Paradeisia: Origin of Paradise (3 page)

They made an odd pair, Doctor Toskovic winking with triumph at the journalists and Doctor Ming-Zhen staring straight-faced and anonymously into their lenses.  The two wore tight wetsuits, Doctor Toskovic's accentuating his muscular physique; Doctor Ming-Zhen's emphasizing his skeletal smallness.

After the photo op, the first vessel was prepared for descent.  Two hooks at the end of a steel cable with a
Y-
split were attached to a small u-bar protruding out on each side.  The cable slowly tightened and lifted it up onto a platform above the steel-rimmed borehole.  As it came down to rest with a clang that echoed up the ninety-foot tower, the press shuffled, murmuring in expectation.

Doctor Toskovic shook Doctor Ming-Zhen's hand, saying, “Are you ready, my friend?”

He nodded a reply.  “And you?”

Doctor Toskovic smiled with a shrug, “I like dark abyss, I like certain death.”  He motioned to the sub, “I like to drive giant penis.  So, of course, I love this mission!”  He clasped a small compass hanging by a chain from his neck and kissed it, “Besides, I have my lucky compass, we will be A-OK.”

Doctor Ming-Zhen knew that he carried the compass with him at all times.  It was a matter of pride for the Russian after he had been lost in the Siberian wilderness while working a remote drill site.  Placing a hand on Doctor Ming-Zhen's shoulder, the Russian said, “I see you on other side of ice, eh?”

Practically blinded by a thousand camera flashes, Doctor Ming-Zhen walked up the steps to the platform and entered the doorway on the side of the upright submarine.  Inside, he climbed two notches in the white, round wall up to a spot with stirrups for his feet.  Then he buckled a vest around his chest and placed his forehead against a brace.  When he pushed a button, the vest, the brace, and the stirrups all tightened so he was firmly buttressed within the machine.

He pushed another button and the door swung in and clinched shut with a suction sound.  There was a hiss which he knew to be the chamber pressurizing.

He was now totally sealed in.  He started to feel a wave of panic, claustrophobia, but he took a deep breath, closed his eyes.  It subsided.

Opening his eyes, he said, “Ready for descent.”

“Enjoy your trip,” Doctor Toskovic's voice said over speakers in the cabin.

“I will,” he lied.

He heard operators talking over the speakers: “Ready for descent.  Releasing submersible, opening hatch.”  Doctor Ming-Zhen knew that much of this was actually automated; the operators were mostly there for dramatic effect—for the journalists.

He slipped a picture of his wife and daughter out of his sleeve.  Fastening it to a rim below the glass, he said a quick prayer mantra.

His stomach lurched as the machine took a sudden two-foot drop.  He heard some women from the press shriek in alarm, but he knew there was no reason to worry, at least not yet: the platform had simply given way and the submersible was swinging mildly from the steel cable like a giant pendulum.  He folded his hands over his chest and took another deep breath.  There was a loud metallic twang from up the tower and he felt the machine beginning its descent.

Doctor Zhou Ming-Zhen was now forty-two years into his paleontology career.  His last educational acquisition had been his second PhD, this one in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Stanford, awarded over twenty years ago.  He was now the head of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.

His childhood, burdened by heavy expectations, had done little to contribute to his success in the field.  His late father had been a Communist Party official in a smaller town, relatively poor compared to the officials in Beijing.  His mother, still living and now placed in a monolithic assisted living facility housing thousands of the elderly, had been a homemaker.  The two of them had presented a dichotomy of nurturing values: on the one hand he was coddled and spoiled, but on the other he was chastised and scolded with the constant weight of the family's success on his shoulders.

When his father, through the Party, secured the scholarship for him to attend university, he was dispatched with the anticipation of greatness.  None in his family had attended higher education.  But when he secretly chose Paleontology as his course of study, his parents were devastated, angry.  How could he improve the family fortunes by scratching the ground for old bones?  He was a fool, his mother said.  He shamed his family, said his father.

