ELEVEN
WINGING OVER THE broad Pacific, Dan thought how convenient it would be if he had a seaplane at his disposal. A flying boat that could travel at supersonic speed and land anywhere on the ocean, or a river or a lake. But supersonic speed was just not enough for a man with global interests. The Yamagata plane he was in could do Mach 3, and it was taking hours to reach Tetiaroa. A commercial hypersonic spaceplane, the kind that arched high above the atmosphere and came back down like a re-entering rocket, could cross the Pacific in less than an hour.
I’ll have to phone Jane and tell her I’m at the island, he thought. She won’t come over until she’s certain I’m there. She never wants to be the first one there, wherever it is. She’d rather be six hours late than two minutes early.
He felt a worrisome uneasiness about calling Jane to confirm that he was on Tetiaroa. Too many other people could find out. Somebody like Malik, or one of those other paper-pushing bureaucrats at the GEC. Dan did not like to let his enemies know his whereabouts too precisely. Not unless he was safely ensconced in one of his own strongholds, surrounded by friends.
Friends. He thought about Nobuhiko again. Maybe I ought to at least try to work out something with him. He’s right, Sai and I would’ve put together some kind of a deal. I shouldn’t have shut him off so abruptly. No wonder he’s sore. I’ll have to get back to him, try to work out some kind of plan.
The plane droned on. Dan was the only passenger in the six-seat compartment. The flight attendant, an attractive, slim young Japanese woman, was sitting in the front row, raptly watching a No drama on video. Dan gazed out the window at the glittering Pacific, nothing but sea and sky as far as the eye could see in any direction. And towering cumulus clouds reaching up beyond their cruising altitude.
“Mr. Randolph-san,” the pilot’s voice came humming over the intercom, “we are being routed around a major storm system by traffic control. It will cause an unavoidable delay in our scheduled arrival, sir.”
The flight attendant glanced back over her shoulder at him, as if to ask what he intended to do about the news. Dan shrugged at her. She turned her attention back to her video screen.
Dan tried to work. He called his office in Caracas and then his headquarters at Alphonsus. He plugged his pocket computer into the video screen on the back of the seat in front of him and went through the day’s inputs of data. Bored by it, he switched to the global news channel and saw that the big story was the unseasonal typhoon that had torn across Samoa and was now bearing down on the Gilbert Islands .
The screen showed a devastated city on one of the Samoan islands, Dan had not caught which one: buildings blown down, trees scattered across streets and roads like tenpins, cars crushed, people homeless, fierce gray surf still pounding the beaches, UN Peacekeeping troops flying in with their sky blue helicopters to build shelters and bring food and medicine.
Then the scene shifted to the peaceful atoll of Tarawa . “Scarcely five meters above sea level at its highest point,” the voice-over said in a crack-of-doom tone, “this scene of one of World War Two’s bloodiest battles may soon face an even more disastrous fate:
Mother Nature on a rampage.”
Dan stared at the flat sandy islands of the atoll. Cripes, it’s just like Tetiaroa. If that kind of a storm hit Tetiaroa there’d be nothing left afterward.
He waited until the newscast turned to its resident meteorologist and his maps. With considerable relief, Dan saw that the phoon—named Alphonsus was moving west by north, away from Tetiaroa.
“It is very early in the season for a killer typhoon of such mammoth size and strength,” the meteorologist was intoning, while the screen showed a satellite view of the storm. It was mammoth: its huge swirling bands of clouds covered thousands of square kilometers. “And this is only the first storm in what promises to be a very long and very dangerous hurricane season.”
No mention of the greenhouse. Dan switched off the video as the newscast switched to the sports report. Looking out the plane’s window, he could see a gray smudge far off on the horizon. Alphonse. Silly name for a killer.
Greenhouse warming of the atmosphere does more than melt glaciers, Dan knew. The warmer the atmosphere, the more energy it stores. The more energy, the bigger and more frequent storms such as hurricanes and typhoons.
It’s a good thing I’m going to see Jane, he realized. I’ve got to convince her about Zach’s greenhouse cliff data.
At one time the “airport” at Tetiaroa had been a strip of sand on the atoll’s largest island alongside the hotel. A small plane could taxi right up to the open-air registration desk; passengers stepping out of the plane would be greeted by the room clerk and a grinning, bare-chested bellman.
