The O.D. (37 page)

“I’ll just have to wait till then, will I? No special preview for friends?”

“Sorry, Len. We’ve only got one bullet in our gun, so… no practice.”

Just then, Leidar Dahl entered with news of a meteor shower taking place overhead. Thirty seconds later, the room was empty.

As he peered up at the hundreds of meteors rushing like sperms in search of an egg – and likewise dying in the process – Pilot wondered what chance
their
little meteor had of getting through and impregnating the world.

XXV

Neptune
Rising
,
Galene
and
Nereides
, three superficially opulent cruise ships rusting under their new paintwork, rose and fell gracefully at their berths in Nillin harbour, their vast multi-storey superstructures all but blocking the view of the fiord. Eydos hadn’t seen so much activity since the French invasion twelve years earlier. Even so, compared to previous environmental congresses in Stockholm, Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto, Johannesburg, Rio again, Abu Dhabi, Honolulu and Shanghai, the Eydos Summit was a mere foothill, austerity being the order of the day. The island had set limits on the number of delegates, scientists and support staff each country could send, and the journalists had been capped at two hundred. The quotas were not flexible and the organisers, supported by a hundred displaced Maldivian stewards, had turned away forty Russians and over a hundred Chinese whose names were not on the list.

The parties of both Eire and Iceland, comprising just 22 people between them, stepped ashore just after the 130-strong American delegation had debarked from the cruise ship
Neptune
. On entering the vast dome, the occasional delegate would look up and read Josiah Billy’s wood-carved suicide poem hanging above the entrance, but most did not even notice it.

Returning from his morning jog above the fjord, Pilot was ambushed by a horde of reporters eager to embroider the rumour going around that Eydos was planning to drop a bomb on the Conference. The questions came at him from all angles, overlapping each other and making understanding impossible. Some of the words smelt of alcohol, Pilot noticed. Aaron Serman forced a passage between Associated Press and the Cable News Network and led Pilot into the Mother Dome to meet the Secretary General of the United Nations and Chair of the Eydos Summit, Lim Lin Hok.

“Welcome to Nillin, Secretary General,” Pilot said for the cameras. “We meet at last,” he whispered just for her.

As host nation, the Eydos delegation of Lonnie Pilot, Macushla Mara and Aaron Serman occupied the front seats on the far left. The other countries were then arranged alphabetically, with the delegates from Afghanistan just a few feet from Pilot’s right shoulder. In front of them all on a raised stage was the speakers’ podium, behind which, on another platform, was a long table where the Chair, the Secretary, the Executive Secretary, the Deputy Executive Secretary and four other United Nations officers were seated.

At the appointed hour, Lim Lin Hok rose from her seat, stepped down to the lectern and opened the Conference with a spirited ten-minute speech welcoming the scientists, economists and delegates, praising the 193 countries in attendance, and urging everyone present not to leave the words and rhetoric behind when they left Eydos. “In every preceding Earth summit to this one, nothing was ventured, and nothing was gained,” she said in conclusion. “And look where it has landed us. This time, I urge you all, for Mankind’s sake, to make that giant leap of faith required to wrest us from the fire.” They’d heard words like this before, but something in their delivery made the delegates feel chastised before the Conference had even begun.

Days One and Two featured men of science explaining precisely what was happening to the Earth. Rising temperatures, rising sea levels, failed harvests, drug-resistant viruses… facts and figures flew about the dome like so many startled bats, causing great commotion but never settling on anyone.

Lonnie Pilot tried to take the information in, but felt that data of such breadth and depth was counter-productive and had the adverse effect of dampening the fear and emotion necessary to germinate action. In a whispered aside to Aaron Serman, he likened it to being attacked by a grizzly bear and responding by measuring the animal’s paws and counting its teeth.

The whole of Day Three and the morning session of Day Four saw speeches from the delegates of Indonesia, Colombia, Estonia, Egypt, Finland, Greece, South Korea, Kenya, Chile, Haiti, Germany, Chad, Portugal, Papua New Guinea and Japan, the order having been drawn by lots.

