The Ambassador (14 page)

Strether shifted. He prodded his empty goblet, which was instantly refilled by a hovering waiter. ‘Would you be upset if I asked you about all that?’

Four men glanced from one to another, laughed indulgently and shrugged. He heard the Permanent Secretary hiss behind his hand to the Graf, ‘Tension on the Chinese border, a flu epidemic kills thousands in Russia, and that’s what he’s interested in. Typical American.’ The Graf smiled but did not reply. Strether waited.

Marius sipped Madeira. ‘You were impressed, weren’t you, Bill, with your visit to Porton Down?’ It felt like an opening sally.

‘“Pro bono publico”
– that’s the motto in the waiting room. But is it? All that … tidying up, the doctor called it. It’s not allowed in America.’

‘So your women come here, to private clinics, and they pay for the
in vitro
treatment.’ The Prime Minister fixed his eyes on Strether. ‘Especially those who have a history of congenital problems. Only the rich can afford to do that. The poor give birth to deformed children who, if not disposed of right away, suffer brutish short lives, and their parents with them. Where is the public gain in that?’

‘And the USA does have such programmes, which perhaps even President Kennedy hasn’t seen,’ Sir Robin joined in, ‘for key members of the armed forces or the space and nuclear projects, including civilian nuclear power. Anyone who might be exposed to radiation in their normal course of employment. Brought in by Congress in great secrecy after the mid-twenties explosions.’

Strether stared at him in astonishment. ‘Good Lord.’ He paused to let the information sink in. How did they know that, if he didn’t? Did James Kennedy really know? Was he, Strether, the only person in the dark? Was this some kind of conspiracy? With an effort he continued, ‘That’s the key, isn’t it? So tell me about these nuclear explosions. From your point of view.’

The Permanent Secretary took up the story. ‘Well, that’s when these programmes
became widespread here in the Union. At least, in those regions – states, then – able to finance and regulate them. It was felt wiser to encourage their existence where standards could be set than to drive them underground, to South America, or somewhere like that.’ Sir Robin put his fingers together in an exact V-shape. ‘I was a child but I can still remember the bitter arguments. Was it ethical to let nature take its course? The worst mutations would die out without intervention, it was said. Or should we use our God-given technologies to stem the avalanche of human misery, to clean up the damaged gene pool, and return quickly to something near normality?’ He faced Strether squarely. ‘For my part I’m convinced the right moral choices were made. Nothing could persuade me otherwise.’

Strether backtracked. He recalled his own President’s comments. ‘I suppose you were more badly affected by the explosions here than we were in the States.’

‘And possibly we felt more guilty,’ the Graf joined in. He had a slight lisp, which combined with his accent, forced Strether to pay close attention. The Ambassador suddenly had the clear conviction that his hosts had discussed his ignorance before his arrival and had cleared with each other what to say. It was no accident that he had been invited. Or that the Graf had turned up, apparently so unexpectedly. It had been planned, and for his benefit. This was not a conspiracy of
silence
. On the contrary.

The Graf was speaking. ‘Europe should have acted after Chernobyl. Those old nuclear stations were of atrocious design and poorly maintained. Governments in the wealthy nations were aware, but nothing was done. Fission material was stolen, rods left unprotected, workers off moonlighting elsewhere. Then –
boum
!’ His hands described an arc in the air, mushroom-shaped, then another. Diners nearby twisted to look. ‘
Boum! Boum!
A
chain reaction through Siberia, Ukraine and western Russia. Archangelsk, Vologda, Cerepovec, Vitebsk. Zitomir was the worst, near Kiev. A dozen power stations, one after another. And a radioactive cloud drifting westward.’

‘Which can still be detected in residues on the Rhine. Parts of Siberia are still uninhabitable,’ Sir Robin continued smoothly. It was extraordinary, Strether saw. They all spoke with similar inflections. And thought along the same lines. They did not need to be telepathic: it was true, then, that great minds think alike. Closely related ones certainly did.

