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famous. He preened with self-importance as he interviewed a specialist in satellite-data analysis.
    According to the bio line on the bottom of the screen, the expert was Dr. Sanford Nguyen. He worked for the same government agency that employed Randolph Templeton, who was at that moment debating global warming with Jack and Veronica on another channel.
    The anchorman was surely being fed questions by an unseen producer and a first-rate team of researchers, but his inquiries rolled off his golden tongue as though he himself were a maven of orbital data-recovery systems.
    Dr. Nguyen made the unsettling revelation that three hours prior to the observation of the extraordinary waterspouts, all orbital assets of the National Weather Service and other federal agencies had gone blind. Evidently, industry-owned satellites with high-resolution photographic capability were out of commission, as well. No high-altitude photographic, infrared, or radar images of the waterspouts were available to suggest why and how these phenomena had occurred.
    “What about military satellites, the missile trackers?” Molly wondered. “What about spy satellites?”
    “They’ll have been blinded, too,” Neil predicted.
    On the TV, the anchorman asked Dr. Nguyen if a burst of cosmic radiation or perhaps unusually intense sunspot activity could have fried the circuitry in all those eyes in the sky.
    “No,” Nguyen assured him. “That can’t be the explanation. Besides, it’s too coincidental. Neither cosmic radiation nor magnetic pulses could have precipitated the calamitous weather we’re seeing, and I’m sure that whatever blinded our satellites is the cause also of those waterspouts and these storms.”
    Puckering his face into his most solemn of all expressions, the network anchorman said, “Dr. Nguyen, are we seeing at last the terrible consequences of global warming?”
    Nguyen’s expression suggested contempt but also sudden bewilderment at the unanswerable question he must have been asking himself:
What the hell am I doing here?
    Molly said, “Why would only observation satellites be out of commission?” She gestured toward the TV. “Obviously, communications satellites are still functioning.”
    “Probably they prefer we don’t see them,” Neil said, “but they want us to know what’s happening with the weather because fear debilitates. Maybe they want us frightened, cowering, and pliable.”
    “They?”
    He didn’t reply.
    She knew what he meant, and he knew that she understood. Yet both of them were reluctant to express the truth that they suspected, as if to name the enemy would be to unleash in themselves a terror that they could not tame.
    Neil put down the remote control, turned from the TV, and headed out of the family room into the adjoining kitchen. “I’m going to make coffee.”
    “Coffee?” she asked with a note of disbelief.
    This domestic task seemed to be evidence of total psychological denial, a reaction unworthy of the unshakeable, eternally competent man whom she had married.
    “We haven’t had a full night’s sleep,” he explained. “We might need to stay awake, keep our wits about us, for a long time. Coffee will help. I better make it while we still have electrical service.”
    Molly glanced at the TV, at the lamps. She hadn’t thought the power might go off.
    She was chilled by the prospect of having no light except the eerie luminosity of the unclean rain.
    “I’ll gather all the flashlights,” she said, “and whatever spare batteries we have.”
    Flashlights were distributed throughout the house, continually charging in wall outlets. They were to provide guidance in the event that an earthquake imposed darkness in rocked rooms filled with avalanched furniture.
    He turned to her, paler than he’d been a moment ago. “No, Molly. From now on, neither of us goes anywhere alone. We’ll collect the flashlights later, together. Right now, let’s brew some coffee. And make