Earth

Logan thought of protesting. By now his associates in the restaurant might be worried. Or they might be incoherent from alcohol or assume he’d gone off to bed…

He took the plaque. Making certain the recording cubes could read over his shoulder, he put his thumb on the page-turn button and began skimming. Silence stretched in the limo as he read. Finally, he said, “I don’t believe it.”

“Now you understand why I insisted you check my credentials, Mr. Eng, so you’ll know this is no hoax.”

“But this episode here”

“You haven’t seen the actual recording, yet. It’s much more vivid than numbers. Allow me.” The man expertly dialed the correct data page. “This was taken by a high-altitude reco

Depicted now in front of Logan was a moonlit seascape. Calm waters glistened under still tropical air.

Suddenly, the ocean surface flattened in eight places. Despite the angle of view and foreshortening, Logan could tell the dimples formed a perfect octagon.

As quick as the dips appeared, they suddenly ballooned outward, joined now by an outer ring of smaller bulges, twenty in all. Scale numbers ran down the side of the screen, and Logan whistled.

The hillocks collapsed again, much quicker than nor-mal gravity could have pulled them down. Forty-nine depressions replaced them this time. The center eight were now too deep for the camera to measure.

Then, suddenly, the screen erupted with light. Faster than Logan could follow, a handful of bright streaks speared upward, perpendicular to the ocean. They were gone in an instant, leaving behind a diffracting pattern of circular ripples, spreading and subsiding until at last all was still once more.

“That’s the best example,” Spivey commented. “It was accompanied by seismic activity bearing some similarity to the Spanish quakes.”

“Where…” Logan asked hoarsely. “Where did the water go?”

The colonel’s smile was distant, enigmatic. “Just missed the moon, by less than three diameters. Of course, by that point it was pretty diffuse… Are you all right, Mr. Eng?” Genuine concern suddenly crossed Colonel Spivey’s face as he leaned forward. “Would you like a drink?”

Logan nodded. “Yes… thank you. I think I need one very much.”

For a little while, despite the car’s whispering air-conditioner, he found it rather difficult to breathe.

□ Net Vol. A69802-11 04/06/38 14:34:12UT. User G-654-11-7257-Aab12 AP News Alert: 7+: Key-select: “Conservation,” “animal rights,” “conflict”:

In the ongoing, sometimes violent confrontation between the International Fish and Fowl Association and the animal rights group known as No-Flesh, a surprise development today. To the amazement of many, the Hearth Conclave of the North American Church of Gaia has intervened in favor of the world’s largest organization of duck hunters.

According to the Most Reverend Elaine Greenspan, sister-leader of Washington State and this month’s spokesper for the conclave:

“We have examined all the evidence and decided that in this case neither hunting nor the consumption of animal tissue harms Our Mother. Rather, the activities of IFFA are clearly beneficial and meritorious.”

In light of the church’s long-standing abjuration of the slaughter of warm-blooded animals, Greenspan explained:

“Our position against red meat is often misunderstood. It’s not a moral stand against camivorality, per se. There is nothing inherently evil about eating or being eaten, for that is clearly part of Gaia’s plan. Human beings evolved with meat as part of their diet.

“Our campaign has been waged because great herds of grazing cattle and sheep were destroying much of the Earth. Vast quantities of needed grain were being wasted as fodder. And finally, modified food animals such as beef steers are abominations, robbed of the ultimate dignity of wild creatures, to have a chance to fight or flee, to struggle to survive.

“After hearing the arguments of IFFA representatives, we find that none of these objections apply to them.

“Similarly, our broad stand against hunting was based on the scarcity of wildlife in comparison with the chief predator, humankind. But this does not hold where hunters are few, responsible, and sportsmanly, and where the prey species is renewable.

“Contrary to our initial expectations, we have determined that IFFA duck hunters have been among the most ardent supporters of conservation, spending millions to buy up and preserve wetlands, pursuing polluters and poachers, and regulating their own activities admirably. Any complete ban on hunting would, we estimate, lead to catastrophic loss of remaining migratory routes. The church therefore rules that IFFA is beneficial to society and to Gaia, and grants its blessing.”

In fact, there are precedents for this surprising action. Thirty years ago, for instance, the church campaigned against the’ selling off of many obsolete military bases, which they deemed better preserved in that state than sold to be developed as commercial property.

To today’s a

“This takes NorA ChuGa hypocrisy to new heights. Killing is killing and murder is murder. All animals have rights, too. Let IFFA and their new allies beware. What they do unto others may yet be visited on them!”

When asked if this was a threat of violence, the spokesper declined elaboration.

• BIOSPHERE

Nelson Grayson was having trouble grasping “cooperation” and “competition.” The two words were defined as opposites, and yet his teacher claimed they were essentially the same thing.

Moreover, at some deep level Nelson felt he’d secretly suspected it all along.

“I’m still confused, Professor,” he admitted at their next meeting, though it cost him to say it. Each time Dr. Wolling granted one of these sessions, he feared she was finally going to give up on his slowness, his need for palpable examples at every point of theory.

She looked pale, sitting across the table from him. That might just be because she spent so much time with those enigmatic strangers, performing mysterious surveys in the abandoned gold mine below ark four. Still, Nelson worried about her health.

Frail she might seem, but her gaze was unwavering. “Why don’t you start off where you do understand, Nelson?”

He quashed an urge to consult his note plaque. Once, Dr. Wolling had slapped his hand when he did that too often. “Respect your own thoughts!” she had snapped.

“All right,” he breathed. “The Gaia theory says Earth stays a good place for life because life itself keeps changing the planet. Otherwise, it would’ve gone into a permanent ice age, like Mars. Or a runaway, um, greenhouse instability — losing all its water like Venus did.”

“More likely Venus than Mars, actually,” she agreed. “Earth is rather close to its sun for a water world, near the i

For this he had a ready answer, the standard one. “Early algae and bacteria helped ocean chemistry take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. They bound the carbon into their skeletons, which, uh, sedimented to the sea floor. So the atmosphere got clearer—”

“More transparent to heat radiation.”

“Yeah. So heat could escape, and the oceans could stay wet even as the sun got hotter. In fact, the air temperature’s stayed roughly the same for four billion years.”

“Including ice ages?”

Nelson shrugged. “Trivial fluctuations.”

He liked the phrase. Liked the way it rolled off the tongue. He had practiced it last night, hoping there’d be a chance to use ;t. “Like the heating everybody’s so worried about these days. Sure it’s making terrible problems, and a big die-back may be coming… including maybe us. But that’s not so unusual. In a million years or so, the balance will swing back.”