Supersonic jets required longer and stronger runways, however. The French government had started to build a jet landing strip on the next islet in the coral chain, but the people of Tahiti had won their independence before the project could be completed, and for years the jet airport languished half-built. Finally a Japanese Australian consortium bought the hotel, finished the airstrip, and even connected the two isles with a paved road and a concrete bridge arched high enough to allow dugout canoes to pass under it.
The consortium went broke eventually, and the government of Tahiti took over the entire tourist facility until a new commercial buyer could be found.
Now, as Dan stepped out of the Yamagata jet onto the hard surface of the jet runway, a smiling pair of young Polynesian women dressed in flowered red pareos greeted him with kisses on both cheeks and leis of colorful fragrant blossoms.
Slipping his arms around each slender waist as a husky young man took his battered travel bag, Dan started toward the waiting electric cart, wondering, Why would anyone want to live anywhere ruined else in the world? These people are wonderful. Too bad Christianity their morals. The hotel’s registration desk consisted of a bamboo counter beneath a thatched roof supported by four stout pillars, open to the salty sea breeze. By the time the cart had crossed the guano-spattered concrete bridge and pulled up at it, Dan was thinking, As long as Jane’s not here, I might as well invite these lovely creatures to have dinner with me this evening. And then some.
He was shocked when he saw Jane standing in the shade of the roof off to one side of the registration desk. Tall and regal, her long auburn hair flowing past her bare shoulders, she too was wearing a wraparound pareo, forest green with a white floral pattern. Tied at the neck, it came to a modest mid thigh on her.
Dan grinned at her and disengaged from the two Polynesian women, who giggled and jumped off the cart. He got off more slowly, and walked toward Jane with his smile fixed on his face. Stepping out of the tropical sun into the shade of the roof plummeted the temperature twenty degrees. Or is it just Jane refrigerating the atmosphere? he asked himself.
“I didn’t expect you’d be here waiting for me,” he said. “Obviously,” said Jane.
“Very friendly natives.” He took one of the leis from around his neck and draped it over Jane’s head, then bussed her on both cheeks. It was like kissing a statue.
Stepping back from her slightly, Dan said, “I’d better sign in with the room clerk.” “That’s all been done in advance.”
“Oh? Thanks.” Dan realized that the kid with his travel bag had disappeared. He grinned again. “Are we sharing a room?”
“Not even in your dreams,” Jane snapped. “You’d be surprised what I dream about.” “Probably not.”
“So which hut is mine? Are we next door to each other, at least?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re the only two guests in the hotel, at present.” “The only...?” Dan blinked. “I had heard that business out here wasn’t all that good, but there’s nobody else here?” “No one but the staff,” said Jane. “That’s damned romantic?
Jane made a sound that he swore was a snort. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she said. Turning abruptly away, she headed off toward the rows of thatched huts that served as guest rooms.
Dan shrugged and turned to the room clerk, a chunky middle-aged woman who was eying him doubtfully. The two young women who had greeted him at the airstrip were standing uncertainly at the far end of the registration desk.
Dan took a deep breath of clean, sweet island air, heavy with the scents of tropical flowers. The Yamagata jet roared overhead, rattling his bones with its noise, then dwindled into the bright cloud-flecked sky.
The sound of the plane ebbed into silence. The sea breeze blew, the palm trees swayed. After a few minutes of just standing there admiring the peace and beauty, Dan crooked a finger at the two young women.
They came over toward him, smiling.
“I wonder if you lovely ladies would be good enough to show me to my room,” he said to them, thinking, When in Rome , do as the Romans do.
All through dinner Dan tried to figure out what was bothering Jane.
She tells me to meet her here in this isolated little paradise, I come flying out to her without asking any questions, and she’s pissed as hell about something. The two little wahines? Can’t be that; we’re both too old to get sore at each other’s sex lives. Hell, it isn’t as if we’re committed to each other. Why should she be sore that I’m friendly with the local entertainment committee?
No, he decided, watching her pick at her dinner, something else is bothering Jane. Something inside her. Something that really hurts. The dining area was out in the open air, as was almost all of the hotel. The patio was not even roofed over; they could see the stars glittering gloriously in the dark tropical night. The food was good, better than good; Dan knew that a Cordon Bleu chef had been flown in from Rome for the hotel.
