duty, Colonel Burdovsky. I thank you for this opportunity to be of service.'
With trembling and regret, he watched her leave, the fleshy palms of his hands damp. What compounded his frustration was that this slender, narrow-hipped, desirable young woman was to employ her charms in the service of the state and that some cretin of an American scientist or security officer would be the fortunate recipient. While he, Burdovsky, lusted secretly and impotently from afar.
And what if she didn't return? Supposing she went the way of the others? But she must, had to,
The lip of the sun crept over the straight edge of the horizon: a sharply defined and perfectly symmetrical arc of vivid orange that widened and deepened until the entire glowing orb stood precariously balanced on the rim of the world. At this hour it was possible to stare it full in the face. But not for long; for in minutes the first faint rays lanced through the cool air, bathing the onlooker in a benign radiance of gathering warmth.
For Chase, unable to sleep, it was balm to the spirit.
He was reminded of that other sunrise, nearly a quarter of a century ago on a bitterly cold, inhospitable continent, when as a young man he had been filled with unbounded optimism and the promise of all the years stretching ahead into the golden future. Then it had seemed as if nothing would be denied him, that anything and everything was possible.
But the possibilities had dwindled one by one, the options had been annulled--until he was left with only the bleak reality of the inescapable present.
Below the desert scrub, secure beneath thick slabs of concrete and steel, another day was beginning. Not for the first time, nor probably the last, Chase wondered at the purpose of this ceaseless activity. Every day for the past four years, ever since the scientists and technical staff had assembled here in the refurbished silo complex, work had gone ahead to solve a problem so vast that it numbed the imagination. Was it all just a grand illusion? Or more aptly, delusion? What folly to think that their puny efforts could achieve anything--what arrogance! Cheryl had been right; maybe for the wrong reasons, but she had been right all the same.
Now he could feel the heat of the sun on his face, feel it gaining in strength by the minute.
High above, yet invisible, the layers of carbon dioxide formed a barrier, blocking off the escaping heat. Temperature medians had gone haywire. While some parts of the globe had increased by ten degrees and more, others had drastically cooled. Parts of Africa that had never seen a snowflake now had blizzards. Siberia was turning into jungle. The equatorial belt was a steamy, airless no-man's-land, mimicking the conditions of five million years ago.
Mexico City had been the first of the world's great cities to become uninhabitable. In the early years of the twenty-first century it had a population of thirty-two million, making it the largest city on earth. Chase remembered seeing documentary film of conditions there that reminded him of the Nazi death camps in World War II. The film showed rotting bodies in the streets, the city dumps piled hundreds deep. Public utilities and services had collapsed completely and untreated sewage ran in the gutters and formed huge stinking lakes in the plazas and marketplaces. Plague had swept through the city and there were packs of rats roaming through the shops and department stores.
From the faces of those who managed to survive it was apparent that they were suffering from the early stages of anoxia. Pinched, their lips blue-black, they slumped in total exhaustion, mouths sucking in the depleted air. Oxygen content was nearly forty percent lower than normal, equivalent to an altitude of fifteen thousand feet.
Chase recalled the profound shock felt by the scientific community. It had always been assumed that such a decline would take decades, yet Mexico City had slid into ecological nightmare in just a few years. It became a poisonous and decaying wasteland, a memorial as well as a dreadful warning of things to come.
At the entrance to the Tomb he was met by one of the guard corps, a tall loose-limbed boy with a drawling southern accent whose breast patch identified him as 'Buchan.' Although Chase had been loath to employ armed guards, the threat of attack left little choice.
'Morning, sir.' Buchan touched the steel rim of his camouflaged helmet. 'How's it look topside?'
His concrete cubbyhole contained a chair, table, a few tattered magazines, and on the crude walls an even cruder patchwork of naked women in bizarre contortions. From the ceiling extended the polished tube of a periscope, through which Buchan surveyed the surrounding terrain. Aboveground had been left completely undisturbed, so that the site, even from fifty yards away, was virtually undetectable. This was their greatest defense.
'All quiet on the western front,' Chase reported. He nodded toward the periscope. 'Don't you get eye strain peering through that all day?'
'Naw, ain't too bad.' Buchan gave him a gap-toothed grin. 'Standing orders say you gotta do a sweep every fifteen minutes. Reckon nothing could get near inside of that without being spotted.'
'Except a helicopter.'
'Yeah, I guess so,' Buchan conceded with a shrug. 'But we'd pick 'em up on radar, wouldn't we? I think we're pretty safe from a sneak attack,' he said confidently.
Chase went down in one of the freight elevators to the mess hall. Seventy feet underground he passed the large board listing the various departments on the different levels.
Marine Geology. Marine Chemistry. Geochemistry. Meteorology. Physical Oceanography. Botany. Biology. Atmospheric Physics. Microbiology. Biological Oceanography. Physiological Research. Marine Ecology. Geophysics and Planetary Physics. Neurobiology. Physiological Psychology.
Altogether, counting technical and laboratory staff, there were about two thousand people. There was space in the Tomb to accommodate many more--twenty miles of tunnels in this section alone. The complex actually stretched much farther, two hundred miles of tunnels in all, though the rest of it had been sealed off from the Tomb itself.
As he ate his scrambled eggs and toast and sipped his coffee, Chase found himself hoping fervently that Buchan's confidence was justified. There were nine access points, each one closely guarded, but even so, the fear of discovery was never far from his mind.
Over his second cup he read the teletext editions of the
By eight o'clock he was at his desk. As director he had to coordinate the efforts of the multi-disciplined research groups. Keeping the clima-tologists informed about what the marine biologists were up to, the oceanographers in the picture about any progress made by the atmospheric physicists, the microbiologists up to date on what the meteorologists were doing was a daunting and time-consuming responsibility. He also had to arbitrate between them: There was still an element of rivalry that in the early days he had tried unsuccessfully to eradicate. Then he had come to the conclusion that perhaps it was necessary, this competitive spirit, to keep everyone keen and on his intellectual toes. Later in the day there was to be a monthly update meeting, when Chase's patience and diplomacy met their sternest test.
Shortly after eleven Prothero called him from New York. The news was more of the same--another rash of emergency committees to deal with the social consequences of the deteriorating climate. It was common knowledge that the government apparatus had been set up in Des Moines, Iowa, well away from the steadily creeping Devastated Areas. Official pronouncements continued to insist that this was a temporary measure 'in the interests of administrative convenience,' which naturally fooled no one. The rats were always the first to abandon a sinking ship.
'What's the weather like?' Chase asked facetiously.
'If I could see out the window I'd tell you.' Prothero's face was more lined these days, pouchier, his eyes hollow and haunted. 'I thought I'd better speak to you before you had your update. It is today, isn't it?'
Chase nodded warily. Something was up.
'It's about Gelstrom,' Prothero said. 'He's got a matter of days.'
Chase gazed at the vidscreen. He felt nothing. 'So what happens now?'
'It all depends on whether he's made provision for the financial support after his death. I'm checking out the
