rooted, like a sturdy tree. Not true. A damnable lie. Alone on his island Theo had cheated time, but here and now, with his daughter beside him, the weight of age and failure pressed heavily.
Cheryl shook her head, looking out of the window. 'You don't have to explain. If I wanted reasons I'd have asked for them. I'm here. Let's leave it at that.'
Theo found a smile. 'If nothing else, you're an independent young woman.' He meant it as a compliment, but it was a day when he could say nothing right.
'Yes,' Cheryl said. 'I've had plenty of practice. I get along fine, thanks, and I always have.'
Theo shifted uncomfortably, his broad torso hampered by the narrow seat, and decided wisely to abandon this pretense at conversation.
In the scratched and battered briefcase between his legs rested the paper he was to read at the conference. It was a summation of all his years of research and thought, worked on and sweated over during the past three weeks until he had pared it down to eleven double-spaced typed pages. More a predictive document than a list of facts and figures, he had given it the title 'Back to the Precambrian,' a reference to the time on earth, more than 2.5 billion years ago, when the atmosphere was composed of hydrogen, methane, and ammonia and no free oxygen, a time to which he believed the earth was returning. The scenario was his own, and it was chilling.
Theo dozed while Cheryl stayed awake and smoked more than was good for her.
She felt confused and vulnerable. To say the least it had been a shock when her father turned up unannounced at Scripps less than a week ago. The shock turned into bewilderment when he produced two airline tickets. She couldn't actually remember accepting his invitation (had there been an invitation?) or even having time to regret it. Events had taken charge.
As fate or circumstance or whatever would have it, she had ten days before the
Traveling with the spin of the earth, they saw dusk come upon them with the dramatic abruptness of a thundercloud. After passing over the northernmost tip of Scotland, the aircraft began to lose altitude in preparation for the long descent into European airspace. To one fitfully dozing passenger the muffled shriek of engines sounded like the howl of a greedy machine sucking the breath from his lungs.
Chase was the recipient of a beaming smile from the stewardess as he stepped from the Euro airbus--blatant enough for Nick Power to remark as they went down the gangway, 'Didn't I tell you, Gav? We can't go wrong. Check in at the hotel, a shower and change and into the bar. It's bound to be crawling with sexy young environmentalists just burning to release all that pent-up frustration!'
'What about the conference?'
'What conference?' Nick said.
They passed through Customs and joined a line of delegates awaiting transportation. To Chase's dismay they seemed a staid, almost dour bunch, and he counted himself lucky to have Nick for company, even though Nick's thoughts all ran on the same track.
It was his first visit to Geneva and his preconceptions that it would be clean, somewhat austere, and filled with the new all-purpose breed of European technocrat seemed depressingly close to the mark.
They were booked into the Inter-Continental, a fifteen-minute drive from Cointrin Airport, which conveniently enough was also the conference center. In the wide carpeted lobby a board with multicolored plexiglass letters gave the conference itinerary, with details and locations of the various speakers and their subjects.
Chase paused to scan the board, and his spirits sank. This was heavy stuff.
global environmental monitoring: Dr. J. N. Ryman
hazards of toxic waste: Prof. I. V. Okita
demographic patterns in the year 2000: Prof. T. D. Smith
the carbon dioxide conundrum: P. Straube
the Reykjavik imperative revised: Dr. P. L. Neuman
Now what the hell did that mean?
ozone--a vanishing problem?: Prof. C. Hewlett
where is science taking us?: Dr. E. B. Salem
Where indeed? The list was long and Chase didn't come to the name he was looking for until near the end.
microorganisms and climate: Prof. B. V. Stanovnik
Suitably noncommittal, Chase reckoned, for a paper from a Russian scientist. He saw that Stanovnik was down to speak on the Tuesday morning--three days from now. Perhaps he'd have the opportunity of having a word with him before then. Sir Fred had mentioned that he
spoke good English, which was fortunate. Chase didn't relish the idea of conversing via an interpreter, especially a Russian one.
The hotel--'Holiday Inn with Hiltonian pretensions,' according to Nick--was teeming with people, and after unpacking and tidying up they headed straight for the main bar, which was rife with what Chase took to be the well-heeled intercontinental jet set, easily identified by their four-inch gold-tipped cigarettes, wraparound suntans, and bored expressions. They made an uneasy mixture alongside the conservatively suited conference delegates with plastic name tags on their lapels. The atmosphere was one of forced conviviality, with everyone busily consuming predinner drinks.
The contrast struck him at once, and amused him: two groups of people pursuing diametrically opposed goals thrust together, cheek by talcumed and cologned jowl.
On one side the rabid consumers, whose purpose--indeed, entire existence--was dedicated to gobbling up as much of the world's resources as was humanly possible in a single lifetime, without a single stray thought as to the consequences. On the other the committed ecologists and environmental scientists, appalled at the wanton squandering of those resources and passionately concerned about the capacity of the planet to cope with selfish, unbridled greed, and just as determined to conserve as much as they could for future generations.
Thus the global dichotomy was displayed in front of his eyes: humanity's two dominant and opposing impulses seen at their crudest-- consumption versus conservation.
Nick sucked in a breath and crouched, his head seeming to retract into his shoulders. 'Oh, Christ, no . . .'
Through the bar-dwellers Chase glimpsed a narrow bald head and small close-set eyes. In his usual tweed jacket and baggy flannel trousers Ivor Banting was talking to a large bull-necked man with shorn graying hair.
'Has he spotted us?' Nick asked tremulously. 'I had to put up with the bastard at Halley Bay, I'll be damned if I'm going to here.'
Banting would have looked shifty at a children's party, thought Chase. 'I never expected to see him here,' he said, turning to face the other way. 'Would you have said Banting the Terrible was all that interested in the future of the environment?'
Nick was scathing. 'He bloodywell isn't. A week in Geneva at somebody else's expense. A fucking freeloader.'
Chase looked down on him with a flinty grin. 'Like us, you mean?'
'He's an arse-licker,' Nick insisted. 'Why do you suppose he was so accommodating to the Yanks?'
'You tell me.'
'Because they've got the funds to underwrite big research projects, dummy, that's why. Banting keeps in with the guys with the bucks. He couldn't give a damn who they are and what the project is providing they're willing to cough up--' He glanced furtively over his shoulder. 'He hasn't seen us, has he?'
'What makes you think he's all that keen to meet us two?' Chase said. 'You never know, he's probably as anxious to avoid--' But he wasn't and Chase was mistaken, for he saw Professor Banting excuse himself, pat the broad shoulder of the man he was talking to, and push his way toward them through the crowd.
Nick swore under his breath and threw back his drink in one quick gulp.
They shook hands, Nick with barely concealed bad grace, and Banting gestured around, nodding with a knowledgeable air. 'Some excellent people here, best up to now. I'm looking forward to it, aren't you? Have you seen the agenda?'
Chase said he had. 'Anyone you'd recommend?'
'Straube and Ryman, and Colin Hewlett's paper should be worth hearing--I was his tutor at Loughborough,
