Part Eight

"You don't seem very worried about the President denying some elements of modern science," said Melody, still on the phone with Aaron. "Aren't you afraid he'll influence researchers to post the wrong results?"

"Politicians are often well behind even popular knowledge when it comes to science," said Aaron, shrugging. "As for distorting things, nature is an impartial witness. Science is an active process to understand nature, with multiple people looking at both each part of nature and the work of others, and they are continually refining the explanations they develop. Consistence is important, as is an open view. Ask an honest question of nature and you get an honest answer, regardless of politics or preconceptions. To refute Hitler, there is no such thing as 'Nazi science.' Don't get me started on Stalin. Anyway, sometimes the honest answer is 'Huh?' if the question is wrong. As Michelson and Morley found out, when they asked 'Which direction is the Earth moving through the luminiferous ether?'."

"Which doesn't exist."

"Exactly. Though I admit that sometimes the correction takes decades."

* * *

They spoke about mundane things for a few more minutes, then ended the call. Aaron had just started to walk away from the phone when it rang again.

"Hello?"

"You have another visitor at your office," said Mayor Brinkley, sounding a bit peeved. "This one from the US government."

"Thank you," said Aaron. He hung up, sighed, and headed to his office. Though he did not hurry, since he was expecting some repercussion from the Libyan visit and was not anxious to deal with that. Outside his office he found a car with federal plates. It was a bland, government issue vehicle, parked legally, instead of an expensive rental - as the Libyan had been driven here in - parked illegally, and this car had no chauffeur. Inside the small building was a man who introduced himself as an assistant director from the National Parks Department.

"What can I do for you?"

"You can stop flying around delicate rock formations, for a start!" said the man.

"I beg your pardon?" said Aaron, confused. He was expecting... well, not that.

"You endanger natural rock formations thousands of years old with such stunts!"

"I haven't hit one yet," said Aaron, mildly. "I don't plan on hitting one. Why does it matter if I choose to fly through a natural rock arch?"

"Just flying by some of these features could endanger them! The pressure waves you generate..."

"Now you're just being silly," said Aaron, sternly. "Any stiff breeze puts more pressure on those formations than I do."

The man appeared confused, as if this had never occurred to him. Then he recovered his resolve.

"Nevertheless you don't have permission to fly in national parks!"

Aaron thought about pointing out that he was older than most national parks, but realized that argument would hold little weight with this man. It also wasn't really pertinent.

"There are plenty of other places to fly," said Aaron, reasonably. "I have no problem avoiding parks. Well, I'll probably fly over them getting to and from places, but that will be too high to cause problems. Just like airliners."

"Oh," said the man, taken aback by the easy victory. "Uh, thank you."

* * *

Despite the work of his brain trust and others he had recruited to help his efforts - as well as the work of his "stunt doubles" - to make the world better, Aaron/Malak was still busy. Just not as busy as he had been in recent years. Aaron recognized and accepted his limitations. He could not carry large amounts of food to the starving or medical aid to the sick, but he could guard those who did, as well as keeping the sharing of such material peaceful. Having what appeared to be an angel monitoring the distribution of such aid tended to maintain order, regardless of the local religion.

Still, people around the world went hungry. In many cases simply because their plight was unknown to those bringing in the emergency supplies. However, in many other cases this hunger was because someone actively opposed the hungry people getting food. There Aaron's negotiating skills helped more than his participation in physically distributing and guarding food and medical supplies.

Overall, he was satisfied. He was distinctly making the world a better place, as he had done for decades, though now with less effort on his part. Better, the world was slowly improving. Despite all opposition. Despite his own failings.

Now, he just needed to deal with the attacks...

* * *

"What do you mean we're getting too much rain?" said Mayor Brinkley. "I mean, yeah, we're having minor problems with flooding..."

"I am already being personally criticized for diverting rain here for the benefit of Haven's farms. There are people who believe that I have done this directly, or am using my influence to have someone else do that. I checked with Insight, and it confirmed that we're several standard deviations above the norm for rainfall," said Aaron, "while areas around us are experiencing a deficit. I then contacted Global Weather Control and they - reluctantly - admitted that a manual check had revealed a problem. That they were no longer actually in control of the weather satellite for this section of the Earth."

