Creations (23 page)

Max carried on easing the fossil away from the rock. Then he heard a voice behind him.

“What is that?”

One of the children, about eight or nine by the look of him, had broken away from the group and come over to see what Max
and Gillian were doing. They both looked round at him at once.

“Hello there, who are you?” Gillian said.

“What is that?” the boy repeated, ignoring Gillian and looking instead at the fossil.

“It’s a seashell,” Max said.

“Why is it in the rock?”

“It was there when the rock was made,” Max said, hoping he wouldn’t be asked for answers too difficult to explain to a child.

“Who made the rock?”

“Nobody made it, it made itself. This used to be the bottom of the sea. This rock was just mud, then it got squashed, hard.”

The boy frowned in puzzlement, thinking for a long time. “When?”

“Millions of years ago,” Max said. “That’s when this animal was alive. It died, then it fell into the mud.”

Just then the teacher appeared, looming over the boy. She asked him something in Spanish, too quickly for Max or Gillian to understand. He answered nervously, obviously explaining why he’d wandered away from the others. A few more words were exchanged between them, again little of it making sense, except for the phrase, “millones de años”, from the boy.

“Well you shouldn’t listen to him,” the teacher said sternly, suddenly switching to English. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Come away and don’t go near him again.” She led him away, looking at Max and Gillian suspiciously as she did so.

“She obviously meant us to hear that last part,” Gillian said once the woman had gone.

“It’s a shame, that kid was bright,” Max said. “His English was almost perfect.”

“Yeah, I wonder what her problem was.”

Max knew. He’d often wondered how the brightest members of the population would have coped back in the Dark Ages, those who in the modern world would have been natural-born scientists or mathematicians. Those people must have existed all
through history, even if the level of civilisation around them wasn’t advanced enough to make the most of their talents. Back then the most intellectual job a person could get was copying bibles out by hand. He’d always marvelled at the waste that represented. To see it in the modern world was even worse.

“So what would you have said to him, if he’d asked you?” Max said.

She obviously guessed why he was asking. “I’d have said it was a four hundred million year old seashell that got trapped in the mud,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that it, or anything else round here wasn’t made by God. Satisfied?” She gave a wry smile.

“Not really, but at least you’re not trying to tell me it got washed up in Noah’s flood.”

She smiled and shook her head as if she didn’t want to get into a discussion. “Come on, let’s go,” she said.

* * *

They were back in their hotel room when Max’s omni signalled a call from an unknown number. It looked like a north eastern US griddex, close enough to Washington for Max to immediately assume it was Victor. He didn’t answer it straight away, but let it ring off instead while he decided what to do.

“God, what does he want?” Gillian said when he told her. “Are you going to call him back?”

For a moment, he seriously wondered. He’d left the island at the first opportunity, three days after he’d said he was going, three days of Victor trying to persuade him to back down and stay put. As far as Max was concerned it wasn’t even an option and with the treatments complete he knew Gillian wouldn’t be desperate to hang around either. He’d called Indira even as he was packing, telling her he’d almost been killed, company negligence on a near-fatal scale. Victor had given in at that point,
knowing UCLA would make moves to end the contract if he didn’t do it first. In a way Max had expected Victor to call with another angle ever since. It was almost tempting to see what he’d try.

“No, I’m not going to call him back. He’d only try to hook me in again. Let him sweat.”

The calls, however, continued, every hour, on the hour. When Max blocked one number, they would come from another, one time from France, another from Morocco, one even from Chile itself. That was a sure sign of ESOS involvement, he thought: routing calls from one place to another to make interception harder, an attitude to counter espionage which in the current industrial climate only just verged on paranoid.

The attempts stopped, mercifully, at ten that evening. It was when they started again at nine the next morning that Max decided he’d had enough. Gillian was still in bed when the renewed calls began so he left her to sleep and took the omni out onto the balcony. And that was when he realised just how wrong his assumptions had been.

When no picture appeared he initially thought the call had failed to connect. Then the voice began. She was Oriental by the sound of her slightly accented English, her voice a mixture of softness and sternness that gave few clues as to what she might look like, or even how old she was.

“Dr. Lowrie,” she began. “We have not spoken before, but recent events have made it advisable that I contact you. I represent a group of interests who are willing to place a high value on the information you possess concerning the activities of the ESOS organisation. As a consequence I would like you to consider an arrangement, one which will be lucrative for both of us.”

“Who are you?”

“Think of me as an intermediary, Dr. Lowrie, someone who can make sure you are more than adequately rewarded for
passing on what you know.”

Slowly, Max was getting his head round the situation. “You want me to sell out on them, is that it? Are you some kind of spy? Who are you working for?”

“‘Spy’ is such a dirty word, Dr. Lowrie. I prefer the term, ‘Information Broker’. The end result is the same though: you tell me what my clients want, and I make sure you’re paid.”

Max couldn’t believe she was being so blatant about it. “And who are these clients? Other companies? China?”

“I think it is best if those details are treated with a certain level of discretion. I’m sure you will understand.”

“Then why do you expect me to help you? Do you really think I’ll sell out just because you make me an offer?”

“No, not just because of that. You see, there are things I can tell you, as well as things you can tell me. Things which you would derive great benefit from knowing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me just say that in case you feel any loyalty toward the ESOS organisation, that loyalty should be viewed in the light of the methods they used to recruit you.”

Max didn’t get time to ask her any more. Suddenly the projection was no longer blank; a message had appeared, a copy of an internal ESOS communication, sent from Victor Rioux’s office to a department listed as “Human Affairs”, and dated over a year and a half previously.