‘But, Heinrich, if I may say so, we should not accept the blame,’ Maxwell Packer intervened. He can do it too, thought Strether woozily. It’s as if they’re tennis players, all at about the same high ability, and I’m the spectator. Not even on the court. He absorbed as much as he could, as Packer hinted that money had been on the table but had ended up with the Russian Mafia, who didn’t care much about ancient nuclear reactors. ‘The new stations were never built. I know for a fact that Germany offered huge sums to the Russian Federation government to replace their most dangerous units, but the Kremlin was very sniffy about it. The implication, they claimed, was that the Germans thought the Russians incompetent.’

‘We did, and they were.’ The Graf smiled ruefully. ‘Am I allowed to say that? It was a long time ago.’

‘The lesser of two evils,’ Strether mumbled. He felt seriously out of his depth. ‘Well, I suppose if you must have genetic cleansing, it couldn’t be done better. I grant you that.’

Sir Robin caught his eye. ‘A great deal of thought has been given to it – a
great
deal. These technologies came through research on genetically engineered ruminoids, which you know more about than I do, Ambassador.’

‘The early work in England was financed by the Milk Marketing Board,’ Marius intervened wickedly. ‘The hunt for bigger udders.’

‘Don’t trivialise, Marius,’ Sir Robin chided. ‘In the same era, the Human Genome Project was under way – the mapping of our genes, to establish which amino acid links had which role. The significance of that success could not be over-estimated. I liken it to the translation of the Bible into the vernacular; the precursor and genesis of spectacular social change. The techniques of, ah,
alteration
, were not far behind.’

‘But the
need
wasn’t there, not in sufficient numbers, not till after the explosions.’ The Prime Minister pushed the leafy wreath, now somewhat battered, back from one eyebrow. ‘You’d be surprised – some groups campaigned for these techniques to be banned on the grounds that we should value every human being, however damaged.’

‘It is a viewpoint,’ Strether sighed. He was feeling slightly sick. The others did not appear to have heard him.

‘Legalised, regulated, inspected, standardised. Don’t forget, in Europe we have the strictest controls. Some activities are not legal.’ Sir Robin dipped his fingers in a lemon-scented finger bowl and reached for a towel.

‘Like cloning?’ Strether said automatically.

The atmosphere turned frosty. Four faces glared at him. The Prime Minister glanced at the ceiling and whistled softly. Marius prodded his arm sharply. ‘Nobody here is a – what you said. It isn’t done. I’d have thought your friend Dr Pasteur would have made that amply clear.’

Strether blinked rapidly at his neighbours, three of whom resembled each other so closely they could have been triplets, though of different ages. Maybe they
were
triplets, parts of a frozen embryo, defrosted from time to time so that another cell could grow to maturity. He bit his lip.

‘I ’pologise. Didn’t mean to offend. So you tell me. How d’you regulate? What’s allowed? How do you decide?’

The Graf and the Permanent Secretary whispered briefly again to each other, their faces turned away. The evening’s lesson, Strether judged, had not gone quite in the direction they had intended.

‘My dear chap,’ Sir Lyndon spoke distinctly. ‘The procedures can be carried out only in a licensed facility. We are particularly hostile to certain – types of activity.’

‘Such as?’

‘Personal vanity. The individual who wishes to preserve himself for repetition after death. That’s a misunderstanding, of course. The megalomaniac thinks it’ll be
his
thoughts,
his
soul inside those baby heads. They won’t. They are separate human beings. Different environments. The very fact that they’re
not
him makes them different from Daddy.’

‘That’s not science fiction, you know. It’s been done,’ the Graf spoke quietly as if he did not wish them to be overheard by other guests, ‘usually by religious or political fanatics. Remember when the North Koreans created ten identical embryos of Kim Il Sung? And a faction in China was putting together a new Chairman Mao till their government found out. The last Dalai Lama, the one who died in 2015, was preserved partly in a freezer, and partly as five growing foetuses, perfect in every respect. Europe was not able to stop that. Fortunately they each turned out good and honourable men, quite harmless, but there’s no
guarantee.’

