Nature's Shift

by Brian Stableford

  “Typical,” said Rowland. “She never did understand.”

  That was probably a trifle harsh. Rosalind had never been short of understanding; what she lacked was the empathy to calculate the consequences of her understanding. She was probably the world’s foremost expert in olfactory psychotropics, but her knowledge of the art was purely scientific. I had no doubt at all that she had tried to “cure” the malaise of Magdalen’s heart by that means, and had probably attributed her failure to incorrect dosage, or insufficient progress in chemical refinement. I could almost imagine her urging Magdalen to wake up and smell the roses, then watching and wondering as Magdalen’s metaphorical stigmata continued to bleed from the thrust of imaginary thorns.

  Rowland’s thinking might or might not have been running along similar lines. At any rate, he changed the subject, very abruptly. “What sort of tropical fieldwork are you planning to do?” he asked. “You haven’t gone into the oil business, I hope?”

  I had, of course, included the remark about needing to do some tropical fieldwork merely to leave no stone unturned in my plea for an invitation to the Orinoco delta, but my ability to improvise was equal to the challenge.

  “Coastlines went in and out everywhere in the course of the last century,” I said. “New salt marshes sprang up by the thousand. I’ve been tracking natural genetic shifts in a number of different algal species, and I’ve found some interesting and peculiar phenomena—as you’d expect, given that algal cells are inherently simpler and more easily mutable than those of terrestrial plants. All the world’s a cauldron, but the only place the soup really came to the boil is in the tropics. I need to figure out what kinds of change were precipitated in places where the pot was seriously stirred—where the rise in sea-level, limited as it was, disrupted vast areas and complex ecosystems. The river deltas in Africa and the Indian subcontinent suffered too much damage; I need to study an area that proved more resilient: the Amazon delta or the Orinoco delta. Of the two, the latter looks more promising—and you’ve gantzed a refuge smack in the middle of it. If you can supply me with a base for a few months, it might bring my work forward by an order of magnitude, and could well reveal some genuinely interesting genetic adaptation mechanisms.”

  What true scientist could possibly refuse a request couched in those terms? He was, after all, my friend.

  Still, he hesitated.

  “I’m not really equipped to receive visitors,” he told me. “This isn’t a research station, as such. I have a couple of people to help around the house, but no lab assistants, as such. I couldn’t offer you anything remotely resembling adequate facilities for your kind of research.”

  “I can improvise,” I assured him. “Even if there were an available alternative—which there isn’t—I wouldn’t want to take it, if there were a possibility of staying with you. We’re friends, Rowland…aren’t we?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, automatically. “We’ll always be friends…and we’re fellow engineers, too, fighting the good fight against Nature’s backlash, shoulder to shoulder. We don’t have to be members of a Hive to pull together, to help one another out. If you need to be here, then of course you must come, but….”

  I knew there’d be a but. I waited for him to spell it out. When he saw that I wasn’t going to prompt him, he did—after a fashion.

  “Look, Peter,” he said, “I’m involved in some very difficult and delicate work here. I’d always intended to show it to you and explain it to you, when it had reached an appropriate stage of maturity. I’d always intended to invite you here, eventually, because I knew that you were the one person in the world guaranteed to understand it—but it hasn’t reached that stage yet. On the other hand….”

  He paused again. I wasn’t sure why, this time. Something about his voice made me stare harder at the image on the screen, looking for signs of electronic enhancement. I was no longer sure that I was looking through the kind of camera that isn’t supposed to lie.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. My image was being transmitted directly. He had seen my expression change and my attention become more focused.

  “Are you ill, Rowland?”

  Enhanced or not, the image took on an expression that seemed slightly guilty. “No,” he said, unconvincingly. “I’m perfectly okay, health-wise. I have been working very hard, though. I get a little tired, sometimes.”

  “Have you had a check-up recently?” I persisted. “I know that you’re hundreds of miles from the nearest doctor, but you must have monitors and scanners there that can feed information to any med center in the world.”