With the afternoon of Day Four free, delegates used the time to network and hold smaller meetings in the baby domes. Members of the Eydos delegation attended them all, but said nothing. Day Five was given over to crisis management workshops in which Pilot noted much hot air, but very little in the way of crisis management. Eydos was conspicuous by its lack of involvement in the workshops, too. The other delegations were becoming disturbed by the Island’s deadweight at the meetings, having expected more. But ‘more’ was just waiting.

The President of the United States had decided to remain at home, much to everyone’s disgust, so at the mid-day adjournment of the sixth and penultimate day of the Summit, Pilot collared the head of the U.S. delegation, hoping to have a quick word with the high-flying Senator he had met with such hopefulness eleven years earlier at Sag Harbour. Paul Dasching, who’d lost some hair and gained some pounds, was to be the first speaker of the afternoon session. “I have to go, Lonnie. Sorry. Some last minute material to run through with my people. Great to see you again. We’ve got a terrific package to announce. Talk to you later, okay?” The truth of it was that Paul Dasching felt compromised in Pilot’s company and couldn’t get away fast enough.

“Someone said you’re going to dunk our heads in shit later,” one of the reporters called out. Pilot ignored the comment, left the Mother Dome quickly and melted into a crowd taking advantage of the refreshing breeze outside. The remainder of the adjournment he spent with Macushla in their dome, expending nervous energy at five times his normal rate as he fought to control his nerves. Lonnie Pilot, as the first and only speaker on the final day, would soon know whether their wingless jumbo jet would fly or not.

“…
and as an indication of the gravity and urgency with which the United States views the global crises facing us all, the President yesterday directed, under the new emergency powers granted the Chief Executive, that industrial emissions in the U.S. be reduced by
THIRTY
per
cent
– this new target to be achieved
within
the
next
two
years
. Moreover, two billion dollars in federal funds are to be directed into the development, manufacture and implementation of the new General Electric CLAIR Inner City Air Purification System, the first units to be in operation in Phoenix within eighteen months.”

The remainder of Paul Dasching’s ‘great package’ Pilot found to be hopelessly short of the mark. Purifying poisoned air without eradicating the poison was suicidally lame. That the most powerful nation on earth remained, at governmental and business levels at least, the most intransigent, worried him and weighed against the success of his own proposals. Great innovations were being created in the States by individual Americans, but had become stuck in the mud of under-funding and executive disinterest.

Dasching’s address, when he had finished, was received with enthusiastic applause from the US delegation, a rather more tempered response from the Europeans and Japanese and total silence from the remainder of the delegates. Pilot could feel his spirits rise through this audible expression of dissatisfaction.

Following the USA, delegates from Italy, Russia, Denmark, Namibia, Australia, Vietnam and Pakistan each had their moment on the podium. Like a broken record of past summits, the speeches only sent the listeners lower on the scale of impotence and disenfranchisement. As the Spanish Environment Minister, the final speaker of the day, shuffled his papers in preparation, Pilot’s mind began to fast forward. The plan was this: a quiet dinner in their dome; a final run-through of his speech with Macushla; late night sex; seven hours of undisturbed sleep (hopefully); early morning sex, followed by breakfast… then it would be
their
turn at the lectern.

A ripple of unenthusiastic applause signified the end of the Spaniard’s speech. Ten minutes later, Pilot and Mara were back in their dome steaming Moringa leaves to accompany their goat stew.

His build-up had gone like clockwork, apart from the seven hours’ sleep. A twenty minute doze was all that Pilot’s nerves had afforded him. The sex had been fast and furious and had done the trick of pinning his butterflies. Now, as he walked arm in arm with Macushla to the Mother Dome, Lonnie Pilot was the picture of calm resolve.

As he took his seat in the front row, Pilot couldn’t understand why it was so noisy in the auditorium. Every clunking headphone, scraping chair, every ‘good morning’, ‘bon jour’ and ‘buenas dias’seemed to amplify off the roof straight into his inner ear. The white noise was deafening. His sharpened state of mind had had the effect of heightening all his senses, including the one he had not quite put his finger on ye
t−
the one that was now telling him that every eye in the building was on him. Waves of expectation were breaking on shores of distrust. He could feel it. It’ll be a good day’s work if I can get through to even
ten
percent
of them, he thought.