And now, forty-two years later, he agreed with them.  He was known the world over not merely as a paleontologist, but, as the greatest fraud in the history of paleontology.

This came about through a chance discovery in the Gobi—during a routine fossil dig two years ago.  What he and his team of students found there in the desert was something so astonishing that all his years of study and practice could never have prepared him for the firestorm that it unleashed.

As he descended down towards the deep interior of the ice, he desperately wished he would never
have stepped foot on the Gobi, that he had listened to his parents and become an engineer.  But here he was, dropping into the dark unknown, not knowing whether he would return at all.

United Nations Security Council

Doctor Matthew Martin was sitting at the front row of the vast audience that had gathered at the United Nations Security Council chamber.  The chamber was airy, expansive.  A large painting ornamented the front of the room with a giant semi-circular desk situated below it.  The top of the auditorium was circled with blacked-out glass where Doctor Martin knew an army of the international press was busy broadcasting the event to the world.  The fact that he knew the event had garnered so much global attention made him all-the-more nervous.

When he had received the call from Secretary General Kwame Aidoo, he had scarcely been able to believe it.  His work of the last eleven years had received positive attention mostly only from the lunatic fringe.  Now was the chance to provide his discoveries with the mainstream exposure they deserved.

Science had been meddling with the tinker-toys of the universe; physics, biology, anthropology and the like, he thought.  Now it was time to move beyond that.  Now, it was time to play with the big boys.  And he, Matthew Manley Martin, was going to be the harbinger.

He was scared senseless.

Sitting next to him, his fiancée squeezed his trembling hand.  “How are you?” she inquired, her voice smooth and controlled, as always.

“Developed a bit of a stomach upset, I'm afraid,” he replied.

She shook her head, trying to hide a grin, “Have you, pet?  Shock me.”  Then she said, “You're quite pale.”

“Am I?” he inhaled fretfully.  “Well, we can only hope they listen to my words rather than critique my appearance...”

“I'm sure that they will,” she said.  She patted his cheek, “Don't worry.”  She raised her hand, displaying a diamond ring, “Your powers of persuasion were convincing enough even for me.”

He grinned, “As I recall, you did not require much persuasion...  You've always been a bit of a dominatrix, haven't you?”

“Have I?” she asked, biting her lip and touching a finger to her chin.

From the front of the gigantic auditorium, the gavel made an unceremoniously tinny clang as a gray-haired man struck it three times.  He was seated at the giant circular desk with at least twenty other men and women, each with small plaques in front of them.  His read “AUSTRALIA—PRESIDENT.”

Adjusting the microphone, the man said, “The 7,402nd session of the General Assembly is called to order.  The provisional agenda for the session is before the assembly in document S-AGENDA-7593 which reads, quote, 'Evaluation of Key Events and Phenomena Relevant to Awareness, Felicity, and Security.'  Unless there is an objection I will consider the agenda adopted.”  He banged the gavel, “Adopted.”  Bowing his head for a moment, he said, “Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to declare our compassionate solidarity with the United States in this time of tremendous difficulty.  We express our deepest condolences.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”  He nodded to the representative of the United States, who acknowledged.

“I would now like to welcome the distinguished heads of state, the representatives, and the Secretary General to this meeting.  Thank you all for coming.  This meeting will be somewhat unconventional, but as you are all well aware, the topic is also unconventional.  And now, without further ado, I would like to welcome the first member of our witness panel, Doctor Matthew Martin.”

Doctor Martin had not expected it to happen so quickly.  He was frozen in his chair.  There was supposed to be some long introductory speech, some politicians were supposed to wax eloquent for far longer than anyone had the forbearance to listen...  Then, when everyone was properly stupefied, Doctor Martin thought, he would be called upon to take the chair.  Not like this: not the opening act.

“Doctor Matthew Martin?” the Australian repeated, staring at him.

