Permafrost(4)
“We are listening,” said Ivan.
“If something unfortunate should occur downstream, something that slips through the threshold filters, I don’t want Miss Lidova to suffer any upstream consequences. I’d ask you to suspend the link, at least for the next twelve hours. Is that understood?”
Dmitri answered: “The link is now suspended, Director Cho. We will monitor the downstream traffic, nonetheless, and report accordingly.”
“Very good,” Cho said, moving to switch off the intercom. “We’ll reinstate the connection in the morning. In the meantime, Miss Lidova will file her written report.”
*
Beyond the twelve hundred people gathered at the experiment, and a select number of high-level officials beyond it, no one in the world knew that there was a project underway to travel through time.
I’d certainly had no idea, on the day they came to recruit me. The first sign of their approach was a low double-drumming, as their big twin-rotored military helicopter swept in low across the plains around Kogalym. I’d become aware of the sound through the thin walls of the prefab room where I was attempting to conduct a mathematics class. Naturally I’d assumed that the helicopter was there on some other business, nothing that concerned me. I might have ruffled a few feathers in my time, standing up for one child over another, making enemies of this family over that one, but I really wasn’t worth the trouble of a visit from the officers of World Health.
So I told myself, until the man came into my classroom.
It was near the end of the hour, so I kept at the lesson, my hand only shaking a little bit. The man was standing at the back, flanked by two guards. He watched me carefully, as if I was being assessed on the quality of my teaching.
Finally the pupils filed out and the man came forward. He sat down at one of the front desks and signalled me to drag a chair over. It was awkward since the chairs were too small and low for either of us, especially my big, burly visitor.
“You are an excellent teacher, Miss Lidova,” he said by way of introduction. “I wish that I’d had you when I was younger. I do not think I would have found Pythagoras quite such a puzzle.”
“May I help you, sir?”
“I am Leo Cho,” he said, settling his hands before him. “Director of World Health.” He had a soft voice despite his large frame, and his hands were long-fingered and delicate-looking, as if they might have belonged to a surgeon or pianist. “I’ve come to Kogalym because I believe you might be of assistance to me.”
“I’m not sure how I can be,” I said, with due deference.
“Let me be the judge of that.” He was not Russian; Chinese perhaps, but he spoke our language very well indeed, almost too meticulously to pass as a true native speaker. It was no longer unusual to have foreigners active in regional administration: since the Scouring, World Health had been moving its senior operatives around with little regard for former national boundaries. What was the point of countries, when civilisation was only a generation away from total extinction? “What I have,” Cho continued, “is a proposition—a job offer, so to speak.”
I looked around the classroom, trying to see it from a stranger’s point of view. There were geometry diagrams, and pictures of famous mathematical and scientific figures from history, but also odd personal touches, like the chart showing different kinds of butterflies and moths, and another with a huge photomicrograph of a wasp’s compound eye.
“I already have one, sir.”
He nodded back at the door that the pupils had just slouched through. “What would you say is the main difficulty facing those children, Miss Lidova?”
I didn’t have to think very hard about that.
“Nutrition.”
Cho gave a nod, seemingly pleased with my answer. “I’m in complete agreement. They’re all half-starved. We adults can put up with it, but children are developing individuals. These hardships are damaging an entire generation.”
“It’d be a problem,” I answered in a low voice, “if there was any worry of there being another generation.”
“Things are admittedly quite difficult.” He took a slip of grubby, folded-over paper out of his shirt pocket, holding it between his fingers like a single playing card. I expected him to show me whatever was on the paper, but he just held it there like a private talisman. “No suitable seed stocks came through the Scouring unscathed. The national and international seed vaults were supposed to be our hedge against global catastrophe, but one by one they failed, or were destroyed, or pillaged. Those that survived did not contain the particular seeds we require. Now we are down to a few impoverished gene stocks. Nothing will take, nothing will grow—not in the new conditions. Hence, we’re digging into stored rations, which will soon be depleted.”
I felt a chill run through me.
“World Health isn’t usually so frank.”
“I can afford frankness. We’ve located some genetically modified seeds which we think will do very well, even in virtually sterile soil. We only need a sample of them for our production agronomists to work with; they can then clone and distribute the seeds to World Health sites in the necessary quantities.” He tapped the grubby paper against the table. “I’ve studied your career. You have shown great dedication and commitment to your pupils. This is your chance to really help them, by assisting in the effort to safeguard these samples.”