Like four thousand starlings landing in the trees, the delegates took their places and settled. Once the hubbub had subsided, Lim Lin Hok arose and took her place on the podium. Pilot’s heart began to pound with the same purposefulness that had carried him to victory over Victor Bosse twelve years before.

The Secretary General spoke slowly, but with supreme authority. “Why are all of us here?” she began. “What brings us to this barren, inhospitable strip of rock in the Bay of Biscay?” She raised an elegant hand and pointed to the far wall of the auditorium. “Beyond this womb-like dome, our world lies in tatters. Try as we might, we have been unable to do the first thing to arrest our decay. Is it because we have not tried hard enough? Is it because our resolve is gone? Why is that? An inability or reluctance to admit the problems exist? Vested interest? Self interest? Short-term thinking? Indecision? We conspire against ourselves to ensure that we remain in our downward spiral. Faster and faster we fall.” She paused for dramatic effect. “The ground is nearer than anyone thinks, or
wants
to think. But there is still time to pull ourselves out of our death dive. I believe that. Lonnie Pilot believes that.” As Lim took a sip of water, Macushla reached over and squeezed her partner’s hand.

“People have said that Eydos is a cult of personality and that their leader is a modern day Stalin, Mao, Castro, or Waheed. I can tell you now that Lonnie Pilot will be standing down as the leader of Eydos directly after this conference. In the next hour, therefore, I urge you to view Eydos as a cult of
concept
, not of personality. It could be the most important hour in this planet’s history. Eydos is linked to no religion, no political dogma, no country or government… Unlike the rest of us, she is without chains. Unlike the rest of ours, her message is without conditions and impediments. In my country…” she turned to her right and beckoned Pilot forward, “…we do not shoot the messenger.”

Pilot made his way to the platform in four-foot strides and took the steps two at a time. Settling in behind the lectern, he was oblivious to the sights and sounds encased in the Mother Dome with him. The respectful but reserved applause that had accompanied him from his seat had stopped, signifying that the owners of the hands now expected something in return.

Pilot stared hard at the microphone straining its neck towards his mouth, then faced out across the tiered hall. Myriad faces shimmered like sequins amongst the predominant greys and blues beloved of self-important males as he gradually brought the picture into focus.

Pilot nodded at Mara and Serman, then fished the vast pool of humanity for clues as to the state of mind of his audience. What he sensed more than anything was an overriding feeling of expectation from those he scanned – the expectation that Lonnie Pilot was about to fall flat on his face.

He stood in rigid concentration for a while, shifted his weight from left leg to right, and tried to recall his opening line. By this time, some of the delegates had begun exchanging whispered judgments with each other, and those commentators who hadn’t previously written off Eydos’ ‘accidental tourists’, were now inclining towards that position. The all-important opening to his speech was still eluding him, and the harder he tried to catch it, the further away it drifted. All he needed were the first few words and the rest would follow like magician’s handkerchiefs. He glanced over at Macushla who was forming a letter ‘D’ with her hands. They’d set out a number of hand prompts for just this type of situation, but he hadn’t expected to need one so soon. D denoted Decision. He was ready. To everyone below it seemed as if he had just been waiting for the proper level of attention before beginning. The delay did him no harm.

“There is no question as to the decision we have to make at this crucial point in our evolution,” Pilot began. “The answer is so simple, most intelligent people will have already logically considered it. Yet it is so monumentally frightening that they will have just as easily – but without logic – dismissed it.

“My own progression towards this point started with the notion of reversing time. How much more constructive and fulfilling our lives would be if we could lead a two-lap existence, where we run forward until reaching what our bodies somehow instinctively know is the halfway mark. At this point, instead of running the second lap as before, we make a complete about turn and run the first lap in reverse – righting the wrongs of our past decision-making, seen with the advantage of hindsight as having been the
wrong
decisions; repairing the people and the places we have insulted, hurt, defaced, defiled, damaged or destroyed; and tidying up on the second lap the debris we created on the first one.