You will be aware of the priority that Control is placing on the SRS project. The Pacific pilot scheme must be seen to succeed before the Site Five investment can be made to pay off. Given our slow progress in developing a working technology demonstrator, the latest recruitment effort is seen as being key to that success. Having studied the skill set available within the external research community, a shortlist of high priority names has been drawn up. Details below
.

Dr. Safi Biehn:

Given her prior experience, Dr. Biehn is an obvious candidate. You
will recall we originally considered bringing her on board from the start. However the recommendation that she stay unaware of the full extent of the programme still stands. The lessons we learned from her previous effort are proving too useful; her ties to the surviving members of that team make it likely that the rewards of this endeavour would have to be shared. Needless to say, this division of loyalty would not be in the company’s best interests
.

Prof. Oliver Rudd:

Has demonstrated skills in multi-disciplinary systems design which extend far beyond the marine-tech specialisation of our own research group. Skills are not as unique as those of our other candidates, but Prof. Rudd is known to be seeking employment with some degree of urgency. Personal financial considerations make acceptance of offer a strong likelihood
.

Dr. Max Lowrie:

Another prime candidate, given his proven track record in applying his techniques to previous innovative programmes. Effectiveness and versatility of those methods make him potentially the most important candidate, with the ability to augment the skills of all other research participants. However given his existing commitments, refusal to comply is judged to be a likely initial response. Recommend active measures to secure agreement. Sure you’ll have plenty of ideas at your disposal
.

Victor
.

More text then appeared, word for word copies of the letters Max had received, interspersed with messages between ESOS senior management as they discussed the best ways to intimidate him and Gillian, up to and including those final threats that had so effectively seen him abandon the South American trip.

Max sat back, stunned. The woman’s voice continued in the background, but he didn’t hear a word. All along, it had been ESOS. It had been Victor. Not just the hook with the island clinic’s fertility rules, but the letters too. An innocent man had been convicted for sending those threats, and all along it was an ESOS
ruse to scare him into taking the job.

“What are they doing?” the woman was saying. “What is this Pacific project, and this ‘Site Five’ project? Now you know what they did to you, all you have to do is give me the details and you will make ten times what they would ever have paid you.”

Max still couldn’t speak, his mind was in turmoil. Was this genuine? It certainly seemed to be. Everything the message had said about Safi, Oliver and himself, fit what he knew. It also fit the nature of the project, but this woman clearly didn’t know what the project even was or else she wouldn’t be asking. No one could fake those partial details unless they had the full facts as well. This was real. ESOS had played him like a fool, and by the sound of it, Safi too.

“The answer’s no,” he said eventually. “I’m not going to spy for you. I’ve had enough of being someone else’s puppet. Don’t call me again.”

He broke the link, waited a minute or so to see if she would try calling back, then went back inside to wake Gillian. His hands were shaking even as he nudged her awake.

“I’ve just had a call,” he said, once she’d rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “There are some things I’m going to have to do. But I’m going to tell you everything first. And it starts with those letters.”

* * *

“Safi, are you alone right now?”

“Yeah, I’m at home. Why, what’s the matter, Max?”

“I need to talk to you privately. Can you set encryption on your omni?”

“Sure, what’s this about?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re secure.”

She looked confused, but did as he said. The picture blanked as they both set the appropriate call parameters, then Safi
reappeared, sitting on the sofa in her villa back on the island.

“Max, what’s going on? You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“I’ve slept, but I’m not sure when I next will. I had a call this morning, and, well, I’m glad you’re sitting down.”

“Okay, why?”

“They screwed us, Safi. They screwed us both. You know those threats I was telling you about, when Gillian left the island? It was Victor all along. It was the company.”

“What? No, Max, that can’t be right.”

“It’s how he got me to take part in the programme. He wanted to scare me out of any other job I might have taken over this one. And it worked. And they’ve been keeping you in the dark too: something from your previous work, something they’re using now on another project.”

“Max, are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely. Look at this.”

He forwarded the messages the woman had shown him, then waited the minute it took for Safi to read them. He hadn’t known what reaction to expect, but he knew that there would be one.

“Son of a bitch. Son-Of-A-Bitch. Is this real? Where did you get this from?”

“Someone was trying to get me to sell out on the project. I don’t know who she was, someone from the Far East by the sound of her. She showed me this to try to persuade me. I’m pretty sure it’s genuine.”

“You told her no I hope.”

“Yeah, I said no. God only knows who she’s working for but anything I gave her would probably end up in China at some point. But I’m not going to leave this. It sounds like there’s this other project running, either in parallel with what we did or following on from it, and whatever it is, that’s the
real
programme. We were just hooked in to give them a head start. Now they’re busy somewhere else working off the back of what
we gave them, and they’re planning to keep the profits. Jesus, I’ve just realised — everything we took from Doug, the whole printer set-up — that’s the only reason we got the thing working at all. If ESOS are using that technology, they’re exploiting him as well.”

“Son of a bitch,” she said again. “Clever. Real clever. Don’t spy on people who might achieve more than you, employ them instead but make them think their little set-up is the whole picture. So who was in on this? Was Ross part of it too?”

Max considered the possibility. He’d always thought himself a pretty good judge of character, and somehow, genial, grinning Ross, himself a relative newcomer when they’d joined ESOS, just didn’t seem capable of it. Max had long ago learnt to trust his gut feelings.

“No, I think Ross would be as surprised by this as we are.”

“How sure are you?”

“I can’t prove it, but pretty sure. Why?”

It was Safi’s turn to stop and think. “I want to know how big this really is. Ross is probably in a better position than anyone to get to the bottom of it. Tess too, now she’s working for the company. They could be the biggest assets we have in opening this whole thing up, so we need to know we can trust them. Because if this turns out to be real, well —”