Kim Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting

All this is inherent in what we have started, which is why I hope the American electorate delivers big progressive majorities in the congressional elections. We have to become the stewards of the Earth. And we have to start doing this in ignorance of the details of how to do it. We have to learn how to do it in the attempt itself. It is something we are going to have to imagine.

“This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.” Our time has to be understood as a narrow gate, a window of opportunity, a crux point in history. It’s the moment when we took responsibility for life on Earth. That’s what I say. And I’ll have more to say about it later.

FRANK AND CAROLINE FLEW TOGETHERout to San Diego.

There was an awkwardness between them now that Frank didn’t understand. It was as if, now that they were free to do what they wanted, they didn’t know what it was. It reminded Frank in a rather frightening way of his old inability to decide—of how that had felt. They had no habits. They sat side by side, and long silences grew.

Before they had left, Frank had dropped by the office. He had walked into Edgardo’s office and given the Argentinian a big hug, his cheek crushed against the tall man’s skinny chest. “Thanks Edgardo.”

Edgardo had smiled his wry smile. “You are welcome, my friend. It was my pleasure, believe me.”

They had then discussed the situation as conveyed by Umberto; it sounded like things would be okay. Phil was untangling the intelligence community, though that would take some doing. Frank then explained his plan, and Edgardo had raised a finger. She might not want to talk about this last year, he had warned. She may never want to. A lot of us are like that. I don’t know if she is, but if so, be ready for it. It may always be a case of limited discussion.

Frank had nodded, thinking it over.

Besides, Edgardo had continued—even if she did fix the election single-handedly, and frame her ex to make it look like he framed her, what’s anyone to do about that now?

Frank’s uneasy shrug had sparked Edgardo’s most delighted and cynical laugh. It echoed in his mind all the way across the country.

In San Diego, Frank drove their rental car up to La Jolla. First to the top of Mount Soledad, to show her the area from on high; then down to UCSD, where he found parking and walked her through the eucalyptus groves in their ranks and files and diagonals. Then up the great promenade between the big pretty buildings, the ocean often visible out to the west. Up the curving path on the east side of the library, an inlaid piece of sculpture made to resemble a snake’s back. An inscription from Milton carved into the snake’s head made it clear just which snake it was. Central Library as the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: very apt.

Caroline smiled when she saw it, and kissed Frank on the cheek. “Want an apple?” That was the best sign he had gotten from her all day, and his spirits expanded a bit.

Then out across the street, onto the bluff overlooking the Pacific. He pointed out his bedroom nook, and watched her look out at the view. You could see San Clemente Island on the horizon, seventy miles out to sea. He could see that she liked it. Then they returned to the streets, and up Torrey Pines to the new institute.

Into Leo’s lab. Leo regarded Caroline with interest as Frank introduced them.

“Leo, this is my friend—”

“Carrie Barr,” Caroline said, and put out her hand.

“Hi,” Leo said, taking it. “Leo Mulhouse. Good to meet you.”

After a bit of chat about their trip out:

“Are the insertions still going well?” Frank asked.

“They’re good,” Leo said. “Results are really good right now.”

Frank explained to Caroline some of what they were doing, and tried to answer her questions with the right amount of technical detail, never an easy thing to judge. She looked different to Frank now, as if she had instantly become a Californian now that she was here. Maybe it was that he had seldom seen her in the sun. It was hard to believe how little time they had actually spent together. He didn’t know how much biology she knew, or whether she was interested in it.

After that, Frank had a meeting on campus. “Do you want to join me for it, or do you want to have a look around while I talk to him?”

“I’ll have a look around.”

“Okay. Let’s meet back at Leo’s lab in an hour, okay?”

“Fine.” Off she went.

Frank walked over to the coffee kiosk in the eucalyptus grove at the center of campus, where he had arranged to meet with Henry Bannet of Biocal. They shook hands, and in short order were looking at Frank’s laptop and the PowerPoint show that Frank had cobbled together for him. As Frank spoke, he added stuff Leo had just told him a few minutes before. Bannet proved to be much as Leo had said: pleasant, professionally friendly, all in the usual way—but he had a quickness of eye that seemed to indicate some kind of impatience. Once or twice he interrupted Frank’s explanations with questions about Yann and Eleanor’s methods. He knew a lot. This guy, Frank thought, wanted gene therapy to work.

“Have you talked to your tech transfer office about this?” Bannet asked.

“It’s Eleanor Dufours who is the P.I.,” Frank said. “She’ll be the one leading the way with any start-up.”

“Okay,” Bannet said, looking a bit surprised. “We can discuss that later.”

By the time Frank got back to Leo’s lab, Caroline was already there, and so were Marta and Eleanor, with Marta looking most intrigued.

“Frank!” Marta said. “I didn’t know you were going to be out here again so soon.”

“Yes, I am. Hi, Eleanor. Have you guys met my friend—”

“Yes,” Caroline said. “Leo introduced us,” and for a second everyone was saying something at once.

After a brief laugh, they fell silent. “Well!” Marta said. She had a gleam in her eye that Frank had seen before. “What a lucky coincidence! We were just going to grab Leo for dinner in Del Mar, to celebrate the latest results—did he tell you about those? Why don’t you two join us?”

Frank said, “Oh, well—”

“Sure,” Caroline said, “that sounds great.”

So there they were at one of the beach restaurants in Del Mar, talking away cheerfully. Given the results in the lab, they had a lot to be cheerful about. Caroline was seated on one side of Frank, Marta on the other. It made him uneasy, but there was nothing he could do. And besides he too had cheerful news, in the form of his meeting with Henry Bannet.

“So does that mean you’re moving back?” Marta said to Frank when the others were all talking among themselves.

“Yes, I think so.”

“You’ve been out there a long time—what has it been, three years?”

“Almost,” Frank said. “It feels like more.”

After dinner, Marta invited them to come along with them to the Belly-Up, and again Caroline agreed before Frank could beg off. So there they were, in the crush of dancers on the floor of the Belly-Up, Frank dancing with three women, watching Marta and Caroline shouting over the music into each other’s ears and then laughing heartily, before excusing themselves and going off to the ladies’ room together. Frank watched this appalled. He had never even imagined Marta and Caroline meeting, much less becoming friendly. Now he was surprised to see that they looked somewhat alike, or were in some other way similar. And really, now that he thought of it, it was gratifying that Marta liked Caroline—a kind of approval of his judgment, or his D.C. life. Part of a more general amnesty. But it also felt like trouble, in some obscure way Frank could not pin down. At the very least it probably meant he was going to get laughed at a lot. Well, whatever. Nothing to be done about that. There were worse fates.