Death Wave (11 page)

Instead, he said, “I know that the World Council has worked very hard to alleviate the effects of the global climate warming.”

“It's our number one priority,” said Halleck.

“Yet if the world's governments had acted when the climate warming first became noticeable, nearly three hundred years ago, those effects could have been prevented.”

“There was no World Council then,” Castiglione pointed out. “No international government at all.”

“But the nations of the world were warned about the climate change. Scientists organized international meetings, put out detailed reports.”

“Which were not acted upon,” Halleck admitted. “Until it was too late. The main reason the World Council was established was to deal with the climate change and its effects.”

“And in the meantime coastal cities were flooded. Farmlands parched. The very geography of planet Earth was drastically changed. Millions died. Tens of millions were displaced.”

Her face grim, Halleck said, “That wasn't our fault. We have worked very hard to alleviate the effects of the global warming. It hasn't been easy—”

“If the world's political leaders had acted when the scientists first warned of the consequences,” Jordan insisted, “most of those effects could have been prevented.”

Castiglione got the point. “You're saying that we should act now about the problem of the death wave. We shouldn't wait, even though there's plenty of time.”

“Indeed,” said Jordan. “There's much to be done.”

Focusing on Aditi, Halleck asked, “You can communicate with your people on New Earth? Eight light-years away?”

“Eight point six,” Jordan muttered.

“Yes,” Aditi answered. “There is a time lag of about an hour, but I can arrange for your technical experts to speak with our communications technicians, our astronomers, whoever you wish.”

“And they'll answer our questions.”

Aditi nodded. “We will hold nothing back. We want to be fully cooperative.”

“I see,” Halleck murmured.

“How soon could we start communicating?” Castiglione asked.

“Right away. Today. Now.”

Halleck eased back in her plushly cushioned desk chair. “Very well,” she said, “we'll begin right now. Rudy, why you don't take Mrs. Kell to meet our communications engineers?”

Castiglione looked surprised. “Now?”

“Now,” Halleck answered. “My administrative assistant, in the outer office, will set up the meeting for you.”

With a questioning expression on his handsome face, Castiglione got to his feet, then offered his arm to Aditi. “Come, lovely lady. We will astound some of the world's top communications experts.”

Jordan pushed himself up from his chair, but Halleck said, “Please stay, Mr. Kell. We have to discuss this matter of building the starships you want.”

Jordan stood uncertainly for a moment, then reached out for Aditi's hand. “I'll see you later, dear.”

Aditi smiled at him. “Later,” she half-whispered.

Halleck said, “She'll be perfectly all right, Mr. Kell. Rudy will take good care of her.”

As Jordan sank back into his chair he thought, That's what I'm worried about.

 

BARCELONA

Once Aditi and Castiglione left her office, Halleck called for two Council members to join her and Jordan: Janos Rudaki, the former astrophysicist, and Deborah Adler, an Austrian-born economist.

The four of them sat around the oval conference table, ostensibly to discuss building starships.

Rudaki reminded Jordan of a badger: compact, strong, dark. His suit looked as though it hadn't been pressed in years; his thick mop of black hair seemed uncombed.

“I have a personal interest in this,” he said in his slightly rasping voice. “My daughter is still on New Earth. Perhaps, if she will not return here, I might go to see her.”

Halleck said firmly, “You have responsibilities here, on the Council, Professor.”

Rudaki waved a hand. “It's about time for me to retire, don't you think?”

“No. Decidedly not. I want you reelected next year, not some interloping newcomer.” And she looked directly at Jordan.

“It's nice to be wanted,” Rudaki muttered.

Jordan kept his silence.

Deborah Adler was considerably younger. Tall and full-figured, she was wearing a drab gray calf-length dress, without any jewelry nor makeup that Jordan could detect. Yet she still looked appealing, somehow. Is it the sadness in her eyes? Jordan wondered. She seemed almost like a little lost waif, on the verge of tears. But so would I be, I suppose, Jordan told himself, if I were descended from people who'd been driven from their homeland by the Nuclear Holocaust.

