The Ambassador (9 page)

‘Well, sir. It makes me twitch. These Europeans are so well fed, well housed, well paid and kept so well entertained that they’ve become indifferent. They simply give the benefit of the doubt to the authorities. They never complain – have nothing much to complain about. They question nothing.’

‘Bread and circuses? Keep the populace quiet?’

‘Sir. But if something was dodgy, who’d notice?’ Matt swept an arm at the milling hordes, so orderly, so pleasantly disciplined. Most faces had a bland, almost vacant tinge, as if tired, though many were still discussing the esoteric points of play. ‘And, if they noticed, would they care – or do anything about it? Complacency, inertia. This is modern Europe.’

‘In which, if Fred is right, we are all expected to behave. No, dammit, to
conform
. But to what?’

Outside the glazed window of the Maglev, the countryside flew past. Strether marvelled at the swift, noiseless motion; in the old days train travel had meant vibration, clatter, the smell of diesel and indecipherable announcements over a bad Tannoy. The French TGV had been the forerunner, electric-powered at 500 k.p.h. on arrow-straight tracks across Europe. But in heavily populated regions like southern England the Maglev soared silently on an elevated rail, elegant and triumphant.

As an ambassador he had permission to travel by car, but frequent use was bad manners in the Union. Petrol had been far more costly here than in the USA, but it was not a question of expense. Crowded Europe simply took its Rio responsibilities, as the international environmental policy had become known, far more seriously than Americans ever had. He could have used the chauffeured embassy electric motor; but ‘when in Rome’, Matt had said, tactfully, when he had suggested taking it to the mall. And, to be fair, with public transport as splendid as the Maglev to Porton Down, he was happy to comply.

Marius had been as good as his word. Indeed, the Prince had volunteered to accompany Strether round the laboratories and would meet him there. Strether had proposed travelling together, but the quick demurral had told him that the Prince would probably arrive well ahead and brief those who would be showing him around. Brief them – or warn them, perhaps. His predecessor had shown no such curiosity, Strether knew. Again, it was a question of manners; however bold the population policies of the Union might be, the practical elements were kept under wraps – solely to guarantee absolute cleanliness and avoid contamination, naturally. He’d be the first overseas visitor for some time. An exception was being made.

In return, almost as a courtesy, Strether had let it be known that his interest arose not out of prurience or nosiness but as a cattleman who wished to be better informed about techniques with which he was wholly familiar. That seemed to satisfy them.

The landscape undulated in the morning sun. On a far hill the blades of wind turbines turned lazily. The maize was already tall and would soon turn golden. It would be cut before June and a second crop planted. Here in England a double harvest had been possible for over half a century, though in northern Scotland a second oats or barley harvest was attainable only in the warmest years. Rice-planting trials were under way near Portsmouth with a new hardy strain. Those areas of the civilised world that did not lack water had gained tremendously from the increase in ambient temperatures. It was not clear to Strether, as he gazed with a rancher’s envious eye over the greenly rippling fields, why anybody likely to benefit from it, as northern Europe had, could ever have objected to global warming.

That view, had he articulated it too often, would have raised eyebrows. It was another example among many of the quirky perspective he sensed he brought to his post. He was aware that the diplomatic community regarded him as an outsider.

Some of the reasons were obvious. He had not attended their universities nor engaged life-long in diplomacy. He was unfamiliar with the conventional wisdom. An alternative choice of ambassador, schooled at Georgetown or Princeton would have known the score and been acquainted with senior figures on the circuit. Many US Foreign Service professionals had attended European universities; Strether now suspected that they were alumni of ÉNA.
The reflection put him on his mettle. A doctorate in farm management and animal husbandry might not rate as highly as a PhD in international relations from the Sorbonne with three languages. But he had earned his living in the real world. He held cussedly to what he regarded as real values. He was prepared to be convinced; but he was no pushover.

The train slowed; air brakes whispered, friction increased between the coach body and the magnetised rail. A well-modulated woman’s voice announced that they were approaching Salisbury East and reminded him to take all his belongings with him. Nobody mentioned Porton Down. Officially there was nothing secret about it. He could have applied to see its annual accounts or the Director’s last report to Parliament. But the phone number was not listed and it was not on the tourist maps. It existed, but everyone behaved as if it did not. The Europeans, and the English in particular, seemed to have no difficulties with such contradictions.