The office of Mayor Brinkley was small but functional, much like Aaron's own office in the adjoining building. About the only concession made to luxury was the very comfortable chairs. Currently, though, Aaron was standing.

"Oh, God," said the Mayor, paling. "That could... Even if we don't get so much rain that the fields and even the town are flooded, people will accuse us of causing droughts in other areas."

"Indeed, the situation could get very bad. GWC is performing a more detailed analysis of the problem. Hopefully, they will find the source of the interference, soon."

What he didn't say was that this might be part of the attacks on Aaron/Malak.

* * *

The man in the three-piece suit pointed to a chart, a printed record of signals to and from the satellite. There was a prominent - though brief - discontinuity in one of the lines.

"You can see, here, that the signals from the satellite were interrupted for several seconds," said the Director of the UN's World Weather Control Agency, Doctor Henry Anson, pointing to a chart recorder output. This was already unrolled across the table in the meeting room, the ends weighted with a tape dispenser and a stapler, respectively, to keep it flat. "We didn't think much of it. There are occasional dropouts, after all, due to various factors. Sometimes several a day. Though they are rarely that long."

"When did you notice that it wasn't doing exactly what you told it to?"

"About a week later. One of the ground stations - yes, in Indiana - reported that they were getting too much rain, yet their seeding rockets were being scheduled to fire by the satellite anyway. We checked, and found that the satellite would not accept our corrections. The ground station had to abort the launch manually. We then had people check every station, including the fully automatic ones, and manually disarm every piece of weather-altering equipment directly controlled by the satellite. Unfortunately, that does nothing for the equipment on the satellite, itself. Though it's less effective without the ground installations, it can still affect the weather."

"Any idea what might be wrong?" said Aaron.

"We had Orbit Ace take some photos with a vacuum-rated camera," said the Director. He reached into the same accordion folder from which he had extracted the chart, and produced several large photographic prints. He pointed at one. "There's... something on it. On the satellite, I mean. Something which appears to be a device. Took us quite a while to locate it, since it's the same low-visibility matt black as the satellite.

"We spoke to Orbit Ace about removing it, but he says he won't touch it. That he has a bad feeling about the device and won't even go near it. Though he has agreed to record any corrective measures we take. From a distance.

"Hopefully, we can correct this. Otherwise, we'll have to replace the satellite, which could take over a year."

"I'll remove it," said Aaron, with a sigh. Hoping that wasn't what those responsible for the device were counting on.

They made him practice with a spare satellite which the Agency used for planning upgrade, repair or refurbishment missions.

"Whatever that is appears to have plugged in here," said the tech, pointing to a location on the spare with a pen. "This data port is only supposed to be used on the ground. Since we never anticipated someone having access after launch it was left active."

"Something to keep in mind for the next generation of satellite," said Aaron.

* * *

The huge, low-visibility satellite orbited high above the Earth, in a carefully assigned and maintained geosynchronous position. It was one of just three which monitored conditions for World Weather Control and automatically made adjustments to some weather patterns. It was one of the three heaviest and most complex objects ever put in space. Malak thought it foolish that there were no spares already in space; however, during previous malfunctions the Agency had been able to make do with the other two and standard weather satellites and the ground stations until a replacement could be launched. So perhaps their policy wasn't so foolish.

Malak soared into space, climbing well above the atmosphere, to the position for the concealed satellite the GWC had given him. This was the highest he had been above the Earth in many years. He waved to Orbit Ace as he passed the other empowered. Malak's wings were useless for propulsion or control in the vacuum, so he had them folded them around himself for extra insulation. His passive sonar was also no good in the absence of air. However, by carefully choosing his angle of approach he could see the large satellite, silhouetted against the half Moon.

