Timescape. Part 6

"True enough. The snag is that the Brazilians cut back so much of their jungle for the sugar cane fields.

That lowers the number of plants which can absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Trace that effect round a bit and it explains the s.h.i.+fts in the world climate,greenhouse effect and rainfall and so on.""The Council decided that?""No, no, research teams worldwide did. The Council simply make policy to offset problems. The UN mandate, extraordinary powers, and all that.""Your Mr. Peterson must be a very influential man."Renfrew shrugged. "He says it's pure luck the United Kingdom has a srong voice. The only reason we do is that we've still got research teams working on highly visible problems. Otherwise, we'd have a seat appropriate to Nigeria or the Viet Union or some other swacking n.o.body.""What you're doing is--what did you say, 'visible,'

isn't it?"Renfrew chuckled. "No, it's b.l.o.o.d.y transparent.

Peterson's deflected some help my way, but he'sdoing it as sort of a personal lark, I'll wager."

"That's very nice of him.""Nice?" Renfrew dried his hands, meditating.

"He's interested intellectually, I can tell that, though he's no sort of intellectual in my book. It's a fair trade, I'd say. He's getting some amus.e.m.e.nt from it, and I'm getting his pound notes.""But he must think you'll succeed.""Must he? Maybe. I'm not sure I do myself."

Marjorie seemed shocked. "Then why do it?"

"It's good physics. I don't know if we can alter the past. No one does. Physics is in chaos about this thing. If there weren't a virtually complete shutdown of research, chaps would be swarming over the prob- I ! a leto. I've got a chance lere to do the definitive experiments. That's-the reason. Science, luv."

Marjorie frowned at this but said nothing. Ren-frew-surveyed his handiwork. She began busily ranking jars on the shelves. Each had a rubber collar and metal sealing clamps. Inside swam vague blobs of vegetables. Renfrew found the sight distinctly un-appetizing.

Marjorie abruptly turned from her work, her face knitted with concern, and said, "You're deceiving him, aren't you?"

"Na, luv, I'm--what's the phrase?--keeping his expectations high."

"He expects--"

"Look, Peterson's interested in the problem. I'm not. responsible for guessing his true motivations.

Christ, you'll have him on the couch babbling about his early childhood next."

"I've never met the man," she said stiffly.

"Right, see, this conversation has no basis."

"It's you we're properly talking about. You--"

"Hold on. The thing you don't realize, Marj old la.s.s, is that n.o.body really knows anything about these experiments. You can't accuse me of false adverts yet. And for that matter, Peterson seemed as concerned as I was with the interference we're get- ting, so maybe I misread him."

"Someone's interfering?"

"No, no, something is. A lot of incoming noise. I'll filter it out, though. I planned to work on that very point this afternoon."

Marjorie said firmly, "The mercury hunt."

She clicked on the radio, which blared to a jingle, "Your ho-ney is mo-ney, in the new job-sharing plan!

That's right, a couple splitting one job can help the current--"

Renfrew switched it off. "Be good to get out of the house," he said pointedly.

! I a Gregory Ben fordHe pedaled up to the Cav with Johnny. They pa.s.sed farm buildings taken over by squatters and Renfrew grimaced to himself. He had gone round to several, trying to find the couple who had frightened Marjorie. They'd given him a surly look and a rude off-wi'-ya. The constable was no help either.As he pa.s.sed the slumped walls of a barn Renfrew smelled the sour tang of coal smoke. Someone inside was burning the outlawed low-quality grade, but there was no bluish plume for the constable to trace.

That was fairly typical. They'd spend good money on a device to suppress the visible emission, then quickly make up the cost in cheap fuel. Renfrew had heard otherwise respectable people bragging about doing precisely that, like children getting away with some delicious vice their parents had forbidden.

They were the sort who threw their bottles and tins into great ruddy heaps down the woods, too, rather than trouble to recycle. He sometimes thought that the only people who obeyed the regs were the dwindling middle cla.s.ses.At the Cav, Johnny wandered the shadowy corridors while Renfrew picked up some notes. Johnny prevailed on him to take a quick ride up to the Inst.i.tute for Astronomy, just across the Madingley Road.