She was an economist, according to Halleck. A sad woman whose field of study was the so-called dismal science, Jordan thought, watching her.

“I can call up the cost figures for the vehicle we sent to Sirius,” she said, her voice low but steady. “I don't recall the exact amount, but it was close to four billion international dollars.”

“I should think we could do better,” Jordan said. “After all, we have access now to the energy screens that Aditi's people have developed.”

“But they are not propulsion systems,” Rudaki pointed out.

“The basic technology can be adapted for propulsion,” said Jordan. “We should consult Mitchell Thornberry about that. I believe he and his people are already looking into the propulsion question.”

“Thornberry?” Halleck asked. “He's the one who patented the energy screen technology. He's made himself quite wealthy from this alien technology.”

“The people of New Earth also gave Mitch a complete education about the basic physics behind the energy screens. We need Mitch to join this project.”

With a wintry smile, Halleck said, “We don't have a project yet, Mr. Kell. This is merely a preliminary discussion.”

“Yes, but once we get started, Mitch will be of inestimable value.”

Halleck nodded.

Adler said, “I'll call up the cost figures for the Sirius mission. We can use them as a baseline.”

“Times six,” Halleck pointed out.

“I'll call Thornberry,” Jordan volunteered. “Mitch will be happy to sink his teeth into the challenge of propelling starships.”

“All in good time, Mr. Kell. Remember, what we're doing today is quite preliminary.”

And Jordan remembered that, except for their one dinner in Chicago, he hadn't seen Mitch Thornberry at all since their return to Earth. Nor even conversed with him by phone or computer link.

Is Halleck deliberately keeping us apart? he wondered.

The meeting ended, and Halleck gave them all her thanks as she returned to her desk. Jordan thought about asking Rudaki and Adler to join him and Aditi for dinner, but then he realized that he didn't know where Aditi was, nor where he and she were going to spend the night.

Back to the air base? No, he decided. I won't go. I'll demand that Halleck give us back the hotel suite they whisked us away from.

As Adler and Rudaki headed for the door, Jordan turned to Halleck, seated now at her desk, and asked, “Where is Aditi? And where will we be spending the night?”

With an impatient flutter of her hand, Halleck replied, “See my assistant, in the outer office. She'll take care of you.”

*   *   *

Jordan had to admit that Halleck's assistant did indeed take care of him. She was a youngish Kenyan, elegantly slim, her tightly kinked hair arranged in cornrows, her voice betraying just a hint of an Oxford accent.

With a few quick phone calls the young woman reserved a suite in the same hotel across the square from the Gothic cathedral, got a Spanish Air Force jet to fly his and Aditi's belongings to the hotel, and arranged for a pair of security people to drive Jordan to the hotel.

Before he left the World Council offices, though, Jordan asked the woman, “And my wife? Where is she?”

Her deeply brown eyes widened slightly. “Why, she's with Signore Castiglione, sir.”

“And where might that be? I need to tell her that we'll be staying at the hotel again.”

“I'll see to that, Mr. Kell. I'll tell her to call you there.”

Feeling more than a little nettled, Jordan said, “I'd prefer to do that myself. Please tell me where she is.”

“With Signore Castiglione.”

“Here in this building, I presume.”

“No sir. They're at the communications center, downtown. It's not far from your hotel, actually.”

Before Jordan could react to that, she went on, “It's a highly secure facility, sir. You have to have a special clearance to gain access to it, even on the telephone.”

“Then how—”

“I'll see to it, Mr. Kell. You go with your escort to the hotel, and I'll have Mrs. Kell meet you there.”

I'm being stonewalled, Jordan realized. By this young slip of a Kenyan.

Two security men entered the office. Both young, trim, with short blond hair and wearing identical navy blue blazers over pearl gray slacks. They stood like patient robots by the door.

