Кэйго Хигасино - A Midsummer’s Equation

“Well, she’s right to worry about that,” Shigehiro said, a bit more seriously. He took a long sip of his tea.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Kyohei said, opening his backpack and taking out the paper-wrapped package inside. “Mom wanted me to give you this.”

“Oh, she shouldn’t have,” Setsuko said, smiling even as she furrowed her eyebrows. She began opening the package immediately. “Look at this, tsukudani beef jerky. Oh, I’ve heard of this shop. It’s famous! She really shouldn’t have. I’ll have to call and thank her.”

Kyohei finished his cola, and his aunt immediately asked if he wanted a refill. “Yes please,” he said, and she swept his glass away. That was a nice change of pace. At home, he would’ve been told to get it himself, if they let him drink cola in the first place.

Maybe spending the rest of summer vacation in Hari Cove wouldn’t be so bad after all.

A manager from DESMEC’s development division stood next and began to talk about their coming plans in detail. First, they would conduct a survey of the seabed to determine the amounts and densities of the various ores, as well as their metallic content. At the same time, they would be working on specific new technologies for extracting and removing the ores. There would be more investment into smelting technology as well, up until the point at which they were ready to assess the site for potential commercialization within a ten-year time frame.

Narumi felt somewhat relieved, if only because they were avoiding the kind of vague, saccharine promises they had heard too often. Things about “new industry lifting up the local economy.” To the contrary, the development manager’s talk made it clear there were still many unknowns, and they were proceeding with care.

Yet there was a magic to the words “undersea resources” that made people dream big, as if gold and silver really would come erupting out of the sea to shower the community with riches. To those primarily concerned with invigorating the local economy, it seemed like a godsend at a time when the town sorely needed one. Year by year, Hari Cove had been slowly falling apart. The tourism industry, their main source of income, had been in recession for some time and showed no signs of picking up.

Yet that didn’t mean they should give carte blanche to some unknown technology. Hari Cove lived and died by the ocean. And if that ocean wasn’t brimming with beauty and life, neither would the town. Sacrificing the ocean in order to save the town was a fool’s bargain.

Narumi realized early on there wasn’t much she could do about it all by herself, so she launched a blog, becoming the unofficial spokesperson for the sea near Hari Cove. One of the first people to e-mail her after the blog went up was Sawamura. He had been focusing on articles about natural preservation efforts in the area and had reached out to his environmentally minded friends. Save the Cove was their idea. Narumi had been invited along for the ride.

She had responded almost immediately. If anyone was doing something to save the cove, she wanted in.

So began long days of exchanging information and research. Sawamura sold his apartment in Tokyo and came back home so he could be on the front lines. Drawing on his connections, they found more people willing to help their efforts, but things really took off when their central message, that the mining would disrupt the cycle of life in the nearby ocean, struck a chord with the local fishermen. After that, the fishermen started showing up to meetings in larger and larger numbers.

Finally, the government took notice. METI directed the organizations involved with the mineral surveys to hold an informational hearing — a huge coup for the Save the Cove movement, and Narumi’s big chance. She could get the word out officially now.

Up on stage, the DESMEC engineers were still talking. They explained at length the measures they would take to protect the environment, but nothing passed the sniff test for Narumi. It took two hours before they were finished with their presentation, after which there was a Q and A.

Sawamura’s hand went up immediately. He took the mic that was passed to him and began to speak.

“As the name would suggest, hydrothermal ore deposits form around hydrothermal vents on the seabed. These vents have a very specific deep-sea ecology, providing a home for many species that do not, and cannot, live elsewhere. You spoke of trying to predict the effect of mining operations on these ecologies, but there’s nothing to predict. Everything living around these vents will die if you mine there. To put it in perspective, some of the creatures living in these environments take several years to grow to a size of only a dozen or so centimeters. But they only take an instant to kill. How will you protect them? If you have any ideas, I’d like to hear them.”

My thoughts exactly, thought Narumi.

The development manager stood to answer. “As you say, some damage to the life around the vents will be unavoidable. Uh, due to this, we’re proposing a genetic survey. That is, we will analyze the genetics of the organisms living near the vents to ascertain whether or not the same organisms live anywhere else on the seabed. If we find a species that does not exist elsewhere, then we will make preservation of that species a top priority. Exact methods will depend on the species in question, I should think.”

Sawamura held his mic back up. “In other words, if you find the same kind of organism living someplace else, you’re fine with killing the ones you find near the vent?”

The manager frowned and said, “Erm, essentially, yes, that’s right.”

Sawamura pressed on, relentless. “Can you really do a genetic survey of every single organism living in the area? There is a lot we don’t know about deep-sea ecologies. How will you know for sure what exists where? How do you propose to find everything?”

“Well, all I can say is that we’re prepared to do what we need to do to make it happen.”

“That’s not going to work,” interjected a new voice, joining the conversation. Everyone on stage tensed as they turned to look at the one who’d spoken. It was the physicist, Yukawa.

“Not even specialists in the field profess a full understanding of deep-sea life, so I don’t see how any of us can,” the physicist added. “If there’s something you’re not going to be able to do, you should just be honest and admit it.”

The development manager fell silent, a look of chagrin on his face. The emcee took a step toward the mic to say something, but Yukawa beat him to it. “What we have here is a very basic problem. The only way to make use of underground resources is to mine them, and if you mine them, they’re going to damage the local flora and fauna. That’s as true under the water as it is on land, but it hasn’t stopped us — that is, mankind — from doing it over and over again. That’s a fact. You just need to make a choice.” He put down his mic, closed his eyes, and leaned back in his chair, oblivious to the stares of the entire room.

It was after four thirty when Narumi left the hall with Sawamura and the others.

“That went pretty much like we thought it would,” Sawamura said. “Though with less grandstanding than expected, thankfully.”

“I thought they were pretty transparent, considering,” Narumi agreed. “It sounds like they’re really just putting out feelers at this point — and at least they are considering some measures to protect the environment.”

“Don’t relax just yet. Once they get a whiff of the money to be made, they’re going to charge full speed ahead. Nothing’s going to stop them, certainly not concern for the environment. That’s the way it’s always been. Look at what happened with nuclear power in this country. We can’t let ourselves get tricked like that again.”