Last Gasp

Chase took the slip of paper from his diary and handed it over. After a minute's scrutiny Sir Fred raised his eyes and gave Chase a skeptical stare.

'Is this another leg-pull?' he asked bluntly.

'No--no, sir, really. This time it's genuine.'

'This is the formula for the dissolution of C0₂ in seawater.'

Chase nodded. 'Why go to the trouble of writing it down? A perfectly ordinary chemical interaction? He couldn't speak a word of English, either, and yet he was able to use our chemical symbols.'

Sir Fred wafted smoke away. 'That's not unusual. Many foreign scientists use them. No, the odd thing, as you say, is why bother in the first place? He must have been trying to tell you something.' Sir Fred thoughtfully folded the paper and gave it back. 'You didn't get to find out his name then?'

'No. Perhaps the Americans did.'

'Didn't you ask them?'

'It didn't occur to me,' Chase confessed. 'But he should never have been moved. They could have flown a medical team in--or even waited till he was stronger. I got the impression that Professor Banting was afraid of offending the Americans by refusing.'

'Professor Banting is afraid of offending his own shadow,' Sir Fred commented dryly.

Chase wondered whether Ivor Banting and Sir Fred Cole had ever crossed swords. It would have made for an interesting contest. Banting, an establishment drone down to his black woolen socks, versus Firebrand Fred, maverick of the British scientific cabal. It must have really peeved Banting when Fred Cole got his knighthood. All that toadying and nothing to show for it!

'Can you make anything of it?' Chase said.

Sir Fred rubbed the side of his nose with a stubby forefinger. 'The last time I met Stanovnik--when would it be?--about two years ago-- he was working on a climatic project. He wouldn't say what exactly, but that's the Russians for you.'

'I thought you said he was a microbiologist?' Chase frowned.

'He was investigating the effects of pollutants and chemical runoff on the microorganisms in seawater. You're familiar with eutrophica-tion, I take it?'

Chase nodded. When a river or lake received an overabundance of nutrients--usually caused by the runoff of farm fertilizers with a high nitrogen content--it encouraged the growth of algae blooms, which as they decayed and died consumed all the oxygen in the water. Deprived of oxygen, other plants and animals also died, with the result that the water became biologically dead. That was the process of eutrophica-tion; quite simply, overfertilization. It had the effect of speeding up the natural evolutionary cycle. Lake Erie in the United States and the landlocked Mediterranean were often-cited examples, where the natural organic processes had been accelerated by some two hundred years.

'We had a long chat about it. His main interest was how eutrophica-tion on a large scale might affect the climate. When a lake dies and becomes stagnant and eventually turns into swampland, it alters the local weather in the same way that clearing a forest can either increase or decrease rainfall. The Russians are keen to find out everything they can about what affects the climate because of their grandiose geoengineering schemes. They imagine they can move mountains in more than just the metaphorical sense.'

'That doesn't seem to have much connection with carbon dioxide and seawater,' Chase pointed out.

'No, not directly. Though it might have something to do with the climate. Indirectly.'

'You mean the greenhouse effect?' Chase said. 'I'd already thought about that myself, but I don't see how.'

'If you like I'll mention this to Banting next time I see him,' said Sir Fred, getting up. He seemed to inhabit the blue suit rather than wear it. 'The Americans could have confided in him.'

'Are you likely to see Professor Banting?'

'We serve on half-a-dozen committees together.' Sir Fred gave Chase a long-suffering look over his meerschaum. 'Professor Banting and the committee might have been made for each other.'

Chase went ahead and held the door open.

'If you're all that curious you could find out yourself,' Sir Fred told him. 'See Boris Stanovnik and ask him. He'll be in Geneva and he speaks good English.' He chuckled, started to cough, and spat something into his handkerchief. 'Better accent than mine,' he wheezed.

'Thank you for taking the time to see me, sir. I'll watch for your program. I'm glad we met again.'

They shook hands and Sir Fred wandered off down the maze of corridors, apparently knowing where he was bound. The thought in Chase's mind was not Boris Stanovnik or Geneva, but Angie. But after all, he reasoned, it was connected with his work. In a sort of roundabout way. And it would only be for a few days . . . Christ, and they'd been getting along so well.

He had the car radio on, but wasn't really listening. It was a meaningless babble.

Fragments caught and snagged at his mind.

. . . you won't find a better deal this side of the Rockies . . . buy three and get the fourth free! . . . we're offering discounts on the discounts at}. C. Broughton's . . . looking for the little gift to please her? . . . ten-ninety- five and you get a chrome set for the price of . . .

Instead he tuned in to the thoughts inside his head. People everywhere were dying of cancer, others were suffering from nerve and respiratory defects, from liver and kidney disorders, women were miscarrying, children being born with genetic damage. It was a never-ending catalog of the dead and dying, victims of toxic waste and industrial pollution.

The world was manifestly mad; to Brad Zittel it was perfectly clear. In fact it was screaming for attention, for action. The world was mad not only because these things were happening but because nothing was being done to prevent them from happening. Nobody cared. The planet was drowning in its own excrement and nobody gave a damn . . .

Take that car in front. He'd been unseeingly watching it pumping out poisonous fumes for the last ten minutes. What the hell did the driver care? The air was still clear and breathable, wasn't it? Nobody had actually dropped dead on the highway. Not yet.

Without a moment's further consideration Brad pulled over and ran the small red Datsun onto the sloping grass shoulder. The traffic behind honked and swerved. Somebody shook a fist. Brad switched off the engine and slumped back in the seat, all the strength leaking from his fingertips.

His head felt curiously tight and his temples throbbed.

... at the Temple of Divine Worship this coming Sunday . . .

It was too big a mess for one man to sort out. And why should he bother? Let them sink in their own sewage. His stomach tightened in a spasm of virulent rage. It seemed to swell inside him like a growth until he felt that he must burst.

Still the endless stream of cars and trucks blurred past, filling the air with a soft-blue haze.

Brad got out and faced the oncoming surge. Oxygen-breathing monsters spewing out poison. Movable instruments of death, like the Nazi gas ovens on wheels. He stumbled onto the concrete lip of the highway and began to walk toward them. This, it seemed to him, was the only logical thing to do. He felt very calm.

Traffic streamed past on either side, incredulous faces and gaping mouths. He walked diagonally across the highway, angry and yet calm, impotent and yet defiant.

A huge truck bore down, silver exhaust pipe burnished by the sun, the driver wrenching at the wheel and cutting across the path of a car, which braked sharply, setting up a cacophony of horns.

Miraculously the traffic continued to flow all around him, a river of hurtling murderous metal, the warm breeze and pungent fumes wafting against his face and filling his nostrils. A long-haired motorcyclist went by, shouting something that was snatched away, and then a car with a trailer rocking crazily as the driver tried to avoid him.

Brad walked on.

The cars and trucks had malevolent eyes and snarling mouths. He could smell their stinking breath. Another sound insinuated itself above the steady roar, a thin high-pitched braying. He didn't see the patrol car, lights flashing, slue to a stop on swaying springs. Something yanked him and he was being carried and thrust facedown onto dimpled plastic that smelled strongly of stale sweat.

A hand held the back of his neck in a choking grip and a long-suffering voice said, 'Why the fuck can't you