His fiancée gave his hand another squeeze and he regained control of his body.  He reached down for the pile of paperwork underneath his chair and, rising, stepped up to the front, feeling every eye upon him.

The auditorium was engulfed in total silence and his footsteps echoed off the giant walls.  He reached the tiny desk that sat facing the large circle of representatives and set his papers down, one fluttering off to the floor.  The audience laughed.  Paper was so rare that, apparently, its appearance floating in the air was amusing to the modern imbeciles, Dr. Martin thought.  As he knelt to retrieve the stray sheet, the gray-haired man said, “We can provide you with a tablet...”

“Yes, thank you.  I prefer good old paper.”  The chair behind the desk squeaked as he sat in it.  He cleared his throat and stared up at the circle of power-brokers.

Suddenly, he was frantic.  His eyes darted from person to person. 
Where is she? 
He spun around and found her.  His fiancée was smiling encouragement from the front row in the mass of humanity. 

Somehow, the longer he had known her, the more dependent upon her he had become.  In a way, it was odd.  In another, disconcerting.  All he really knew is that this woman had suddenly appeared in his life just when he needed her, and without her he was nothing.  He couldn't help but love her, whether she was in charge or not.

He turned back around and hesitantly tapped the microphone.  Hearing the loud reverberation it caused, he leaned forward and spoke softly, “Thank you, Secretary Kwame Aidoo, for inviting me to this pivotal meeting.  As you know, when I spoke at TED, my talk was censored, that is, removed, so I am grateful for this opportunity.  Thank you, members of the Security Council, for indulging me with your time.  And thank you, all of you who are here or watching remotely, for lending your ears to this subject, a subject which is quite certain turn your little worlds,” he giggled, wiped sweat from his forehead, “upside down.”

Jet Conference Room

Maggie met Aubrey outside the now-closed double doors of the jet's conference room.  “Henry said he would like you to sit in this meeting, but they're about to start.  If you listen, you might
learn
something.”  She led Aubrey into the room where they took seats against the wall, off to the side of a table where there were seven men in suits, including Henry, and one elderly woman in an elegant-looking emerald-green pantsuit.  Seated at the head of the table, she had a hawkish nose, but this feature was grandstanded by her large, piercing eyes.

“Are we quite ready to begin?” she inquired impatiently.  Receiving nods from around the table, she tapped her hand and said, “Good.”  Then she declared, “Let me be abundantly clear:  What we have received for our trouble is an utter catastrophe.”  Her small lips curved downward into a sneer of disgust, “When my feckless nephew came to me and asked for a considerable investment in this scheme, I didn't have the foresight to cast him from my threshold like the black cat he was.  His sales antics were far better than his business acumen proved to be.  So, alas, I invested.  And when that investment was brought to nothing, he exploited the good faith I had placed in him to bewitch all of you,” she motioned to the men around her, “who invested.  And when that was lost, and he had the nerve to come cooing around my doorstep once more, what do you think I did?”  She waited expectantly for an answer.

Henry Potter, resting his chin on his hand with one elbow on the table, raised his other hand and offered, “Invested again?”

“No indeed I did not!  Merciful heavens,” she scowled at him.  “I plucked the toy from the infant's grasp and took up the chairmanship of this miserable board.”  Her comment received looks of gloomy agreement from the men.

“Unfortunately, I was far too late,” she continued.  “Waste, exorbitance and no plan whatsoever to earn a single farthing back has been our return on investment.  This aircraft itself—” she made a sweeping motion to their luxurious surroundings “a corporate jet the size of a commercial airliner—is evidence of my nephew's excesses.

“Now for your part, Mr. Potter,” she fixed her eyes on Henry in a stony glare, “your miraculous history of resurrecting corporate debacles seems too miraculous to be true.  But our expensive consultants have told us that you are the man of the hour.  So here we are, throwing ourselves upon your mercy.