‘But most science fiction has been tripe, you must agree,’ Maxwell Packer joined in. ‘Creating a race of slave labourers, for example. Why ever, struggling as we are against
overpopulation
, would anyone want to do that? We have enough trouble finding space and food for the world’s billions, let alone creating any more. Anyway, slaves are useless. Intelligent paid workers are best. The better you care for your operatives, the better they perform. Slavery was always bad economics. The north of your country, Strether, beat the south in the Civil War, did it not?’

‘It did. That is correct,’ Strether conceded. He could hear his own speech slurring. ‘You’re talking quality versus quantity. I see.’

Tea and coffee – fourteen flavoured infusions of the former, seven of the latter – were being served. Minute
petits fours
, shaped as moons and stars and flavoured with white chocolate, Drambuie and Amaretto tempted even Strether’s sated palate. An elderly attendant in a black tunic wheeled in a hookah, which gave off a pungent odour that Strether identified in stupefied amazement as unmodified marijuana. Marius and Packer indulged; the others waved it away. The evening was drawing to its close.

The Prime Minister swung his legs over the sofa and sat up. ‘Dear Strether. You have finally grasped the point. We need more brilliant brains, not dumb slaves. Another Beethoven would do nicely. Health specialists. Computer freaks. Writers – we never have enough creative people. If I had my way, we’d enhance appreciation of the arts, and put mathematical ability into every citizen at the same time. The performing companies would be financially smart enough to stay out of debt, and there’d never be an empty seat. We’d never need to subsidise another theatre or orchestra. Eureka!’

The joke was an old one, but was greeted with indulgent laughter. The men rose, stretched, tidied garments into place, wished each other good night.

As Strether changed back reluctantly into daytime clothes, his head ached and his feelings were as jumbled as the discarded toga at his feet. He oscillated between unfeigned approval of the club and dismay at the conversation. The wine, the food, the ambience were dazzling. These remarkable men had overpowered him with their knowledge, their style. He felt tossed and pummelled by their intellects, incapable of matching them on any level.

They operated from inborn instincts: they were bred to their jobs, to their lives, as he was not. His clumsy prodding had been parried with ease. They had patronised him completely, but he deserved it. He envied them, and the glamorous, erudite society through which they glided with so little effort.
Over which they presided
. For if Marius was correct, then these were the men in charge – or some of them. And they had not gained their positions, as he had, by writing cheques for election campaigns.

He could even picture himself, on his eventual return home, explaining their genetic programme to his fellow citizens. Stage one was no more sinister than corrective surgery to a club foot. Stage two could be compared to orthodontics or the fitting of crowns to eroded teeth. No one, not even the most hellfire-breathing preacher, could raise sustained objections. It was science at its most triumphant: truly for the advancement of mankind.

And yet: what about intelligence enhancement? There had been no opportunity to inquire. If the objective was to help
all
mankind, wasn’t that an exception? Mightn’t it create too big a gap between those who benefited and their offspring, generation by generation, and
those who didn’t? In time, upward mobility for the non-enhanced – for ordinary people – would become impossible. Surely that was on no one’s agenda … but might it happen without anyone noticing?

His mind could not cope. Ambivalence mocked him at every turn. He had been given sanitised responses, yet so much was going on that he had not been told about. And Marius seemed to blow every which way about the issues: Strether could not fathom him.

Lisa, however. The lady with the honey-flecked eyes. He would ask her. She at least, he sensed, might give honest answers. As far as she could.

When he entered the embassy his vidphone was bleeping. He turned on the message recorder and was startled to hear a female voice and see a sweet face fill the small screen.

‘Ambassador Strether – Bill? This is Lisa Pasteur. Thank you so much for a pleasant evening. Could you call me? I’d like to fix up a meeting. Speak to you soon.’

The image vanished; suddenly the screen fizzed with static. Over the jagged black and white lines came an urgent voice:

‘Demonstration in Trafalgar Square. Protect the workers! Support us! Tonight.’

Strether stared at the machine, knocked its side, twiddled a knob. The screen had gone dead. When he tried to run the digital recording back, only Lisa’s face reappeared. The static message appeared to have wiped itself.

He rocked back on his heels, and resolved to call her early in the morning. 