  “I have all the equipment I could possibly need,” he assured me. “The only reason I haven’t had a check-up is that I don’t need one. Did Rosalind tell you to ask these questions?”

  “No,” I replied. “She is worried about you, though. Maybe she can’t believe that you wouldn’t come to the funeral unless you were too ill to travel. You didn’t even tell her that you weren’t coming, did you?—let alone why.”

  “I’m busy,” he repeated. “I’m not doing the kind of experiments that are over in a matter of hours or days. There are processes in hand, which set their own timetable. As I said, I always intended to let you in on it when it’s ready, but it’s not there yet…and it won’t be finished in a matter of months, or even years. If you come here now, I’ll help you fit out your own facilities to the best of my ability…but you might have to be patient with regard to an explanation of my work.”

  “That’s not an issue,” I assured him. “I do need reassurance that you’re okay, though. I’ll have work of my own to do, and you can take all the time you like explaining what you’ve been doing these last ten years, and why you haven’t published anything.”

  “It’s not finished,” he repeated. “Not even the first phase.”

  “You haven’t reached the end of the beginning,” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little, “let alone the beginning of the end.”

  He smiled wryly. “I’d almost forgotten how glib you can be,” he said. “Maybe I do need a little of that, as well as some meaty discussion. We used to have a good time, once, playing with words and ideas. I should have kept in touch…but it’s never quite the same over the phone is it?”

  “That’s why we need to get together,” I said. “Am I invited, then?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m just trying to warn you…But I suppose I do have facilities adequate for collecting and cataloguing the local algae. I have three boats, and if they don’t suit your requirements, I can get one that is. I can make lab room for you easily enough, and if you want to bring an assistant, that’s fine…provided that he or she is capable of discretion. I can’t have information being leaked, Peter. I know that I can trust you—but I need to make that clear. I have to maintain secrecy, until I’ve perfected my procedures. You do understand, don’t you?”

  I didn’t, yet—how could I, when he hadn’t explained anything? What he was saying did help, slightly, to explain why he hadn’t published anything in years, but only in a superficial sense. Science isn’t supposed to have secrets. It’s an innately collaborative endeavor, whose purpose is to bring knowledge into the light, to add to the sum of human understanding. The legendary wizards of old hoarded the wisdom they were supposed to have, deliberately hiding it away in order to maintain a monopoly—or, more likely, to conceal its idiocy and impotence—but real science is intrinsically opposed to that philosophy. Even in matters where money is at stake, because some discoverer or inventor wants to profit from his endeavor—and who doesn’t?—there’s an elaborate system of patents to protect financial interests while permitting and facilitating publication. That has been true for centuries, and in a time of ecological crisis, the pressure on scientists to reveal anything and everything that might be relevant to combating the crisis is more than a duty; it’s a necessity. Rowland and I were living in interesting times; the survival of the species had been at risk for at least four generations, and woul
d still be at risk for at least another four. Anyone who discovered anything that might help was morally obliged to make it known.

  For the moment, however, all I could say was: “Okay. Whatever conditions you impose, I’ll abide by them.”

  “Good,” he said. “In that case, it will be very pleasant to see you again. You have no idea how starved I am of real conversation. This isn’t the same.” He waved his arm to indicate the telephonic apparatus that was connecting us. He was right about conversation not being the same over the phone, even if the cameras weren’t rigged to lie. Electronic communication gives us sight and sound, but not presence. Real presence involves touch, and all kinds of olfactory stimuli of which we’re not even consciously aware. A person can sit in front of a screen all day, talking to a hundred other people in turn, and still be “starved of real conversation,” for lack of the authentic nourishment of presence.

  Rowland had to be lonely. He had to be grateful for the fact that I wanted to visit, even if he hadn’t been able to admit it to himself before, because of his passion for maintaining the secrecy of whatever it was that he was so determined to keep secret. In all likelihood, he really did need to see a friendly face, and to keep company with a friend for a while. I really would be doing him a favor.