Strether rose, stretched and headed for the door. The warm breeze on his face was a pleasure after the carriage’s chill air-conditioning. On the platform he watched as passengers alighted and boarded. The doors hissed shut, the whole train seemed to breathe, a faint hum could be heard. The hairs rose on the back of his neck in response to the electric field. The linear induction motors lifted the machine vertically a bare twenty centimetres from the track and it slid away without a sound, slowly at first then with increasing rapidity until it disappeared in a flash of silver over the horizon.

‘Good journey, I hope?’

‘Oh, hi, Marius. Yes, fine. Wish we had those in New York or Chicago.’

Marius grimaced. ‘Horribly expensive, I’m afraid. Capital costs are astronomic. We have to subsidise this line. Still, it’s pollution-free, so needs must.’ He took Strether by the arm and led him to the walkolator.

Marius was dressed less formally than at the Palace. His cream tunic was undone a notch at the neck and was cut from a linen fabric with a faintly crumpled look. That must be deliberate, Strether decided at once, since Marius’s black slacks were perfectly pressed, his loafers immaculate. He wondered fleetingly if his new friend would regard it as rude if he requested help on a shopping expedition. His own clothes – the lapel suit, the white shirt, the tie – marked him as an incomer a mile off.

‘Here we are.’ The moving walkway ended. Three routes were signposted: to Salisbury Old Town, to Stonehenge Visitors’ Centre, and to cross-travel transfers. Marius ignored them and turned smartly on his heel down a nondescript passageway. The door at its end, plain and unmarked, had no handle; it appeared sealed. Marius stood upright in front of it. At such a distance he could not be observed from the concourse. He waited. Then the door opened and he ushered Strether through.

‘Deters sightseers,’ he grinned at Strether. ‘New system – works quite well, don’t you think? All done by mirrors.’

‘I’d have thought you’d be using something more advanced,’ Strether commented. ‘Testing DNA, for example.’

‘Oh, sure, we’ve tried that. But too many of the official visitors here have very similar DNA. Sends the machine barmy. Frankly, it took too long checking. Can’t keep a Perm Sec waiting, you know.’

The procedure was repeated at a second set of doors. Once inside, they were met by a trim male secretary in narrow trousers who showed them to an anteroom. A small black camera followed their every move. Scientific journals were scrolling on the wall screen. A coat of arms, intricately carved, hung opposite. To Strether, apart from the tree of life and an array of scientific instruments, its main motif resembled a hand holding a fried egg. The motto on top was unmistakable:
Pro bono publico
. And another, underneath:
Omnes unique sunt
.

‘Every one an individual, of course,’ Marius hissed, in response to his request for a translation. ‘Bit of a joke, here.’ Soon they entered a light, airy office.

A tall thin man, a middle-aged version of the Permanent Secretary and others Strether had met, stepped forward. The elongated, spare figure, the hands with their bony fingers, the receding blond hair and pale blue eyes were creepily similar, as was the slightly reserved manner. Strether could not avoid feeling that such men were searching him for clues, but would give no information he did not prise out of them.

‘James Churchill, Director.’ The men shook hands. ‘Welcome. Forgive me, Ambassador, but you’ll have to robe up before we can take you any further.’

Five minutes later Strether caught a glimpse of himself in a reflecting glass and laughed out loud. The all-enveloping white garment reached from his chin to his knees. Loose cotton trousers covered his own. His feet were encased in lint-free socks; the same material made up the gloves on his hands. A net of stretchy fabric covered his hair and dug into his forehead. A surgical mask hid his mouth and nose; above the mask were a cattleman’s sunburned forehead and two slightly bulbous eyes, their veins pink in the glare. ‘Not a pretty sight,’ Strether muttered to himself. Marius and the Director, similarly attired, looked rather better.

The tour began. He was not sure what he had expected. Rows of bottles, maybe, as in
Brave New World
. Filled with foetuses, revolving slowly in their own fluid, monitored day and night by banks of computers. Eyes shut, thumbs in their mouths, dreaming of days in the light yet to come. They must exist somewhere, he reasoned. Instead the Director propelled him smoothly down corridor after corridor, pointing through glass windows at white-garbed workers in a neon-lit world, many with visors over the entire face. There would not be much opportunity here, Strether thought mischievously, for languorous glances across the lab bench. Some had pipettes in hand, others carried Petri dishes or reaction agents in conical bottles. Many were seated at terminals tapping information into keyboards, or at screens reading, pointing, analysing the data displayed. Everyone was busy and preoccupied. No one paid the newcomers the slightest attention.