Lisa Pasteur pressed the icon for the orange squeezer, reached in the fridge and removed the fresh juice. Absent-mindedly, glass in hand, she opened and closed cupboards. Since most foods were irradiated, everything kept for at least half a year; nothing went soft or overripe, no fats went rancid. The refrigerator’s main purpose was to keep her drinks chilled.

Her job was too demanding to allow browsing through the shopping mall. The vidphone link brought a repeat order monthly to her apartment, skinless bananas or oranges and long-life skimmed milk and oatmeal, ready-packs of fish and chicken, salads, breads. Plus a small box of her only vice, chocolate walnut whips, to be nibbled while wrestling with some intractable problem brought home. Once she had been caught eating one when she answered the vidphone to her office, and her staff had teased her. She did not cook; canteen fare at Porton Down was excellent – a perk – and she could eat out with friends when an evening came free, which had not been often, lately. An orderly life, but one driven by work, she reflected moodily. From which something was missing.

Lisa walked restlessly around the kitchen-diner. In the background the radio played a news magazine programme. Interviews with Ministers were getting more anodyne day by day. The newspapers, when scrolled down on to the wall screen, were no better: government statements delivered in a flat, toneless voice, trifling personal stories that were mere pap and gossip, with no serious inquiry or analysis. ‘Today Prime Minister Sir Lyndon Everidge welcomed improved inflation figures …’; ‘Retired nurse Dolly Wilmut celebrates her four million euro lottery win …’; ‘Convicted murderer’s father admits to love nest tangle …’; ‘Manchester United club chairman Maxwell Packer today signed Arsenal forward …’ That man Packer seemed to pop up everywhere, but seldom with reports of substance. Frustrated, she told the radio to switch itself off.

Had she been working too hard? Was that the explanation? She passed a hand worriedly over her eyes. In a mirror she caught sight of her face and the beginnings of a frown-line between her brows. She touched the holograph symbol: within five seconds the image of the back of her head came into focus, moving about as she turned her head this way and that. The hair curled damply on the nape of her neck. The new earrings were charming and set off her small lobes. The jaw-line had not sagged, not yet. The eyes looked tired from every angle, the skin under the lids puffy. Overwork was certainly to blame for that. It would be some years before she would qualify for, or need, her first free bout of cosmetic surgery.

The Ambassador. It was as if he were in the room, with her. Him, and not the tiny ubiquitous camera in the kitchen, which she could ignore. She had often talked softly to herself when things troubled her; now, for all that their acquaintance had a duration of mere weeks, she had begun to talk to him in her imagination.

Why him, of all people? Was it to do with his stolid, shambling presence, so different from everyone she knew? Alien but oddly comforting, he was also gentle, honest and kind. He had been shy yet pleased when she had let slip that her singledom was no longer her preference. An admission, he seemed to suggest, of which she should not be ashamed, and which he appreciated without question, for it applied also to himself. That alone must draw them together. Alien and quirky, a puzzle. He was certainly a big contrast to the thin-lipped men who were the usual visitors to Porton Down. But that could be only part of the
explanation.

Because he wasn’t an NT? Surely not. That fact made it harder: he was instinctively hostile to the programme, or had been originally. But she’d vigorously done her duty to defend and justify it. She could be content with her performance. She’d persuaded him that the inherent dilemmas and potential ill uses were not forgotten by scientists. Yet it had been an unusual and disturbing experience to find herself hinting so strongly to Strether that the problems were real and no longer entirely theoretical.

Why him? Because he was an outsider? A foreigner? The frown-line deepened. That was dangerous. The rule-book at Porton Down was crystal clear. Outsiders were to be avoided. Anxieties should be discussed with a line manager. There was a disputes procedure. In a disagreement, the prestigious Chartered Institute of Human Genetics would back her up, or the First Division, the trade union for top civil servants. She had toyed with these possibilities. Or, risking dismissal, she could discuss the matter with an MP, a route guaranteed to cause a public fuss. Had that been her intention, Prince Marius would have been useful. But he had that knowing upper-caste cynicism entirely missing from Bill Strether. One could be trusted, the other could not.

