Makaay said, “We call this project the Refrigerator. It isn’t a fancy name, but then I’m not a fancy guy, just an engineer who likes to get the job done — and I’ve never worked on a job of more significance than this. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved so far, and I hope to persuade you to support us in the future, as we seek to extend our technology through all the threatened hydrate strata around both the north and south poles…”
As Makaay spoke, John and I drifted through the crowd toward the podium. Here we found Shelley, with Vander Guthrie, Tom and Sonia, other project people. There was no seating plan, no front row — in fact there were only a few seats of any kind. Ruud Makaay, an expert at crowd manipulation, didn’t like obviously stage-managed events. He believed in what he called “choreographed informality.” He was aiming for a human warmth that would belie the usual accusations of arrogance that stuck to projects like this. There would come a point when I, like the other key players on the project, would be invited to come forward to be presented to Barnette, like the winner of some VR-soap award. But, happily, I wouldn’t be called on to make any kind of speech.
“Of course we can give you any technical detail you want,” Makaay was saying. “Our analysis of the network in terms of connectivity and robustness has assured us that every functional parameter has been addressed, and all local geological conditions accommodated — and all this put together by our moles, working solo and in cooperation. Those little critters have done a good job.” Behind him a blown-up image showed a mole pushing its whirling snout up out of the ground, and it waggled this way and that, as if seeking our approval. It was a shameless bit of anthropomorphism, but it worked, and won Makaay a smattering of laughter and applause.
The crowd, evidently enjoying the show, were sympathetic for now — though whether they would be when they went back to their offices, and we started to ask for serious funding for the roll-out, was another matter. But we project types were all tense, agitated, sipping drinks and grinning nervously at each other. Even Tom grasped Sonia’s hand so hard their knuckles were white. John seemed distracted, though. I thought he looked at me as much as at the presentation. Even now, at this crucial moment, the Morag business was obviously on his mind.
To a little more applause, Makaay yielded the floor. Edith Barnette stepped forward, utterly at ease, as always wearing her years well.
“I’m not qualified to talk to you about the majestic engineering we’re here to witness today,” she said. “I’m not even qualified to talk about methane hydrate reservoirs, which are causing such concern to those who monitor our climate for us, friendly minds both human and artificial. But I can, I think, grasp the wider implications of what is happening here today. For I understand heroism.” Her voice was soft, but it carried to every corner of that big marquee, and the faces of our guests, important or self-important, intelligent or merely self-obsessed, were locked on her. “A new kind of heroism,” she said. “A heroism that seeks to save, not merely oneself, not just one’s friends or family, not even one’s nation or creed. It is a heroism that seeks to save the planet itself, and all its fragile cargo of living things. It is a heroism that seeks to save the very future…”
Standing there with the vodka coursing through my blood, her words took me back to the hopeful days when President Amin had woken us all up from our nightmare of oil dependency. Amin’s own story was a mixture of meritocracy and openness. She was the child of Iraqi refugees, and her journey, if not quite log cabin to White House, was pretty much the twenty-first century equivalent. Amin had had a simple vision, comprehensible to all, and by asserting it she managed a national, indeed global transformation.
Of course the demons fought back. Amin’s assassination had been a great punctuation mark. And then had come 2033, the Happy Anniversary flash-bombing.
It had been a HANE, as the counter-terrorists called it, a high-altitude nuclear explosion, a bomb not much bigger than the Hiroshima device, lofted a couple of hundred kilometers high aboard a small tourist spaceplane. X-rays cooked all but the most hardened low-Earth-orbit satellites, while gamma rays battered the upper atmosphere, releasing high-energy electrons that disabled any sensitive electronics in line of sight, and charged particles made the Earth’s magnetic field oscillate so that electric surges ruined cables and circuits. And a bloodred aurora had spread across the skies of a hemisphere, a sight you would never forget. The developed world was paralyzed for eight days.
It was one hell of a strike. But even now, fourteen years later, nobody knew for sure who had delivered it. An anonymous message called the “Happy Anniversary” note was sent to the FBI. It was thought perhaps it referred to the two-thousandth anniversary of Jesus’ crucifixion. Perhaps anti-Christians were responsible, then — or they may have been a Christian splinter sect — or perhaps it was just mischief-making by terrorists determined to stir up as much trouble as possible.
There were plenty of people who had problems with the Stewardship. Abroad, there were many who resented the sudden about-turn of America from the world’s worst polluter to a new conscience of the planet. And at home, many groused at our new engagement with the world: America was “a giant submitting to fleabites,” as one opponent put it. For sure there had been plenty of people who wanted to lash out in inchoate rage, at somebody or something. It could have been anybody.
But the United States and the world had recovered. The bombing was treated as a wake-up call. The years of national introversion were over, and America began to take a lead in the wider program Amin had always envisaged. Barnette now spoke of how the Stewardship drew on deeper traditions of American environmentalism, dating back to Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, and landmark pieces of environmental-protection legislation like the Endangered Species Act.
And Barnette, speaking quietly but calmly, seemed to summon the ghost of Amin with every word.
“I hear much talk of despair, these days. We are in a Bottleneck, a time of maximum danger. Well, perhaps that’s so. But I don’t counsel despair. For all the ages to come will stand in the shadow of what we do today, and their people will look back on our generation, and they will say, they were heroes. And they will envy us…”
I was distracted. I thought I saw Morag again, out of the corner of my eye, sliding through the group of VIPs as silent as a fish in deep water.
And then everything started to unravel.
Barnette kept talking. But Gea appeared at my feet, a little robot rolling quietly on the green carpet. “Do not be alarmed. Nobody can see me but the project team. We have a problem on the rig.”
I hissed, “What kind of problem?”
She conjured up a VR image. It appeared in a glowing cube at our feet, a box of light like an aquarium. A young man stood on a metal platform. His image, ten centimeters high, was finely detailed; I could see the rivets in the plates beneath his feet, like pinheads. He was holding a cylinder from which wires protruded. The man in the fish tank was nervous; you could see his sweat. He was no more than a kid, I realized, younger even than Tom. We stood around in a circle and peered down at this thing, me, Shelley, John, Tom, Sonia, Vander.
Others were distracted by our behavior. Jack Joy came sidling up from nowhere and joined our group. He was watching us suspiciously, but I was confident he couldn’t see the fish tank. But Barnette kept talking, in bold, bright colors, and kept most people’s attention focused; perhaps she, too, had heard what was going on, and was doing her part in keeping everything together.