The boy had played there often and now that it was closed seldom saw it. There were big potholes in he Madingley where the tanks had come in to quell the riot in '96. Renfrew tipped into one and got a stain of mud on his trouser leg. They pedaled by the long low office building of the Inst.i.tute, with its outsized yawning windows, a once popular American style from an oil-rich era. They pumped up to the main building, a nineteenth-century pile of tan sandstone with its antiquated astronomical dome atop floors housing the library, offices, and the star chart bays.

They glided by the little 36-incher dome on the way and then past the machine shop sheds, where the windows had been starred by the occasional pa.s.sing sod. Their tires spat gravel as they wheeled up the ! ! slong driveway. The bright white cas.e.m.e.nts of the windows framed a black interior. Renfrew was turning in the circular drive to go back down the slope to Madingley when the big front doors lurched open. A short man peered out. He was wearing a formal suit with waistcoat and regimental tie, well knotted. He was sixtyish and studied them over bifocals. "You're not the constable," the man said in reedy surprise.Renfrew, thinking this point obvious, stopped but said nothing. "Mr. Frost!" Johnny cried. "Remember me?"Frost frowned, then brightened. "Johnny, yes, haven't seen you for years. You came to our Observer's Night regular as the stars.""Until you stopped giving them," the boy accused.

."The Inst.i.tute closed," Frost said apologetically, bending over at the waist to bring his face to John-ny's level. "There was no money.""You're still here.""So I am. Our electricity is cut off, however, and you can't have the public in where they could fall in the dark."Renfrew broke in with, "I'm John Renfrew, by the way--Johnny's dad."''Yes. I thought you might be the constable. I sent word this morning," Frost said, pointing at a nearby window. The frame was smashed. "They simply kicked it in.""They get anything?""A great lot. I tried to have those replaced, back when we put in the wire mesh on the corridor inside.

I told them the library was an open invitation. But would they listen to me, the mere curator? No, silly, of course not.""Did they take the telescope?" Johnny asked."No, that's worthless, very nearly. They nicked the books.""Then I can still look through the telescope?"'q/hat books?" Renfrew could not imagine that academic references were of much value now.

! I Gregory Ben ford "The collector's items, of course," Frost said with the proper pride of a curator. "Took a second edition Kepler, a second Copernicus, the original of the seventeenth-century astrometrical atlas--the lot, really.

They were specialists, they were. Skipped the newer tomes. They also knew the fifth editions from the third, without taking them out of their protective sleeves. Not so easily done, when you're working in a dead hurry and with a pocket torch."

Renfrew was impressed, not the least because this was the first time he had ever heard anyone use the Word "tomes" in conversation. "Why were they in a hu,,ry?"

"Because they knew I would return. I had gone out at dusk for my evening const.i.tutional, to the war cemetery and back."

"You live here?"

''When the Inst.i.tute closed I had nowhere to go."

Frost drew himself up primly. "There are several of us. Old astronomers, mostly, turned out by their colleges.

They live down the other building--it's warmer in winter These bricks hold the chill. I tell you, there was a time when the colleges cared for their old Fellows. When Boyle founded the Inst.i.tute we had everything, Now it's into the dustbin with the lot, never mind the past, it's the current crisis that matters and--"

"I say, that's the constable coming there." Renfrew pointed, seizing on the distant figure on a bicycle to cut off the stream of academic lament. He had heard much the same lines so often over the last few years that they had ceased to have any effect aside from boredom. The arrival of the constable, puffing and drawn, led Frost to produce the one volume the thieves hadn't made off with, a late edition Kepler Renfrew studied the book for a moment while Frost went on to the constable, demanding a general alert to catch the thieves on the roads if possible. The pages were dry and brittle, crackling as Renfrew turned them. From long exposure to the new meth- ! ?.ods of making books he had forgotten how a line of type could raise an impression on the other side of the page, as if the press of history was behind each word. The heavily leaded letters were broad and the ink a deep black. The ample margins, the precise celestial drawings, the heft of the volume in his hands, all seemed to speak of a time when the making of books was a, signpost in an a.s.sumed march forward, a pressure on the future.

