning how to determine the
cause of the fickle flow phenomenon as best he could. It was
already known that the flow reversal could not be explained by
something simple, like floods or wind, but it was real. Whatever it
was, RaLak was quite confident that, with enough measurements, the
cause would be discovered and the flow phenomenon
explained.

At the end of the Atmospheric
Projection Project, RaLak had been impressed by one young Da, MaxNi
MaxRo, who had had some interesting ideas for future forecasting,
so MaxNi was drafted to measure the fickle water flow in Filim for
the foreseeable future. RaLak and MaxNi loaded up one of the
Center’s larger field vans with all the air and water measuring
instruments they could find and took off. Filim was far to the
north and a good deal west of the COW and, as the roads were poor,
the trip was expected to take several days. RaLak drove the massive
van and set about getting to know young MaxNi.

RaLak was an infamous character
within the COW and beyond. In his earlier years, he did some
brilliant physics and mathematics, which are the exactly the same
on ObLa as everywhere else in the galaxy. He was not satisfied with
the theoretical problems he was dealing with, however, and left
this field and spent several years building houses. There are only
a few ancient images of RaLak in those early years, before he
became a legend. They say he had expressive eyes, which may have
been significant, as there were few minor differences that might
distinguish one ObLaDa from another. RaLak had been a member of the
COW for nine years and nourished his reputation as an eccentric
character that was overly given to making detailed and redundant
measurements, and for measuring parameters that had no apparent
connection with the task at hand. Younger scientists in the Center
often criticized him and felt RaLak was wasting a lot of time and
money and should maybe take a chance sometime. RaLak, when he would
comment on his predilection, would say he was just making sure that
he understood what was going on, and if he did not, he might learn
something new. RaLak was keen on finding new things.

MaxNi, on the other hand, was not
at all sure about old RaLak nor the global relevance of Filim's
flow, but RaLak was a somewhat famous character and he might learn
something about how to do research, if not hydrodynamics. Besides,
it was an ego boost to be selected ahead of more experienced COW
people.

When they eventually reached
Filim, RaLak chose to stay at a small, old lodge near the channel
fishing dock. They would have stayed in the center of town, if
MaxNi's vote counted, which it did not. Filim was a small place
that has a small tourist trade and a small local fishing industry.
Fish being an elongated frog-like creature with two strong hind
legs for swimming and four abbreviated flippers for mobility or a
short, fat eel thing for which they were known. Filim was almost as
famous for Foot Lake eels as for the fickle flow.

RaLak and MaxNi moved into the
channel lodge for the duration. There were roads of sorts around
the lakes and a ferry across the channel, but most of their travel
would be on the water. RaLak had arranged to rent a good-sized
flatboat and for someone to teach MaxNi how to drive it. Foot Lake
was a large body of water. While it did not come close to being an
ocean or even a sea, it was a rather big lake. It would take MaxNi
all day to cross in his sluggish flat boat. The Lakes were located
in the northern extreme of the populated region and situated east
to west so that the prevailing breeze blew across Foot Like toward
the smaller Head Lake, and being in the North, there was a fair
amount of wind through most of the year.

The direction of flow through the
Filim channel had only one primary cause; the water level on one
lake was slightly higher than that of the other due to the greater
influx of water into Head Lake. RaLak had modeled the different
forces that might cause the change in water level and the biggest
factor was that same wind. A constant wind blowing across the lake
would push the water along causing it to pile up on the far shore
raising the level enough to reverse the flow. True enough, but
sometimes the flow reversed when there was no wind, and that was
what no one understood. Sending MaxNi to measure the flow of water
into and out of both lakes seemed a good place to start.

Meanwhile, RaLak went to the local
fishing pier and restaurant, a source of more fruitful information.
There was a better than average turnout at the pier-side place. The
arrival of the COW Team well known and long expected in Filim, and
while there was some disappointment that the Team seemed to consist
of only two rather ordinary looking fellows, there was ongoing
speculation on what might happen next and why weren’t there more.
So the denizens were quite pleased to find that half of the Team
showed up in the flesh.

After explaining to the
satisfaction of the regulars what the mission was all about, how
long it might take and, so sorry, it wasn't going to require the
services of twenty or so economy-boosting, gossip-fueling
crewmembers, RaLak was tipped onto one of the towns senior
citizens, one YoLa MeSom. Old YoLa had lived in a house overlooking
the fishing pier and boat dock since before there was a pier or
dock.