Trying to keep from frowning, Jordan said to Halleck's assistant, “Well, thank you, then. I'll expect my wife to meet me at the hotel.”

Yet when Jordan got to the luxurious suite, Aditi was not there. Nor had there been a phone message from her.

 

COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

“This is an incredible complex,” Castiglione was explaining as he led Aditi along an elevated catwalk.

Below them, Aditi could see row upon row of workstations, each console monitored by a man or woman staring intently at the screens flashing images or data. The walls beyond the consoles were larger screens, many of them reaching from the floor to the ceiling, two stories above. The entire vast area seemed to thrum with electric energy.

She walked carefully, to avoid trapping the heels of her shoes in the open metal gridwork of the catwalk.

“From up on the street this structure looks like a nondescript office building,” Castiglione was saying, “but down here, in this hardened underground complex, this is the nerve center of the World Council.”

Aditi nodded. “They are in touch with all the Council operations around the world?”

Gesturing to a group of consoles set next to the giant wall screens, Castiglione said, “Not merely around the world: they're talking to Selene and the other lunar communities,” his pointing finger moved, “the Mars exploration base, the rock rats' center on Ceres, the solar energy base at Mercury, and there,” his extended arm shifted again, “the habitats in orbit around Saturn.”

“Not Jupiter?” Aditi asked.

Castiglione frowned. “Yes, there must be at least one console talking with the scoopship operators in Jupiter orbit. Ah! There it is. See, on that screen by the corner.”

Aditi saw a blur of colors, bands of muted pink and yellow.

As they neared the end of the walkway, Castiglione said, “It takes more than two hours to communicate back and forth with Saturn.”

“Your systems are limited to the speed of light,” said Aditi.

“Yes. But that will soon change, eh?”

“If that's what you want.”

His smile was dazzling. “That's what we want, dear lady. Instant communications.”

“It isn't instant,” Aditi replied. Before Castiglione could react she went on, “But at the distance between here and Saturn it will seem almost instantaneous.”

They had reached the metal door at the end of the walkway. As Castiglione tapped out the security code on the wall-mounted keypad he explained, “This complex was started back when nuclear war was an all-too-real threat. Israel and half the Middle East were destroyed. But down here we're safe from almost anything.”

“I suppose that's good,” said Aditi, wondering what his
almost
included.

“Indeed it is.” The door popped slightly ajar and Aditi felt a breath of cooler air coming from it. Pushing the metal door all the way open, Castiglione ushered Aditi through with a grandiose sweep of his arm.

As the door closed once again behind them, the buzzing hum of the communications center cut off. Aditi saw they were in a quiet, hushed corridor, thickly carpeted, with closed doors on either side. No pictures or decorations of any kind on its blank, off-white walls.

“This is also part of your communications complex?” she asked.

“An extension of it,” said Castiglione. “This is where the scientists do their research. We are constantly working to improve our communications capabilities.”

“What kind of improvements are they working on?”

As they walked along the corridor, Castiglione answered, “Oh … security measures, mostly. Countering attempts to access classified channels. Working to extend our monitoring network.”

“Monitoring?”

With a vague wave of his hand Castiglione replied, “We have to keep watch on the people, of course. For their own safety. And to catch criminals and such before they can do harm.”

“I see,” said Aditi. Yet she thought, Before they can do harm. They're monitoring their own people. And she remembered the cameras and microphones hidden in the quarters she and Jordan had been given at the air base.

“Here we are,” said Castiglione. Leaning forward slightly, he spoke his name into the minuscule speaker grille on one of the doors along the corridor. The door was marked
PHYSIOLOGY LABORATORY
.

“What is this place?” Aditi asked as the door slid open noiselessly.

“Dr. Frankenheimer will explain everything to you,” Castiglione replied as he gestured Aditi through the door.

They stepped into a small anteroom, empty except for cushioned benches set against two of its walls. The walls themselves were bare, eggshell white. How drab, Aditi thought. She remembered the swirling colors that decorated the walls of public buildings back on New Earth.