The crowd of fathers had a holiday air, chattering and laughing. A few kicked a soccer ball on the gray Cobblestones. This was a lark, an event to raise money for the hobbling city government of Cambridge.

An official had read about such a search in American cities, and last month London had staged one.Into the sewers they descended, bright eleciric torches spiking through the murk. Beneath the scientific laboratories and industrial sites of town the stonework pa.s.sages were large enough for a man to walk upright. Renfrew tugged the airmask tight against his face, smiling at Johnny through the irans-parent molded cup. Spring rains had swept dean; there was little stench. Their fellow hunters spilled past, buzzing with excitement.Mercury was not exceedingly rare, commanding a thousand New Pounds per kilogram. In the gaudy mid-century times, commercial grade mercury had been poured down sinks and drains. It was cheaper then to throw out dirtied mercury and buy a fresh supply. The heaviest metal, it sought the lowest spots in the sewer system and pooled there. Even a liter recovered would iustify the trouble.They soon worked their way into the more narrow pipes, slipping away from the crowd. Their torches cast sparkling reflections from the wrinkled skin of the water caught in pools. "Hey, this way, Dad,"

Johnny called. The acoustics of the hmnels gave each ! ! s word a hollow center. Renfrew turned and abruptly slipped. He spilled into the sc.u.m of a standing pond, cursing. Johnny bent down. The torch's cone caught a seam of tarnished quicksilver. Renfrew's boot had snagged at a crack where two pipes b.u.t.ted unevenly.

Mercury glowed as if alive beneath the filmed water.

It gave off a warm, smudged glitter, a thin trapped snake worth a hundred guineas."A find! A find!" Johnny chanted. They sucked the metal into pressure bottles. Finding the luminous metal lifted their spirits; Renfrew laughed with gusty good humor. They walked on, discovering unexplored caves and dark secrets in the warrens, fanning the curving walls with yellow beams. Johnny discovered a high niche, scooped out and furnished with a moldy mattress. "Home of some layabout, I expect,"

Renfrew murmured. They found candle stubs and frayed paperbacks. "Hey, this one's from 1968, Dad,"

Johnny said. It looked p.o.r.nographic to Renfrew; he tossed it face down on the mattress. "Should be getting back," he said.They found an iron ladder, using the map provided.

Johnny wriggled out, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight. They queued up to turn in their pint of the silvery stuff to the Hunt Facilitator. In line with current theory, Renfrew noted, social groupings were now facilitated, not led. Renfrew stood and watched Johnny talk and scuffle and go through the tentative approaching rituals with two other boys nearby in line. Already Johnny was getting beyond the age when parents deeply influenced him. From now on it was peer pressure and the universals: swacking the ball about in the approved manner; showing proper disdain for girls; establis.h.i.+ng one's buffer state role between the natural bullies and the naturally bullied; faking a certain coa.r.s.e but necessarily vague familiarity with s.e.x and the workings of those mysterious gummy organs, seldom seen but deeply sensed. Soon he would face the consuming problem of adolescence--how to have it off with i osome girl and thus pa.s.s through the flame into manhood, and y avoid the traps that societ laid in the way. Or perhaps this rather cynical view was outdated now. Maybe the wave of s.e.xual freedom that had washed over earlier generations had made things' easier. Somehow, though, Renfrew suspected otherwise. What was worse, he could think of nothing very straightforward he himself could hope to do about the matter. Perhaps relying on the intuition of the boy himself was the best path. So what 'guidance could he give Johnny? "See here, son, remember one thing-don't take any advice." He could see Johnny's eyes widen and the boy reply, "But that's silly, Daddy. If I take your advice, I'm doing the opposite of what you say." Renfrew smiled. Paradoxes sprouted everywhere.A small student band made a great noisy thing of the announced total, several kilograms in all. Boys cheered. A man nearby muttered, "Livin' off a yes'day," and Renfrew said drily, "Frapping right."