The huge device was not obviously damaged. However, it just as obviously did have something stuck to it. The "something" looked larger in person than in the photos. As Orbit Ace maneuvered for an angle to let him record the process with the special movie camera given to him by the techs at GWC, Malak carefully put his hands on the foreign object. Instead of simply yanking it free, he made it desolid. Being careful to include the contacts the device had inserted into the data port, but nothing of the weather control satellite itself. Or any of his own body. As the device faded, it suddenly flared and shattered, with a blast Malak felt, though only faintly. Thanks to his care, neither he nor the satellite were damaged. However, whatever evidence might have been found in the device was gone. Malak therefore simply let the tiny fragments disperse.

Malak next pulled out the cap the techs had given him and screwed it into place over the port. It only needed to be hand-tight, but Malak made certain it was *his* version of hand tight. With a vacuum-curing adhesive already on the threads, the cap would not come off easily.

Whoever did this will have to drill it out, or cut through the cap, to do this again, he thought, with satisfaction. His efforts had given the satellite a slight spin, so he stilled it. Saving the onboard attitude control system the trouble.

Malak let himself drift away from the black-as-space object, waved a farewell to Orbit Ace, then dove for home.

* * *

Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, with people still accusing him of arranging extra rain for Haven's farms at the expense of the surrounding areas. In fact, the recording Orbit Ace made of Malak removing the device was soon shown in reverse by certain parties to "prove" he was responsible for the weather control malfunction. The testimony by Orbit Ace in the matter was ignored or declared lies by those who wanted evidence for their criticism of Malak. Orbit Ace was simply added to their list of unreliable - or corrupted - witnesses.

Fortunately, such people were few, though their influence did make things difficult for Malak. No formal charges were made against either empowered.

* * *

Malak noted from on high as he returned home that rain clouds were still concentrated over the part of Indiana where both Havens were located. Even with the Global Weather Control employees working to correct the situation, getting the weather back to what was considered normal would take time. However, they had assured him that with their control of the satellite restored, the situation was already improving.

Unfortunately, he hadn't even landed outside his home when he saw Joe Blank running up, waving to him, his work boots splashing in the puddles left by the excessive rain. He ran up onto the porch of Aaron's home, where he was out of the light shower still falling

"We had some crazy rich guy - Abner Throne - here while you were gone," said Joe, breathlessly, hands on knees. "Wanted to make a big donation to the town and the clinic, but only if we gave him powers. I thought at first he was talking about your Santa Clara project, but a little careful questioning told me he didn't know anything about that. Wouldn't believe me or anybody else when we told him empowerment didn't work the way he thought. Seemed to think we had powers just lying around."

"So how did you get rid of him?" said Malak, as he changed to Aaron. The water on his wings from the rain he had flown through simply fell onto the already damp planks of the covered porch.

"I consulted the mayor and the top doctor at your clinic. Then I sicced Mannequin on him."

"You what?!" said Aaron, alarmed.

"Oh, I just had Mannequin act as his guide. After a an hour or so of that he left. Taking his whole rich guy entourage with him."

Aaron walked inside, muttering and shaking his head. Joe, grinning, went back to his chores.

* * *

"I've had people try to buy my services or even buy me," said Aaron, later, speaking with Melody over the phone about his adventurous day. "I've also been witness to people trying to force someone empowered to reveal the 'secret' of empowerment. However, this is the first time I am aware of where someone tried to buy powers. I think I need to have a talk with this fellow. After I have a long talk with Mannequin."

"Good luck with that," said Melody, for some reason sounding amused. "Anyway, Throne is currently the third richest person in the world. He's probably used to just buying whatever he wants. I'm actually surprised he came to Haven in person."

"When I talked to the Mayor about this she said that several people over the past few months have tried to 'acquire powers' from the town, the clinic or someone who lives in those places, sometimes even offering to pay for them," said Aaron. "I hadn't heard about it because the Mayor didn't think it was important enough to bother me with. I now think at least some of those were asking on behalf of Throne. Since they were unsuccessful, he must have decided to come and try himself."

* * *

"Oh, I just told him that the first and most important step was careful selection of ancestors," said Mannequin, when Malak finally managed to catch up to him.

"Essentially correct," said Malak, "but I doubt that was what he wanted to hear."

"So? You ask me, guy needs to be told 'no' more often."