“They’re the ones that did it, Linus, let them sort it out.”
“They’re tired, Adelaide.” His voice was earnest now. “They can’t imagine a way to reverse that decision without a massive backlash. And they’re right, it won’t be a smooth transition. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.”
“What, you want to integrate now?”
“I think we should demilitarize the border, yes.”
“And get us all killed,” she scoffed.
“I didn’t say it’s not a risk. But we’re sitting on a time bomb. Remember the riots three years ago, all those people killed at the desalination plant. A plant, I might add, which is now functioning at forty per cent.”
Adelaide looked ceiling-ward. There was no dust here, no places for small creatures to hide. “Are you trying to scare me, Linus?”
He sighed. “Maybe I am. But there’s an even bigger issue at stake. Even you must know what it is.”
She fell quiet. The Neptune hummed. The angelfish still swivelled around the flashing envelope. She could not resist a glance at the window, where misty rain sheened the glass.
“You mean this idea that the weather’s changing,” she said finally.
“So you have noticed something.” There was a shift in his voice-surprise? Satisfaction?
“People talk. I’m not convinced. Anyway, grandfather hasn’t said anything and he’s been here longer than anyone. He’d know.”
Linus rapped the wall graph behind him. “Facts, Adelaide. This proves it. We’ve been experimenting-making forecasts. Not far ahead-but it’s often accurate. That’s a sign that the atmosphere is settling.”
“Is that what they’re doing above my apartment? Weather telling?” She looked away. “Doesn’t seem right.”
“Right or wrong, it’s going to happen. It has to, for what must follow. What I was telling you before, at your Rose affair-no, don’t sigh, it’s not a joke. Osiris has a very real problem. There are many things in this city we can make-we can grow foods and medicines and bioplastics, our Makers produce complex parts-but there are crucial things we can’t. Like bufferglass. Solar skin. Those are Afrikan technologies, and we’ve used up our reserves. Now there’re reports that the water turbines are breaking down. Next time a hyperstorm hits, it could do terrible damage, not to mention making a serious dent in our energy capacity. Our only option to repair this damage would be to leave the City.”
She turned back, shocked.
“Leave the City! Are you insane?”
Linus looked pleased with himself. Perhaps he was just trying to rattle her.
“On the contrary,” he said. “I have never been more serious. We will have to renew expeditions.”
“What about the storms?” she countered. “Even if you designed this amazing weather teller, how would a tiny expedition boat escape the storms? It would be ripped to pieces.”
“As I said before, Adelaide, the climate is adjusting. It’s a natural process. Besides, Teller portents favour journeys. The political time is right, and the necessity is there. Sooner or later, the Council must acknowledge it.”
“But there’s nothing out there. There’s nothing to find.”
“You’ve taken Osiris doctrine too much to heart. This is my contention with Council policy. Education should be about stimulus, about questions, not rote. We shouldn’t stop asking. Or hoping.”
“Hope is a fool’s errand, Linus. You’ll only alienate people when you can’t deliver what they want.”
His lips curved. “You sound like Father.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I couldn’t be less like him.”
She was thinking of the last communications ever recorded before the Great Silence. They had arrived by boat. A refugee had carried the images all the way from the northern hemisphere, on a Neon Age hologram that now sat in the Museum. It might be upsetting, the teacher had warned them. But every pupil has to see. Otherwise you will never understand.
It wasn’t the images of destruction so much as the last radio broadcast that Adelaide always thought of: the voice, quietly desperate, speaking knowingly to people that would never come. Everyone in the class cried. The teacher was crying. Even Axel, if he wasn’t a boy, would have been crying. Everyone except Adelaide. She had suspected then that something was wrong with her. She couldn’t cry; she could only watch the images of those doomed people unfold one by one and feel hollow inside. Something had died in her that day. Maybe Linus was right-it was hope.
“Adelaide? You must see my point.”
“You’re deluding yourself, Linus. Everyone loves the idea of land. But it’s only an idea. It’s-what did Second Grandmother used to say-over the rainbow.”
He looked at her sympathetically, and she knew they were chasing different shadows.
“We have to find out,” Linus said. “It’s imperative that we know what is left. We must think ahead.”
“No-one will listen to you.”
“They will. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but eventually. Because unlike you, a lot of people share my hope.”
“Poor fools.”
He laughed. “You’d fight me all day. I wish you’d understand how influential you could be. If you only converted that cynicism, people would follow you.”
“You want me to lie.”
“No.” Now he sounded troubled. “No, I don’t want that.”
Idly, Adelaide tapped the desk. “It wouldn’t be a problem. Technically I’m a very convincing liar.”
“Incorrigible.” Linus fell silent, as though he had reached the end of his persuasions, and yet they had not quite achieved the conclusion he had sought. For a moment Adelaide felt sorry for him. She had never considered his belief in an outside world to be quite so integral to his character, but there it was, in blunt appeal, inextricably woven into the fabric of his political career. It struck her as odd that he might spend years campaigning for something so dreamily insubstantial.
She felt the same, nudging impulse that had brought her here.
“I’ll meet Vikram,” she said. “But I make you no promises.”
“Don’t underestimate what you’re embarking on.”
Adelaide stood and sent the chair wheeling under the desk with a backward kick of her heel. “Brother dear. When have you ever seen me in over my head? We may have different methods, but I’m quite as capable as you. If not more so.”
He gave her a crooked smile. She saw a flash of Axel in his face. Something in the way the eyes creased. She was so accustomed to warring with Linus, she tended to forget they shared a genetic code.
“As always, that alarms me more than anything else,” he said.
“I’ll send you an invite to the next soiree. I don’t expect to see you there.”
“I’ll ensure that my schedule is full.”
She nodded. Linus, at least, understood that collaboration was not reconciliation. At the door she paused.
“One thing, Linus. If you’re so worried that we’re running out of bufferglass, why would you support repairing towers in the west?”
He smiled. “Think about it. The thinner our resources are spread, the sooner the crisis looms…”
“And the sooner you can push for your expeditions.” She thought about it. “Yes. Clever. But it won’t work, you know.” It had been a successful whim, she thought. Linus thought she was doing something worthwhile, so he would keep quiet about her affair with Tyr. Neither had he guessed Adelaide’s agenda. What with Lao’s refusal and her abortive meeting with Hanif, she had realized it was impossible to get into Axel’s apartment. Impossible without help, that was, and if necessary, someone who could take the fall.
She checked her watch. If she hurried, she’d only be forty-five minutes late for Vikram.
16 VIKRAM