There was a feeling here of salvaging the lore and ore of the past, not making anything new. Like the country itself, he thought.Bicycling home, Johnny wanted to stop and see the Bluebell Country Club, an unbearably cute name for an eighteenth-century stone cottage near the Cam. In it a Miss Bell kept a cat hotel, for owners who were away. Once Marjorie had adopted a disagreeable cat which Renfrew had finally lodged there permanently, not having the heart to simply throw the b.u.g.g.e.r in the Cam. Miss Bell's rooms stank of cat p.i.s.s and perpetual tubercular-cla.s.s dampness. "No time," Renfrew shouted to Johnny's question and they pedaled on past the cat citadel. Afterward, Johnny was a bit slower than before, his face blank.

Renfrew was at once sorry he had been gruff. He was having such moments more often lately, he realized.

Perhaps in part his absence from home, working at the lab, made him acutely sensitive to lapsed closeness with Marjorie and the kids. Or perhaps there ! 2 o Gregory Ben fordwas a time in life when you realized dimly that you had become rather like your own parents, and that your reactions were not wholly original. The genes and environment had their own momentum.Renfrew caught sight of an odd yellow cloud squatting on the horizon and remembered the summer afternoons he and Johnny had spent watching the cloud sculptors work above London. "Look there!" he called, pointing. Johnny dutifully gave the yellow cloud a glance. "Angels getting ready to p.i.s.s," Renfrew explained, "as m'old man used to say." Bucked up by this bit of family history, they both smiled.They stopped at a bakery in King's Parade, Fitzbillies. Johnny became a starving English schoolboy bravely carrying on. Renfrew allowed as how he could have two, no more. The news-agent's a door down proclaimed on a chalkboard the dreadful news that The Times Literary Supplement had gone belly-up, an incoming datum which Renfrew found only slightly less interesting than the banana production of Borneo. The headlines gave no due as to whether financial strains had caused the foldup, or--what seemed more likely to Renfrew by a long measure.

whether it was the dearth of worthwhile books.

Johnny banged into the house, provoking an answering cry from his sister. Renfrew followed, feeling a bit clapped out from the cycling, and strangely depressed.

He sat in his living room for a moment trying for once to think of nothing whatever, and failing. Half the room seemed totally unfamiliar to him. Antique gla.s.s paperweight, suspiciously tarnished candlestick, frilly lampshade with flower on it, Gauguin reprint, whimsical striped china pig on the hearth, bra.s.s rubbing of a medieval lady, beige china cat ashtray with poetic quotation written in flowing script round the rim. Hardly a square centimeter hadn't been made sodding nice. About the time I 2 I.

these registered, the persistent small tinny voice of Marjorie's rt/arauding radio got through to him, on again about the Nicaragua thing. The Americans were again trying to get approval from the motley crew of neighboring governments for a sea-level ca.n.a.l.

To compete with the Panamanian one would seem dead easy, considering it was jammed up half the year. Renfrew remembered a BBC interview on just. this subject, in which the sod from Argentina or somewhere had gone on at the American amba.s.sador about why the Americans were called the Americans and those south of the USA not. The logic gradually unfurled to include the a.s.sumption that since the USAians had appropriated the American name, they would thus appropriate any new ca.n.a.l. The amba.s.sador, not wise to the ways of the telly, had replied with a rational explanation. He noted that no South American nation included the word "America" in its name, and thus had no strong claim to it. The triviality of this point in the face of an avalanche of psychic energy from the Argentinian had put the amba.s.sador far down in total points by the time the viewers phoned in their opinions of the discussion. Why, the amba.s.sador fellow had scarcely smiled or mugged at the camera, or smacked a fist onto the table before him. How could he expect to have any media impact whatever?

He went in to find Marjorie rearranging the preserve jars for what appeared to be a third time.

