Tomorrow’s World (27 page)

“Things like seeing perfectly sober people stop to listen to buskers in Barcelona and start to dance right there in the street…

“Sitting on the slopes of the acropolis in Athens at sunset and listening to people who'd been washed up by the tides of travel all around him; hearing every language under the sun and not understanding a single word, but knowing what was being said by watching the people as they spoke—the lovers with their arms around each other, the loneliness of solitary travelers looking on…

“Seeing the body of a saint being carried through the streets of Seville and feeling a kind of religious awe, even though he wasn't sure if he believed in God, let alone religion…

“Visiting the Kennedy Space Center and hearing a young boy ask an astronaut what size spaceships were, and the astronaut answering that spaceships come in all shapes and sizes but the most important one is planet Earth, and we're all part of the crew…

“Watching a bride and groom being toasted with vodka in St Petersburg, hearing chants of ‘Gorko! Gorko!' and learning that the word means bitter, and Russians used to shout it after a wedding because they believed life could be bitter like vodka, but the kiss of a bride made it sweet.”

Paula went very quiet, then said, “I love the sound of those names and places and things, but I can't connect with them or relate to them like you so obviously do. It's as if I lack an imagination for these things to capture, a race memory for them to awaken. They belong to a world so different from the community that I can't conceive of it—it takes more imagination than I have. If I read those articles it would be like they were written in a foreign language. They wouldn't fill me with wonder, they'd leave me cold. And listening to you talk about them makes me feel less than human in some way.”

“Believe me, you didn't seem less than human in the library, Paula.”

She gave me something like a smile, then said, “Speaking of libraries, I brought along a book to read on the flight. I didn't want to annoy you by playing with a logic puzzle.”

“You can tell that annoys me?”

She answered me with a laugh, unslung her shoulder bag and brought out a tattered old book.
Lichens and Mosses of the World.

“How far did you get before I took it from you to give Annie MacDougall a read?” I asked.

“Halfway through the third sentence of the second paragraph on Page 97.”

She could doubtless tell me word for word what the sentence said.

“I've been meaning to ask what was on your mind before the call came in about the druggie the other day, when you handed the book to me and said: ‘Does this mean anything to you?'“

“I'll show you,” I said. I reached for the tattered old volume and flicked through the pages until I came to the photo of the golden moss. “It looks like this is the last page Doug MacDougall read,” I told her as I handed back the book. “I'd been going to ask if you could think why those underlined words would change how he viewed life and the world.”

Like all Numbers, Paula loves a cerebral challenge. She turned her attention to the book and I got the feeling she'd forgotten I was there. The color drained from her face as she read the paragraph in question. She swallowed and read it again, and I knew it meant a whole lot more to her than it did to me.

“What is it?” I asked.

For once she was lost for words.

I took the book from her and re-read the underscored sentences, trying to see what I'd missed first time around and Paula had spotted right away.

Immaculata solaris,
pictured above, has no common name because it is not commonly known, living only in the most extreme of alpine environments. Studies show it to be remarkable for more than its vivid color and hardiness, for it is not part of any food chain
—
it does not feed on anything but sunlight, and nothing feeds on it.!!!

I could have looked at the paragraph forever and not seen anything more than a collection of innocuous words. “Paula—”

“I can see why he was killed,” she said, staring at the photo of the moss. “But not how. Unless, it must have been…”

“Paula, what's going on?”

She looked from the book to me, and said, “Don't you see: ‘it is not part of any food chain—it doesn't feed on anything but sunlight, and nothing feeds on it'.”

“So?” I said, exasperated at not being able to grasp the significance of the brief passage. “I can't think of anything less meaningful. I can't think of any less likely motive for murder.”

“It changes everything,” she said, as if thinking aloud rather than speaking to me. “At least, from the Ecosystem's point of view.”

“WHY?”

I'd spoken so loudly the other two couples looked over. I wasn't caring about them or Niagara Falls any more. All I cared about was discovering what had got Doug MacDougall killed and cast some sort of spell over Paula. Something in my voice must have broken that spell, because Paula looked at me and said, “Don't you see? If the moss isn't part of any food chain it's not part of any bigger picture, of any grand design. It's tangible proof life can exist for its own sake, just to enjoy the light and warmth of the sun.”

“And?”

“Consider the implications for the Ecosystem.”

“You've lost me.”

“Think about it: The Search for Meaning and Purpose is an integral part of the Ecosystem. At first people were drawn together by the crisis that destroyed the Old World. Now that we've adjusted to a new way of life, and are no longer faced by crisis, we need another common cause to unite us. That's what The Search for Meaning is.” She looked at the photo of
immaculata solaris.
“This moss undermines the very foundations of The Search.”

Now I saw what she was getting at, but still it was hard to connect the little patch of color in the faded photograph with a threat to life as we'd come to know it.

Paula helped me out. “It raises the possibility that there is no meaning, that our only purpose is to enjoy the light and warmth of the sun and blossom in beautiful colors before fading away.”

“So why has all this only come to light now, after the Ecosystem's been going for over fifty years? Hundreds of people will have read the book in that time.” Remembering how dull it was, I revised my estimate: “Well, tens.”

“Not many Names would make the connection. Most Numbers would, but it's not the sort of book a Number would read. MacDougall must have been the first person to reach the profound conclusion about
immaculata solaris
—but, unfortunately, he didn't realize its wider implications.”

“So he'd have put together a thesis, expecting a vast reward in pleasure points—”

“But the Ecosystem identified the threat this new knowledge posed, and wiped out the thesis—and the man who'd written it,” Paula said.

“A computer couldn't kill Doug MacDougall.”

“No, but it could have issued a directive ordering his death.”

“I've a good idea who would carry out such a directive without question.”

“A Pareto,” Paula said.

I nodded.