  “I’ll call again as soon as I’ve got a timetable worked out,” I said. “There are some formalities to clear up with the university, but there won’t be any hitches. I hope to be on my way by the end of the week, if that’s not too soon.”

  “No problem,” he said. “Just let me know what you need, and I’ll make what advance provision I can. We can sort out the details when you’re here. There are inevitable delays in delivery way out here, but money talks, and I have plenty of that, thanks to dear old Roderick. I don’t say that the impossible gets done at once when I snap my fingers, and even the possible takes time, but whatever we need, I can get.”

  I appreciated the we.

  “That’s great,” I said—and bade him a temporary farewell, in order to set the wheels in motion.

  That proved a good deal easier than might have been expected. I had to apply for instantaneous sabbatical leave, and provide immediate cover for all my teaching obligations. Given that one normally has to apply for sabbatical leave a year in advance, the dean of the faculty could have protested, but he didn’t raise a murmur. I suspected, but didn’t dare ask, that he’d already been contacted by the Hive, which had let him know that Rosalind would be greatly obliged if no obstacles appeared in my path, and that anything necessary to clear potential obstacles would be made available on request.

  There is no one in the world more tractable than a university dean who has just been assured that any and all expenses will be met without question.

  Since Rowland had raised the possibility spontaneously, I hesitated briefly over the matter of taking a lab assistant with me. Given that I really did intend to do some significant research while I was in a uniquely useful environment, an extra pair of hands would have been very useful, and I would undoubtedly have had my pick of the departmental research students had I cared to exploit that resource. No aspiring doctoral candidate would turn down the chance of a field trip to Rowland Usher’s Orinoco redoubt, even if it delayed their thesis submission; as an item on a CV, it would be job-application gold. Indeed, even after I had decided to go alone, as soon as the news of my imminent departure for Venezuela got around, explicit requests were made that were practically pleas, and I felt bad about turning them down—and not because at least one of them had an implicit offer of sexual favors thrown into the attempted bargain as a makeweight.

  I had to keep reminding myself that my primary purpose in making the trip was to make sure that Rowland was safe and sane, and that he would long remain so. I owed it to him not to clutter up the mission with too many potential distractions. Besides which, Rosalind might not have approved.

  Inevitably, once I’d called Rowland to give him the provisional details of my itinerary, and had started packing for my departure, Rosalind called.

  “Thank you, Peter,” she said. “I really appreciate what you’re doing.”

  I could have told her that I was doing it for Rowland, not for her, but it would have been dreadfully impolite, and perhaps not entirely honest. In reality, I was doing it for myself. What I said instead was: “I’m not going to be able to furnish you with full and regular reports from the Orinoco delta. If Rowland doesn’t want me to call, I won’t.”

  “I know that,” she said. “I trust you to do everything possible to make sure that he’s all right.”

  “You knew perfectly well that he was alive, when you talked to me in Eden, didn’t you?” I said, to make sure that she didn’t get off too lightly. “You must have some kind of spy-eye in the vicinity of his redoubt, if not actually inside.”

  “I knew that he was alive,” she confirmed. “I’m sorry if I accidentally implied that there was a possibility that he wasn’t.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know what the secret is that he’s so determined to keep under wraps until he’s ready to whip the curtain away, would you?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “Nor am I expecting you to tell me what it is, once he’s confided it to you. I just want to know that he’s safe and sane—and I’m convinced that a few weeks and months in your company will increase the probability of his remaining safe and sane considerably.”

  I figured that I had built up a considerable balance of moral credit by now, and that Rosalind was as well-disposed to me at that moment as she’d ever been, or ever would be, so I screwed up my courage and asked the question.