He had not known that they would be the only two guests on the island. That had surprised him. As they sat in private splendor, watching the stars and the luminous white sand beach, listening to the surf booming out along the reef, sipping a chilled ros Tavel, Dan thought how idyllic this evening would be if only he and
Jane could forget the past and begin anew.
“You picked a marvelous spot,” he said, putting the wineglass down on the tablecloth.
Jane’s wine had hardly been touched. She pushed her plate of delicately grilled apakapaka away and glanced at the empty patio, lit by Japanese lanterns and tiny candles on each of the unoccupied tables.
“Yes, I suppose it is pretty.”
She was wearing a soft coral pink dress with a scalloped neckline, a choker of pearls and diamonds at her throat, her hair done in an almost girlish ponytail.
“Pretty? It’s gorgeous! And you look very beautiful, Jane.”
The corners of her lips twitched. “I’m older than those two wahines you took to your room this
afternoon, both of them added together.”
“Them?” Dan laughed. “They just helped me to adjust to the jet lag.” She gave him a sour look.
“What’s bothering you, Jane? Something’s tearing up your insides; I can see it from here, and I’m not a very sensitive person.”
Jane looked away from him, out toward the empty beach. He waited for her to speak. She did not.
With a patient sigh, Dan said, “Okay—I didn’t want to add to your troubles, but I guess I’m going to anyway. While you’re figuring out when you’re going to tell me what’s eating at you, think about this: the greenhouse effect is going to hit this planet like a ton of bricks in just about ten years.”
Jane looked straight at him. This subject was impersonal, she could handle it. “What do you mean by that.’?”
“According to my science people, the global climate is approaching a kind of cliff. An abrupt change. What they call a discontinuity.”
“In the next ten years?”
Nodding, “Ten is an approximation. Maybe it’ll be more, but not much. Maybe less. If we don’t start preparing for it now we’re going to be flooded out.”
“The greenhouse effect has been building up for a century or more,” Jane said.
“Yeah, slowly. But Zach Freiberg and the other deep thinkers tell me there’s going to be a sudden change. Glaciers will melt away entirely.Greenland and Antarctica will melt down. Sea levels will go way up: twenty, thirty feet, maybe.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“This atoll will be underwater. So will New York be, and Houston ,Caracas , Venice half the cities in the world. Millions will be wiped out, Jane. Hundreds of millions of people are going to be killed. Hundreds of millions more will be homeless and starving.” “That’s a scare scenario. I’ve heard nothing like that from the GEC’s scientists.”
Dan tilted his chair back. “Maybe it’s all wrong. I sure don’t know. But Zach’s no Chicken Little. He’s tried to get your people to look at his data and all they did was laugh in his face.”
Jane frowned at him, but it wasn’t her frown of personal disapproval.
This was her “I don’t understand what you’re telling me” frown. Dan took it as a good sign.
“I was glad when you asked me to come here and see you,” he said, “because I needed to tell you about this face-to-face. I’ve got Zach’s data in my computer, if you want to go over it.”
“Tomorrow,” she said.
“Good. Then we can go to Paris and tell the rest of the Council about it.”
But Jane shook her head. “No, Dan. You’re not going to Paris or anywhere else. You’re staying here.” A tendril of unease tingled up his spine. “What do you mean?”
“Your holdings are being confiscated, Dan. The GEC has started--”
“Confiscated?” He lurched across the table at her, grabbing for her wrist. “What do you mean, confiscated?”
Jane avoided his hands. “Just what I said, Dan. You’ve violated GEC regulations and the confiscation procedures are under way right now.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“While the procedures are being carried out, you’re going to stay here on Tetiaroa.” “What the hell is this? You mean I’m under arrest?”
She almost smiled. “You’re being detained.” “I want my lawyer!”
Jane actually did smile. “You mean the same one that represented you in the Mitchell Mining acquisition?”
Dan felt his jaw drop open. The anger evaporated. “You mean Scarlett screwed me?” “If that’s her name. Yes.”
He leaned back in his chair and lifted his face to the starry sky and roared with sudden laughter. “The redheaded bitch screwed me without laying me!”
Dan laughed so hard tears streamed down his cheeks. Jane sat across the little table and watched him, startled at his laughter. She had expected anything but that.