There were fewer cameras here. Many rooms had none, other than an occasional white-painted one hung unobtrusively at the corner of a corridor, as if placing them were so much a habit that even the most central of government activities could not be excluded. Yet the sensation was strong that he was, for once, on the inside. These white-coated, masked operators, and whoever was behind the surveillance operations, were as one.

Or, maybe, in reality there was nothing to see. Strether felt a swell of disappointment. To add to his frustration, the Director’s explanations were frequently beyond him. As nucleotides tumbled over ribosomes, adenine swirled about cystosine, amino acids melded into glutamic acids, his brain felt like an unravelling double helix itself. He began to lag
behind.

Marius whispered to the Director, who coughed delicately.

‘Right, Ambassador. The Prince and I have some parliamentary business to attend to, if you’ll excuse us. Let me introduce you to my assistant director, Dr Pasteur. Prince Marius and I will return for you in forty minutes or so, if that will suit you? Yes. Through here.’

Strether’s heart sank. They must assume that if they fobbed him off and bored him enough he would not trouble them again. He could report back to Washington that the genetic programme was remarkable, the laboratories magnificent, the outcomes nothing much to be concerned about. No one would complain if he did precisely that. The boat people seemed light years from this sterile, clinical nothingness. The solution to the queries they posed might well lie elsewhere anyway.

‘Good morning, Ambassador. I’m Lisa Pasteur.’ Strether blinked.

The young woman before him was wearing neither mask nor hairnet. Her glossy dark hair was swept back and tied neatly; loose, it would have framed an extraordinarily sweet face, heart-shaped, a full mouth and handsome brown eyes. She wore no jewellery. She might have been in her early thirties.

‘Good morning.’ Suddenly, unaccustomedly, Strether was lost for words.

She was looking at him, an amused expression on her face. She motioned him into a tiny cubby-hole which passed as an office. The door shut, she pointed at his mask and hood. ‘In here you’re safe to remove those.’ Then she sat at a small desk, spoke into a voicephone to order coffee and for her calls to be held, then indicated another chair.

Strether seated himself. In the narrow space there was no camera. He examined her more thoroughly. The white coat and trousers covered everything important, but she had small trim feet, tiny hands and a skin colour neither fair nor dark, as if she had Italian, blood but from Lombardy rather than Sicily. Her eyes were brown flecked with honey. Strether found his voice. ‘
Dr
Pasteur, did I hear? Is that a medical doctor?’

The coffee arrived on a tray through a chute, neatly presented with a tray-cloth, digestive biscuits and linen napkins. ‘I’m a stickler,’ Dr Pasteur explained, with a wry smile. ‘Bit old-fashioned, maybe. No point in taking infinite pains with our charges then poisoning ourselves with synthetic rubbish. To answer your question, yes, I do have a degree in human medicine, but no, I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m a medical microbiologist, and I’m responsible for the development part of our programme.’

‘Your charges? What exactly are they? So far I haven’t seen much here to thrill the folks back home.’ He spread his hands inquiringly.

Lisa stirred her coffee. ‘It’s good to have a visitor, Ambassador. Mostly, you know, apart from other scientists, we’re left to our own devices here.’ She looked up, again with that cool, amused half smile. It was as if she were willing him to ask her questions, to take more than a humdrum approach. Strether found himself gazing rather too directly at her. She did not flinch. ‘You expected to see babies in bottles, didn’t you? Sorry, but that’s not on display. Not to anybody. But first you need to understand exactly what we do, and why we think it is so valuable.’

The young woman was friendlier than anyone he had met on his tour so far. Perhaps her manner was intended to disarm. Maybe, with shrewd interrogation, he could begin to delve to his own satisfaction. With this charming informant it would be a pleasure. Strether
settled down to listen.

‘What we are doing is tidying up genes, usually to order. My personal work involves finding better and simpler means of carrying out the therapy, so we waste fewer embryos and make fewer errors.’

She began to sketch on a pad. ‘You’ll be familiar with some of this, so stop me if I go over old ground. The cell is fertilised and becomes an embryo – the eight-cell stage is ideal. That’s a day or two after fertilisation, which usually we do
in vitro
. We take one cell, remove the nuclear material and examine it. Most genes will be normal – that’ll have been determined when ovum and sperm were selected. There should be no obvious defects. That’s where the first checks are so essential, and that’s stage one.’