"Chase. No, I don't mind," Chase said. Then it would be her father's problem and not his.
On the way to the elevator she said, "My name is Cheryl Detrick. Thanks for coming in, Mr. Chase. I nearly ruined my traveling clock."
There was a moment's delayed reaction before he said, "Detrick? Is your father Theo Detrick, the marine biologist?"
"You know of him?" It seemed to please her.
"He wrote the bible," Chase said sincerely.
"Are you a delegate?"
"Yes. Sort of. That's my field too."
"And mine. Postgraduate at Scripps."
"We marine biologists should stick together," Chase said, smiling down at her.
"My sentiments precisely," Cheryl said with feeling.
The doors opened and Cheryl moved ahead of him into the elevator. Chase wouldn't have credited himself with such lightning reactions. Mindful of her sore wrist, he took her by the scruff of the neck and pulled her out again as the man in white lunged forward, hands outspread like brown claws. Chase kicked instinctively, aiming for the crotch, and missed, landing just below the second button of the immaculate white suit.
The man grunted and snarled a curse and fell backward, sprawling, as the elevator doors mercifully closed.
8
Perhaps coincidence ran deeper than anyone suspected. Conceivably there was an ordered pattern, a system, to which everyone was blind, perceiving it only as a series of random events conglomerating at a particular point in time and space, which for the sake of convenience and for want of anything better they called "coincidence."
"Can I get you a drink?"
Chase started, broke from his contemplation.
"The refrigerator is full of stuff," Cheryl said, smiling warmly at him. "What would you like?"
"Er--whiskey, with ice. Thanks."
Cheryl gave a cute little bunny dip. "Coming right up, sir."
Boris Stanovnik shook his head in a perplexed fashion, though he was half-smiling. "I like your daughter very much, Theo, but I do not understand her. She dictates to life, not life to her."
Yet another coincidence, Chase was thinking. That he should be sitting in Theo Detrick's hotel room with Boris Stanovnik, the man he had come all this way to meet. It gave him a prickly feeling on the back of his neck and he was conscious of a vague sense of unreality. But the glass of Scotch in his hand was real enough, and the taste reassuringly familiar.
The big Russian leaned forward, elbows on knees, a glass of beer looking tiny in his clasped hands. "You think what happened is to do with what we were discussing?" he asked Theo.
"Of course it is." Sitting in the bright halo of light from the corner lamp Theo Detrick's face seemed darker and craggier than ever. "They warned me officially, through the proper channels, and then thought it necessary to make the warning more direct. More personal."
"They?" Boris said in amazement. "The conference committee?"
"No, the people acting through the committee."
"But who are 'they'?"
"The State Department. The CIA. Some political lobby or other. I don't know, Boris. Somebody with something to lose."
Boris was still frowning. "It's possible that the man who attacked Cheryl was with your State Department?"
Theo nodded.
"He would make the threat so openly?"
"Sure, that's nothing," Cheryl said, making herself comfortable on the foot of the bed nearest the window. "I'm surprised he didn't shoot me in the back and leave a note pinned to my panties. Threats, coercion, blackmail, frame-ups, these people are experts." She gave a sardonic smile. "America is a democracy, don't forget. You're free to threaten anybody you want to."
Chase was mystified by all this. He said, "That paper of yours must be pure dynamite, Dr. Detrick. What were you intending to speak about?"
"Its title is 'Back to the Precambrian,' Dr. Chase," and when he saw Chase's blank expression, went on, " 'Precambrian' is the term I have given to describe the reversion of the earth's atmosphere to what it was two billion years ago when the constituents were principally a highly corrosive mixture of hydrogen, ammonia, and methane. But no oxygen," he added significantly.
"You believe the earth is reverting to that state?"
"Unfortunately, I do," Theo said gravely. "I wish I could draw other conclusions from the work I've done, but . . ." He shook his head sadly.
"Your work on diatoms, you mean?"
"On the phytoplankton species in general. In the equatorial Pacific, which is normally one of the most productive regions of the ocean, all classes of phytoplankton are in drastic decline. As the oceans provide most of the oxygen requirement there must inevitably come a time when ths level of oxygen produced is reduced. Possibly within the next twenty to fifty years. Within a hundred years all the free oxygen at present circulating in the atmosphere will either have been consumed or will be locked up in various oxidation compounds, such as rocks, decaying matter, and so on. When that happens we shall be left with an atmosphere similar in composition to what it was in the Precam-brian period, two billion years ago." He gave a wan smile. "Man is a most arrogant species, Dr. Chase. He forgets that for millions of years this was a sterile planet with a poisonous atmosphere. It was only with the liberation of oxygen into the air that our form of organic life was able to evolve--but the biosphere doesn't owe us a living. We take it as a God-given right that oxygen is there for us to breathe, when in fact it is an accident, a biological quirk, so to speak, of nature."
Chase said diffidently, "I don't question the validity of your research, Dr. Detrick, but frankly I find your prognosis hard to take. I don't know the actual figure, but the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is immense--" "1,140,000,000,000,000 tons," Theo said.
"Surely that's more than enough to meet our needs for the foreseeable--indeed, the unforeseeable--future? I assume that phytoplankton growth won't cease altogether, so presumably the oxygen level will continue to be 'topped up.' And there are the green plants on land that supply a sizable proportion of oxygen, at least thirty percent."
Theo sipped his drink, sunk for a moment in thought. "I take your point, Dr. Chase," he said finally. "You are absolutely right to make it. But in considering the oxygen yield of the biosphere and whether it is sufficient for our long-term needs, there are two sides to the equation. Let us call them 'profit and loss' and draw up a global balance sheet.
"On the profit side we have an abundance of green plants, in the oceans and on land, which daily perform the miracle of photosynthesis, absorbing the rays of the sun and through the chlorophyll in bacteria producing energy that is used to break down water molecules into their component parts. The hydrogen thus released is combined with carbon to supply sugar for the plant's own needs, while the oxygen is given off as a waste product." Theo held up his fist, which shook slightly. This process, far more complex than that taking place in a petrochemical plant--and, what's more, happening inside a group of cells less than one billionth of an inch in diameter--is the unique factor that allows animal life to exist on this planet. Without it"--the fist flicked open to become a knife blade that sliced the air--"nothing!"
"I think it's safe to assume that Dr. Chase is familiar with the miracle of photosynthesis," Cheryl said mildly.
"Yes, yes, please forgive me." Theo spread his hands in apology. "You must understand that this and little else has occupied my thoughts for a long time." He eased back in the chair, his profile etched against the lamplight. "That, as I say, is the profit side of the equation. On the loss side we have the consumption of oxygen: every form of life that respirates, including man, and every kind of combustion process-- power plants, factory furnaces, automobiles, aircraft, domestic boilers --everything in fact that burns fossil fuels.