"Somehow, you know, it doesn't look square," she said to him with a distracted irritation. He sat at the kitchen table and poured himself some coffee, which, as expected, tasted rather like dog's fur. It always did lately. "I'm sure it's true," he murmured. But then he studied her bustling form as she hoisted the cylinders of pale amber, and indeed, the shelves did seem at a tilt. He had made them on a precise radial line extending dead to the center of the planet, geometrically impeccable and absolutely rational and quite beside the point. Their home was warped and swayed ! 2 Gregory Ben fordby the times it had pa.s.sed through. Science came to nought in these days. This kitchen was the true local reference frame, the Galilean invariant. Yes. Watching his wife turn and mix th jars, Prussian rigidities standing on slabs of pine, he saw that it was the shelves which stood aslant now; the walls were right.

CHAPTER ELEVEN'.

PETERSON AWOKE AND LOOKED OUT OF THE WINdOW.

The pilot had looped around to come in to SanDiego from the ocean side. From this height most of the coastline north to Los Angeles was visible. That city was cloaked in its permanent haze; otherwise the day was clear and bright. The sun sparked flashes of brilliance from the windows of high-rise office blocks. Peterson stared vacantly at the sea. Tiny puckered lines of waves crawled imperceptibly toward the sh.o.r.e. Here and there, as the plane swung lower, he could see curves of white froth against the blue, vastly different from the ocean he had flown over the day before.* He had taken a commercial flight. From the air, the diatom bloom on the Atlantic had been horribly visible. It now extended over a hundred-kilometer diameter. Bloom was a good word for it, he thought wryly. It had looked like some giant flower, a scarlet camellia blossoming far off the sh.o.r.es of Brazil. His fellow pa.s.sengers had been excited by the vision, ! 2 4 Gregory Ben fordstampeding from window to window to get a better view, asking agitated questions. Interesting, he observed, how red, the color of blood, spelled danger to the human mind. It had been eerie to look down and see that still, wounded ocean, the fringe of pink surf.His mind had distanced itself from the reality below, turning it into a surrealistic work of art. Add purple jaguars and yellow trees: a Jesse Allen. And orange fishes in the air above ...How did that Bottomley poem go? The second stanza---something about forcing the birds to wing too high--where your unnatural vapors creep; Surely the living rocks shall die when birds no rightful distance keep.

Nineteenth-century doggerel. How one clutched at the shreds of civilization.There had been rioting in Rio. Standard political stuff, pop Marxism and local gripes touched off by the bloom. A waiting helicopter had whisked him from the airport to a secret rendezvous on a large yacht, anch.o.r.ed offsh.o.r.e north of the city. The Brazilian President was there, with his Cabinet. McKerrow from Was.h.i.+ngton, and Jean-Claude Rollet, a colleague of Peterson's on the Council. They had conferred from 10 a.m. until late afternoon, having lunch brought in to them. Measures would be taken to contain the bloom, if possible. The crucial thing was to reverse the process; experiments were being conducted in the Indian Ocean and in control tanks in Southern California. Some emergency supplies were voted to Brazil, to compensate for the disruption in fis.h.i.+ng. The Brazilian President was to play down the significance of this, avoid wholesale panic. Fingers-in-the-dike, fragile b.u.t.tresses against the weight of the sickened sea around them, and so on. When they disbanded, Rollet had gone to report directly to the Council.Peterson had had to step lively to avoid getting loaded up with errand-running, interference-blocking, and other jobs. Lubricating a crisis like this one took a lot of skillful footwork. There were the in- I 2 $.

dividual nations to soothe, England's own interests to look out for (though that was not his prime offidal task), and of course the ever-present snout of the media pig. Peterson had argued successfully that someone needed to give an official beady eye to the California experiments. One had not only to do the right thing, one must above all be seen doing it. This .ot him the time he needed. His true purpose was a little experiment he'd thought of himself.