“A Pareto could move like a ghost, because the Ecosystem would literally open doors for it, and wipe all trace of its movements from the database,” Paula said.

I was glad I was sitting down because I felt dizzy as I tried to take it all in.

Paula was a couple of steps ahead of me, and those steps had taken her to an even more frightening place. “Tra—” She corrected herself and continued in a dread-filled voice, “Ben, have you used the Ecosystem to make any inquiries about
immaculata solaris?”

I nodded. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead and palms as I realized what she was getting at. If Doug was killed for what he knew, and the Ecosystem had reason to believe we were on the brink of finding out what Doug knew…

Suddenly my lottery win looked more like the upswing of an executioner's axe than a stroke of good fortune.

Paula's next words echoed my last thoughts: “Do you think it's just a coincidence your number came up?”

“I'm not a big believer in coincidence.”

“Neither am I. Especially when my life's at stake.”

I looked at the other two couples. They were deep in animated conversation, oblivious to the possibility they might be marked for death because of something I'd done. “What about them?” I said. “Isn't life sacrosanct to the Ecosystem? Isn't that one of its guiding principles?”

“Yes, but its over-riding imperative is to further the greater good. It would take whatever action is needed to ensure the good of the many, regardless of the cost to a few.”

“Still, wouldn't it have found a way to get rid of the two of us without sacrificing innocent lives, like it managed to do with Doug MacDougall?”

Paula looked at the two couples standing at the window and said, “Nobody bought their tickets for this flight, did they?”

“Apparently not.”

“Maybe their lottery win didn't have any more to do with good fortune than yours, Ben. I think we should go and speak to them, find out a bit more about what they do.”

I nodded. Worried I'd be distracted by that ludicrous pipe I said to Paula, “You better take Michael Rennie and—”

“What?”

“Sorry, the professor and his wife.”

Bemused, she nodded.

We got up and went our separate ways.

Reasoning it was a safe bet Jonny Adams didn't pose any sort of threat to the Ecosystem, I concentrated my charm on his good wife, the researcher at Community General. There wasn't much time, but one of the things they teach you in LogiPol is how to get people to tell you things you want to know without them realizing what either of you are doing.

It turned out her special interest was a bacterium called
deinococcus radiodurans,
which can apparently survive thousands of times as much radiation as a human. It was the sort of subject that would glaze my eyes under normal circumstances. But the present circumstances weren't exactly normal, and I didn't have to feign interest when I asked her to tell me more.

Alarm bells went off when she told me she'd recently discovered the enzyme which allowed
dinosaurus radiowhat-ever to
repair its damaged chromosomes.

My eyes did start glazing over when she started going into details, and I used the old ‘cocking my head to one side and pretending I'd just had a call on my hear-ring' routine to excuse myself.

I didn't know if Paula'd had a chance to find anything out, but there wasn't any more time to spare because the boarding call would be coming over the loudspeaker at any minute. So, after extricating myself from the clutches of Mrs. Dr. Adams and her bacteria, I extricated Paula from the clutches of the professor. This time it wasn't difficult to avoid making any cracks about his pipe because I had something else on my mind. I got it off my mind as soon as we were out of earshot of the Faradays and the Adams Family. “Heather Adams has made some sort of breakthrough in discovering an enzyme that lets chromosomes damaged by radiation repair themselves,” I told Paula. “I'm thinking that's got to have implications for repairing DNA damaged by pollution.”

“And restoring the fertility of plants and animals… And people,” Paula said.

I nodded. “Her number coming up when she's made such a profound discovery has to be more than a coincidence. The trouble is, I can see how Doug's discovery might be seen as a threat by the Ecosystem, but not how Heather Adams' breakthrough can be viewed as anything other than good news.”

“I think I can,” Paula said. “And then there's Faraday.”

“What's he done to earn the wrath of the Ecosystem?”

“Proved the existence of God.”

“What!”

Before she could explain, the loudspeakers crackled into life: “Passengers for Niagara Falls, please enter the airlock.”

“Ben, we can't get on this flight,” Paula said.

I didn't take any convincing. Something told me the jetliner wasn't going to get as far as Niagara Falls. It would either crash and burn, or put down in the middle of nowhere and take off minus its passengers.

“We can't let
them
get on, either,” I said as Jonny and Heather Adams and the Faradays approached.

“I'm not sure there's any point trying to stop them,” Paula told me, thinking with pure logic. “If all six of us refuse to board, it'll be obvious we know what's going on. We'll have condemned ourselves to death as surely as if we got on the flight.”

She was right, but as the two men and their wives walked past us into the airlock I couldn't look them in the eye. I started to go after them, not sure what to say but sure I had to say something. Paula pulled me back. “There's nothing we can do to save them, Ben. I'm not even sure there's anything we can do to save ourselves.”

The inner doors of the airlock remained open.

Waiting for us.

“Passengers Travis and Paula enter the airlock,” the Voice of Reason said.

Heather and Jonny and the Faradays turned around to see what the holdup was.

What they saw was not a pretty sight: Paula had shoved two fingers down her throat moments earlier and now she was doubled over, delivering what I believe used to be euphemistically referred to as a street pizza.

The smiles of the four people in the airlock froze, and then turned to expressions covering pretty much the whole spectrum of disgust. I expected good old Dr. Jonny to help, but Mar got was the only one who made a move.

Paula looked up as the professor's wife approached and said, “It's okay, it's something I ate this morning. It's not agreeing with me.”

One of the Pareto crewmen appeared, no doubt having been sent to find out what the delay was.

Paula repeated her story and said, “I don't think I can go on the—” she interrupted herself by conjuring up a less than delightful topping for the pizza. Margot retreated into the airlock, and the Pareto took a step back to avoid getting any splashes on his immaculate gray flight suit.