  “Why did Magdalen kill herself?” I asked, coming straight out with it because there as no way of approaching it subtly—although I didn’t lose a second in adding; “I need to know, if I’m to talk to Rowland about it—and you do want me to talk to Rowland about it, don’t you?”

  For just a moment, Rosalind let her mask slip. She was on camera; she wasn’t filtering her image. Even though she must have been expecting the question, at some stage, she wasn’t quite ready for it at that moment. Perhaps she never would be.

  “What makes you think she killed herself?” she hedged. I’d never seen her hedge before; it made her seem almost human.

  “If she hadn’t,” I said, “you would have identified the cause of death at the funeral. Some secrets can’t be kept, because the mere fact of trying to keep them is revelation enough.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” she snapped back. “Uncertainty is uncertainty, no matter how confident people are in their guesses. But you’re right that you’ll have to talk to Rowland about it, so I’ll confirm your guess, and trust to your sense of honor not to let what I tell you go any further. You can tell him that Magdalen was poisoned, in circumstances which make it highly unlikely that the poisoning was accidental, and that she certainly wasn’t murdered. As to why it happened…well, she didn’t leave an explanatory note, and she didn’t reveal very much in the conversations we had. I won’t say that your guess is as good as mine, because it couldn’t be, but any conjecture I offered regarding the exact causes of Magdalen’s death, except in terms of immediate physical causation, would be just that: a guess.”

  That struck me as most un-Rosalind-like speech. It was almost as if she were deliberately beating around the bush, emphasizing what she didn’t know in order to avoid specifying what she did know.”

  “Were you treating her?” I asked. “With psychotropics, I mean?”

  “That’s not relevant,” she told me. “If I were, it would be entirely legal—I’m a licensed practitioner.”

  I hadn’t been in the least concerned about matters of legality, and she knew it. She was deliberately misunderstanding me. Magdalen’s death was obviously a very sore topic. Had I been in her presence, I would have apologized profusely for overstepping the mark, but over the phone, I felt that I had more license to ask questions.

  She obviously thought so too. “This isn’t
a suitable topic for discussion over the phone,” she said, flatly. “It might be useful for us to meet again before you leave, though. You’ll have to stay overnight in a hotel at Heathrow before catching your flight to Trinidad. I’ll meet you there. Don’t expect any sensational revelations—I don’t have any to offer—but I do have a few things to say, about Magdalen, and about Rowland. You won’t have to tie yourself in knots trying to conceal the source of the information from Rowland; he’s not a fool, and he’ll know that I’ve talked to you. He won’t suspect you of being my agent because of it.”

  “I’m not,” I reminded her.

  “I know that,” she replied. “The important thing is that Rowland knows it too. We’ll talk again before you leave.”

  That was the end of the conversation, for the time being

  CHAPTER SIX

  Within forty-eight hours, all the loose ends had been tidied up. Not only was the flight to Trinidad booked, but a car had been hired to take me directly to the island’s coast, where a boat would be waiting to ferry me all the way to the delta. I was able to call Rowland and give him an estimated time of arrival. We’d already had a discussion about the lab facilities I’d need, in order that we could make a comprehensive list of materials for which we’d have to place orders, and he was now able to tell me that the equipment and supplies he’d ordered would be loaded on to the boat before I reached it. It all seemed slightly surreal, partly because of the pace at which it as all happening, and partly because all the discussion of timetables and equipment orders made it seem as if we were carefully avoiding the real subject of mutual interest—as, indeed, we were.

  The train journey from Lancaster to London seemed longer than it ever had before, and even the Heathrow shuttle seemed to take its time, although it was a comparatively short journey. There was no sign of Rosalind when I arrived at the hotel, but I hadn’t expected her to be there. She would want to meet in the guaranteed privacy of her own car, not some public building. I’d hardly had time to tidy myself up a little in the room, however, before the call came through summoning me to the lobby again. I recognized the man who was waiting for me there as the petty Saint Peter who’d been manning the gates of Eden during the funeral. He was evidently her rock.