Straightaway after touchdown canned music came on and chaps began hauling out their carry-ons for the rush. Peterson found this the worst part of commercial travel and wished again he hadpressed Sir Martin for authority to have his own executive jet on this trip. They were expensive, wasteful, etc. etc., but a b.l.o.o.d.y sight better than going in a cattle-car with wings. The standard argument, that private transport let one rest and thus saved the valuable executive's energies, hadn't held up well in the era of dwindling budgets.He left the plane before anyone else, through the forward door, as per plan. There was a gratifyingly large security guard, decked out in leather boots and helmet. By now he was used to the openly worn automatic pistols.I-Lis limo contained a protocol officer who babbled on to no consequence, but Peterson turned him off early on and enjoyed the ride. The security car behind stayed quite close, he noted. There seemed no sign of the recent "tinpleasantness." A few burned-out blocks of buildings, to be sure, and a freeway un-derpa.s.s on Route 405 pocked by heavy-caliber fire, but no air of lingering tension. The streets were fairly clear and the freeway was virtually deserted. Since the Mexican fields had petered out far ahead of notoriously optimistic schedules, California had ceased to be an automobile-wors.h.i.+ping paradise. That, plus the political pressure from the Mexicans to make good ! 2 the highflown promises of economic uplift, had mixed in with the rest of the political brew here and led to the "unrest."

The usual ceremonies sopped up minimal time. The Scripps Inst.i.tute of Oceanography had a weathered but solid look to it, blue tiles and salty smell and all that. The staff were by now used to dignitaries trotting through. The TV johnnies got their footage--only it wasn't called that anymore, Peterson reminded himself, the mysterious term "dexers" having materialized in its place and were duly ushered away. Peterson smiled, shook hands, made bland small talk. The package Markham had asked for from Caltech appeared and Peterson tucked it into his carrying case. Markham had requested this material, said it related to the tachyon business, and Peterson had agreed to use his good offices to extract it from the Americans. The work wasn't publishable yet, a familiar ruse to avoid giving away. anything, but a bit of footwork had got round that one.The morning went by as planned. A general survey by an oceanographer, slides and viewgraphs before an audience of twenty. Then a reprise, more frank and far more pessimistic, with an audience of five. Then Alex Kiefer, head of the thing, in private."Don't you want to take your coat off? It's lretty warm today. Great day, in fact." Kiefer spoke fast, almost nervously, and blinked as he spoke. Free of the mob now, Kiefer seemed to have an excess of energy.

He walked quickly, bouncing forward on his toes, and looked around him constantly, jerkily saluting the few people they pa.s.sed. He ushered Peterson into his office."Come in, come in," he said, rubbing his hands.

"Take a seat. Let me take your jacket. No? Yes, beautiful view, isn't it? Beautiful."This latter was in response to a comment Peterson had not in fact made, although he had automatically I 2 ?.

crossed to the large corner windows, drawn by the s.h.i.+mmering expanse of the Pacific below. "Yes," he said now, making the expected remark. "It's a magnificent view. Doesn't it distract you?"

The wide sandy beach stretched toward La Jolla and then curved out, broken up by rocks and coves, to a promontory surrounded by paradise palms. Out on the ocean, lines of surfers in wet suits sat bobbing patiently on their boards like large black sea birds.

Kiefer laughed. "If I find I can't concentrate, I just put on a wet suit and go out and swim. Clears the mind. I try to swim every day. Matter of fact, hardly need a wet suit these days. Water's already pretty warm. Those youngsters out there think it's cold."

He indicated the surfers, most of whom were now on their knees, paddling before a good-sized wave. "In the old days it used to get real cold. Before they put those multi-gigawatt nuclear plants at San Onofre, y'know. Well, I'm sure you know. That kind of thing is your business, isn't it? Anyway, it's raised the water temperature slightly, just along this section of the coast. Interesting. So far it seems to have stimulated aquatic life. We're watching it carefully here, of course. In fact, it's one of our chief studies. If it gets higher, it could alter some cycles, but as far as we know, it's peaked. There's been no increase for several years now."