There was no offer to actually
take RaLak anywhere near old YoLa's place for she had a well-earned
respect for her ability to conduct any conversation to mind-numbing
lengths. One did not step onto YoLa's porch without being recently
fortified with an abundance of food and drink, they warned, but
RaLak did not mind a good chat and wandered off up the hill in
search of the most mature house on the channel side of the hill.
After one false guess, he approached the low, gray (not a
distinguishing feature) house that had seen better days a long time
ago. The house did have an unusually large porch overlooking the
channel, two well used sitting mats, and a small, almost tiny
female, the well respected (from a distance) YoLa.

Following a polite introduction,
RaLak was invited to sit on the front porch to be queried about his
research into the water flow in Filim's channel. YoLa did not say
much at first, beyond asking questions, for the more she learned
about her guests, the more topics she could tote up for future
discussion. YoLa had lived in that very house since she was a child
and had undertaken a great deal of study of the water’s flow and
what it all meant. YoLa agreed that the wind was certainly one
cause that could determine the direction of flow and could not only
reverse the flow but cause flooding in Filim and damage to the dock
moorings.

RaLak was surprised, however, when
YoLa vigorously insisted that wind was not the only cause of the
flows’ fickle nature. He, being an experienced gabber, provoked her
into an even greater vent by initially discounting any other cause
and daring to question her observations. The fog could be so thick
you could not see your right eye with your left, as the saying
goes, but no, she was certain. Every year there were periods when
the air was dead still for days on end and the visibility was
unusually good. Some days you could see to the far side of Filim,
but usually only as far as the near side and things close to it.
Then the lake surface settled into a glasslike stillness, YoLa
said, and still there were changes in flow, subtle changes. YoLa
pointed out the buoys that were used to tie up small boats. The
buoys were anchored to the bottom by long lines. They would drift
in the direction of the water flow. A strong flow pushed the buoys
as far as the lines would permit while the lines would settle when
the flow stopped and pull the buoys to a middle position. If there
was a small boat attached to the buoy, it would be blown around and
stretch out in the direction of the wind. Many times, she said, you
could see the water flow in the opposite direction of the wind, but
only when the breeze was light, would you see this. Sometimes, YoLa
assured RaLak, the direction of flow could change back and forth in
a single day. Most often, the flow just changed from fast to slow
or sometimes stopped altogether. She was very convincing. RaLak was
intrigued. Perhaps this was something new.

After four weeks on the water,
MaxNi completed placement of all the flow meters in the waters
entering and leaving the lakes. Measurements were made of all the
streams and creeks and they added up to the Foot River flow; so
there was no great underwater spring feeding the lakes. He added
water level measurements, wind velocity data, and a lot of
information on the effectiveness of wind in creating ridges of
water and large swells that rolled across the lake and even
rebounded off the shore and travel back against the wind. MaxNi
felt that the project was just about wrapped up, and very
satisfactorily at that, so he was rather frustrated when RaLak
disagreed. They had good data, no doubt, but it did not square with
old YoLa’s memory.

So MaxNi was set to building a low
broad shed over Foot Lake just beyond the channel. RaLak wanted to
shield the water surface from local winds and buffer the effects of
random waves. It was coming onto the time of year when the dead
still days could be expected.

MaxNi set about redoubling the
number of wind direction and velocity, water height, temperature
and flow, air pressure and other measurements all across the lake
and surrounding areas. Sure enough, the water level seemed to
change by itself, slowly, throughout the day it would rise and then
subside. There was some pattern to it, but he could only collect
this nice clean data for a few days at a time, and these patches
were sometimes separated by days or weeks, but it was enough. RaLak
found that the data behaved as a repetitive event; a simple model
for cyclical processes easily fit the water level changes. The
model even tied together separate sets of measurements. It is
always more believable if it is simple, although he was not to
think so for long.

He used vectors that were like
three hands on a clock. If they all pointed straight up there was a
maximum effect, if they were in different directions then nothing.
Interestingly, the three hands all moved at different speeds. That
is all well and good for a bunch of mathematical calculations. They
described how causes behaved, but not what they were. So, what were
these vectors really? It was then that RaLak noticed one of these
vectors was exactly in sync with the light-of-day. If the thing
that made the light also caused the effect on the water levels, it
must be very massive indeed. What if all three vectors pointed to
other world objects?