The timepiece on the wall pinged. She would have to hurry. Strange, that time had begun to matter so much. Time, for herself, and her body – that was foolish, for at her age a wait of five or ten years before seeking a partner in marriage was insignificant, given that she’d reach her hundredth birthday with ease, barring accidents. But the mental image kept emerging, insistently, of the application for a child permit, the interviews and form-filling, and the delicious joint task of choosing the baby’s eye colour, its personality traits, its future. Most of all, after peering down a microscope for so long at other people’s embryos, she dared to dream of the wonder of creation. She had begun to face her own jumbled feelings squarely: she ached to hold her own child in her arms.

There was no rationality about it, but it was a fact. And how might Bill Strether cope with all that?

She drained the glass and placed it in the ultraviolet box along with the used cereal bowl and cutlery. They would be washed sterile. Banana in hand, she wandered towards the study. The time pressure came not merely from that biological clock and her own indecipherable psyche. It came, most definitely, from the increasingly confused mess at the laboratory itself.

She paused at the study door. These converted car showrooms had their advantages: in antique buildings ceilings were high and space was cheap, but surfaces were not self-cleaning and attracted dust while the air-conditioning could be erratic. This one, the agent had assured her, had been a top-class garage. He had mentioned Jaguar, Porsche, Alfa Romeo, names that meant nothing to her. She had virtually no use for a car, and no curiosity about their history.

At the desk she spoke crisply to the computer and logged into her module at the laboratory. It was a convenient arrangement; she could hibernate at home, uninterrupted, and cudgel her brain. Some top-secret material was barred, as might be expected. As Assistant Director she could request access, but needed a reason. Anything she had developed herself, or with which her section was involved, was open to her.

Just to be sure, she tapped in her password rather than speak it. The camera in the
kitchen could not see in here but it could listen. Not that any electronic links were secure – that much was obvious. She shook her head as if to free it from a blindfold: never before had she found the constant surveillance oppressive. It used to reassure her that all was well, that her well-being was under control. So why did it suddenly bother her so much?

She was in.

The year’s files were listed. The computer asked, in its throaty male voice (her choice, that), what she required. She tapped in the date of the last batch of missing files. The screen went blank. The voice sighed, ‘No such files found. Sorry.’

Same as before. The mystery of the missing data had been shared with Professor Churchill and recorded. But the Director had been blandly dismissive and had suggested that next time she learn to save them. It was after a further, thoroughly unsatisfactory session with him that it had dawned on her that he wasn’t nearly as worried about the loss as she was.

The Director had hinted that she was over-anxious. Said she shouldn’t concern herself. Why, in heaven’s name, should he take that approach? And, if he persisted, what should she do?

Whistle-blowers were never popular. They undermined the system, pointed fingers at colleagues, made the air ring with accusation. Such people were to be despised, excluded. Sneaks. It had never been her way. On the other hand, she had never before found herself in a spot where things were going badly awry, or when it had become so peculiarly difficult to use the usual channels. Nor could she see why that might be.
Unless somebody was deliberately sabotaging her research
. Somebody quite idiotic. But capable of covering their tracks – and of avoiding detection.

Lisa peered closer. She put the machine to
Record
and repeated the attempt. Same result. Then she commanded it to replay the recording at its slowest speed. It seemed an age until she saw the evidence in front of her, a single screen that must have taken less than one-hundredth of a second, but which her sharp eyes had not missed.

Flickering before her nose was the simple phrase ‘ACCESS DENIED.’

But why?

Pulling on her tunic she told the computer to close down and to erase her most recent instructions. Four times files had been lost, at irregular intervals; she suspected that were she to run the recording trick for each erasure, the outcome would be the same. The files hadn’t been lost. They had been placed under lock and key.

After a moment’s hesitation she slipped on her old ring, the one with the tiny insect set in Baltic amber. In all likelihood Strether would not know what to make of the mystery either, but the process of telling him might clear her mind, and her conscience. Her records clerk, Winston, at Milton Keynes, would have some ideas. He was so smart at the odd quirks of their joint work. It would be great to see him again, although they were in e-mail contact as tasks dictated. For the Bunker, as it was known, was where both she and the Ambassador, by arrangement, were heading.