Kiefer's movements and speech became less jerky as he began to talk about his work. Peterson guessed him to be in his late forties. There were lines about his eyes and his wiry black hair was gray at the sides but he looked fit and lean. He had the look of an ascetic, but his office belied it. Peterson had already noted, with that mixture of envy and contempt he often felt in America, Kiefer's perks: deep pile of the fitted olive-green carpet, sleek expanse of rosewood desk top, moist hanging ferns and spider plants, j.a.panese prints on the walls, glossy magazines on the tile-topped coffee table, and of course the vast tinted windows with their Pacific view. He had a momen- ! 2 8 Gregory Ben fordtary vision of Renfrew's cluttered cubbyhole in Cambridge.

Apart from the view, however, Kiefer showed no pride in or even awareness of his surroundings.

They sat down, not at his desk, but in comfortable chairs by the coffee table. Peterson calculated that quite enough had been done along the lines of intimidate-the-visitor and decided a gesture of indifference was needed."Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, producing a cigar and gold lighter."Oh ... I ... well, sure." Kiefer appeared momentarily fl.u.s.tered. 'es, yes, of course." He got up and slid the large window partly open, then crossed to his desk and spoke into the intercom. "Carrie? Would you bring in an ashtray, please?""I'm sorry," Peterson said. "I seem to have violated a taboo. I thought smoking was allowed in private offices.""Oh, it is, it is," Kiefer a.s.sured him. "It's quite all right. It's just that I'm a nonsmoker myself and pretty much try to discourage others." He flashed Peterson a sudden crooked and disaiming grin.

"Hopefully, you'll see the light soon. I'd appreciate it if you'd stay rather downwind of me, so to speak."

Peterson judged the "rather" was the usual American attempt at speaking English-English, the effect in any case spoiled by the grammatical error in the sentence before it.The door opened and Kiefer's secretary came in with an ashtray which she set before Peterson.

Peterson thanked her, abstractedly tabulating her physical characteristics and giving her a good 8 out of 10. He realized with relish that only his status as a member of the Council had overridden Kiefer's ban on smoking in his office.Kiefer perched on the edge of the chair facing him.

"So.... tell me how you found the situation in South America." He rubbed his hands together eagerly.Peterson exhaled luxuriously. "It's bad. Not des-perate-yet but very serious. Brazil has become more i 2 odependent on fis.h.i.+ng lately thanks to their shortsighted slash':and-burn policy of a decade or two ago--and of course this bloom seriously affects fis.h.i.+ng."Kiefer leaned forward even more, as eager for details as any gossiping housewife, and at this point Peterson put himself on automatic. He revealed what he had to and extracted from Kiefer a few technical points worth remembering. He knew more biology than physics, so he did a better job than dith Renfrew and Markham. Kiefer went into their funding situation--bleak, 'of course; one never heard any other tune--and Peterson guided him back onto useful stuff."We believe the whole food chain may be threatened,"

Kiefer said. "The phytoplankton are succ.u.mbing to the chlorinated hydrocarbons--the kind used in fertilizer." Kiefer leafed through the reports."Manodrin, specifically.""Manodrin?""Manodrin is a chlorinated hydrocarbon used in insecticides. It has opened a new life niche among the microscopic algae. A new variety of diatom has evolved. It uses an enzyme which breaks down manodrin. The diatom silica also excrete a breakdown product which interrupts transmission of nerve impulses in animals. Dendritic connections fail.

But they must have gone into all this at the conference.""It was mostly at the political level, what steps tobe taken to meet the immediate crisis and so on."

"What is going to be done about it?""They're going to try to s.h.i.+ft resources from the Indian Ocean experiments to contain the bloom, but I don't know if it'll work. They haven't completed their tests yet."Kiefer drummed his fingers on the ceramic tiles.

He asked abruptly, "Did you see the bloom yourself?"

! o "I flew over it," Peterson answered. "It's ugly as sin. The color terrifies the fis.h.i.+ng villages.""I think I'll go down there myself," Kiefer muttered, more to himself than to Peterson. He got up and began to pace the room. "Still, y'know, I keepfeeling there's something else ...""Yes?""One of my lab types tiainks there's something special going on here, a way the process can kinda alter itself." Kiefer waved a hand in dismissal. "All hypothetical, though. I'll keep you informed if any of it pans out.""Pans out?"

'%Vorks, I mean."

"Oh. Do."

Peterson got away from Scripps later than he'd planned. He accepted an invitation to dinner at Kiefer's to keep things going on the good-fellow front, always a wise idea. It was harder for a sod to cross you when he's drunk some and told a joke and devoured a ca.s.serole in your company, however boring the conversation had been.Peterson's limo and tag-along security detail took him into La Jolla center for the appointment at San Diego First Federal Savings. It was a bulky squarish btiilding, set dead among a brace of tedious stores of the shoppe variety. He thought of getting something as a traveler-home-from-the-wars gift, something he'd done more often when younger, but dismissed the idea after three seconds of deliberation. The shops were of the semi-infinite markup species and despite the rickety dollar, the pound was worse. All that would be quite to the side if the shops had been interesting, but instead .they sported knickknacks and ornate lamps and gaudy ashtrays. He grimaced and went into the bank.The bank manager met them at the door, primed by the sight of the security force. Yes, he had been :.advised of Mr. Peterson's arrival, yes, they had searched the.bank records. Once inside the manager's office Peterson asked brusquely, "Well, then?""Ah, sir, it was a surprise to us, let me tell you,"

the thin man said seriously. "A safety deposit box with the fees arranged for decades ago. Not yourtypical situation.""Quite so.""I ... I was told you would not have the key?"

The man obviously hoped Peterson would. have it, though, and save him a lot of explaining to his superiors afterward."Right, I don't. But didn't you find the box was registered in my name?"'Yes, we did. I don't understand ...""Let us simply say this is a matter of, ah, national seCUrity. -"Still, without a key, the owner--""National security. Time is important here. I believe you take my meaning?" Peterson gave the man his best distant smile."Well, the undersecretary did explain part of it on the phone, and I have checked with my immediate superior, but--""Well, then, I'm happy to see things have worked out so quickly. I congratulate you on your speed. Al-ways good to see an efficient operation.""Well, we do--""I would like to have a quick look. at it now,"Peterson said with a certain undertone of firmness.

"Well, ah, this, this way ..."They went through a pointless ritual of signing in and stamping the precise time and pa.s.sing through the buzzing gate. The huge steel doors were opened to reveal a gleaming wall array of boxes. The manager nervously fished appropriate keys from his vest pocket. He found the right box and slid it out. There was a moment's hesitation before he surrendered it.

"Thanks, yes," Peterson murmured politely, and went directly to the small room nearby for privacy.

2 He'd had this idea on his own and rather liked it.

If what Markham said was right, it was possible to reach someone in the past and change the present.

But precisely how this action affected the present wasn't clear. Since the past viewed now might well be the one Renfrew had created, how could they tell it from some other past that never happened, but might have? This whole way of looking at it was a mistake, Markham said, since once you pa.s.sed a tachyon beam between two times they were forever linked, a closed loop. But to Peterson it seemed essential to know if you had in fact got through. In Markham's idealized experiments, with flipping light switches and toggles moving back and forth between pegs and all, the whole question was confused.

So Peterson had proposed a check, of sorts. True enough, you had to send back the preliminary ocean data and so on. But you could also ask the past to set aside some kind of road marker. One clear sign that the signals had been received--that would be enough to convince Peterson that these ideas weren't drivel.

So two days before leaving London he'd called Renfrew and given him a specific message to send.

Markham had a list of the experimental groups who could conceivably receive a tachyon message on their nuclear magnetic resonance devices. A message was addressed to each site. New York, La Jolla, Moscow.

Each was requested to establish a clearly labeled safety deposit box in Peterson's name with a note inside.

That should be enough.Peterson couldn't reach Moscow without explaining to Sir Martin why he wanted to go. New York was out of the question, temporarily, because of the terrorists. That left La Jolla.Peterson felt his pulse quicken as the catch on the safety deposit box came free with a click. When the lid of the box tilted back he saw only a sheet of yellow paper folded in thirds. He picked it Up and carefully flattened the creases. It crackled with age.

. TIMESCAPE.

MESSAGE RECEIVED LA JOLLA.