It could be a very important day.

Winston Kerry gritted his teeth, then gave up. He picked up the control and aimed it at the camera. Only he knew that this would run a loop of film of him toiling away at his console. With a sigh, he opened a drawer in his desk, took out the black tape, dragged his chair over to
the ceiling smoke detector and blanked out its apertures. Then he loped back to his desk and took out an illicit packet of South American cigarettes. There was time enough, just, before his visitors arrived. He was standing thus, cigarette and lighter in hand, when the door hatch began to hiss. Hurriedly he threw the packet back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

On the threshold stood his senior scientific officer, Lisa Pasteur, and a tall, shambling figure in a smartly cut tunic whom he did not know. Lisa herself was in a cerise tunic and skirt, which set off her dark features. Her hair, he noted, was not scraped back as usual but allowed to flow over her shoulders, a style of remarkable femininity for her. She was wearing jewellery. Winston glanced from the woman to her escort. She seemed more than usually conscious of the man’s presence, turning to catch his eye frequently, touching his arm. Not the cool ice maiden. Interesting.

‘Winston, this is Ambassador Strether, from the United States.’ Since Winston was already on his feet, he ambled across the room and shook hands. He was taller than the Ambassador, who had to look up to him.

‘My family were domiciled in the USA for a while,’ Winston remarked, ‘in what’s now the state of the West Indies.’

‘Really?’ Strether was a little unsure how to proceed, Winston noted with private amusement.

‘Oh, sure. But we were not willing immigrants. Not exactly.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Strether nodded, his eyes watchful.

‘My name Kerry comes from a slaver. He was, by all accounts, a prolific Lothario. I’m a Macdonald of Clan Ranald. We’re none of us as black as we’re painted. Sir.’

Lisa pursed her lips. ‘Stop talking politics, Winston. Put that family history away, please. We haven’t time for tomfoolery.’

The Ambassador’s face registered surprise that Winston did not seem to take offence: but then, he wasn’t to know that this was his usual opening gambit, a provocative line offered to test a visitor’s reaction. Winston knew himself to be impelled by a cool, laconic resentment towards most of the world, tempered by a respectful admiration for Lisa. He saw the American bite his lip.

Lisa walked Strether about, pointing out various pieces of equipment and outlining their uses. The Bunker was linked by fibre optic cable to Porton Down. Many decades before it had been decided that records and research should be separated to reduce the risk of contamination or catastrophic loss. Back-up files were maintained in Edinburgh with alternative passwords. It would be impossible either deliberately or by accident to destroy the lot.

‘You should understand, Ambassador, that Mr Kerry is the crucial element of my entire operation,’ Lisa was saying. ‘He inputs my data daily. He checks, cleans and analyses it. That frees me up to concentrate on the laboratory, but he’ll answer a query for me day or night, virtually, as if he were in the next room.’

‘It helps that I’m not,’ Winston said gloomily. ‘What with you with your chocolate, and me with my … personal habits. You’d have thrown me out in five minutes.’ Lisa paused. ‘Winston. You’ve been jumping about from one foot to the other ever since we got here. And,’ she peered closer, ‘you have guilt written all over you. What’s up?’

‘I’m desperate for a smoke, that’s all. A ciggie. I was about to light one when you
arrived.’

Lisa laughed. ‘Addict. You are a dope, Winston. You know what those narcotics do to you? And they’re illegal. You could be dismissed – purged, even, deprived of your right to employment.’ She glanced up at the camera: it had not moved to register their arrival. She smothered a giggle.

‘I know. But here in the Bunker underground people are allowed some indulgences. C’mon. I won’t puff in your direction.’ He waited, took their silence as acquiescence, then gratefully dived into the drawer, found the packet again and lit up at last, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs.

‘What they do for me,’ he said, a moment later, ‘is make me feel alive. Like a human being. A pinch of grass, unreformed, is even better, but you’d be strolling outta here with your eyes rolling and
then
the game’d be up. Now then, lady, gent, what can I do for you?’