Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

Strong words. Saskia smiled, nodded, and applauded at all the right moments. She really couldn’t tell whether Fahd bin Talal was full of shit. He might sincerely believe every word he said, and he might not. If he was sincere, he might be completely delusional. It could be that tomorrow he’d fly back to Riyadh and never be seen or heard from again. But a big part of her job had always been signaling agreement with people who were some combination of delusional or disingenuous, so, for the moment, it didn’t matter to her. He was proposing to spend a lot of money to fix the atmosphere. How could she find fault with that?

It was a sufficiently effective keynote speech to make the remainder of the conference seem almost superfluous. Prince Bjorn moderated a panel of experts discussing the pros and cons of various carbon capture schemes. A questioner from the City of London poured cold water over it by pointing out there was no way to pay for any of this. They watched an expensively produced presentation about a proposal to carpet a large part of the Sahara with photovoltaic panels. Another speaker talked about the notion that everything T.R. was doing could one day be replaced by a cloud of giant mirrors between the earth and the sun.

The afternoon was going to be breakout sessions on a range of topics. But first there was a long lunch break. Everyone piled aboard buses that took them to the top of the mountain. There they sat beneath another canopy and ate box lunches and sipped bottled water as the Albanian minister of infrastructure and energy said a few words and then slammed the palm of her hand down on a big red button mounted in a mocked-up control panel. The muzzle flashed, the shell flew, and the sonic boom—despite the fact that they had been warned and had all put in their free earplugs—scared the hell out of everyone. Everyone, that is, except for those who’d heard it before in West Texas: Saskia, Alastair, Michiel, and Cornelia—who’d made an uncharacteristically low-key entrance at some point during the morning session. Naturally this made Saskia think of those who couldn’t be here today. Fenna was apparently on her way in from the airport in Tirana and might have heard the boom. But Willem was enjoying a prolonged vacation in the South of France, and Amelia was pursuing a new career with a private security firm based out of London. Saskia took out her phone and texted Willem.

> They just fired it. Wish you were here!

> Glad I’m not :)

Willem followed up with a picture of Remi lounging next to a pool raising a drink.

A socially awkward situation came up later in the day, when the prince—the Saudi, not the Norwegian—attempted to give Princess Frederika a jet airplane.

He had the good sense to be somewhat discreet in how he went about it. After the conclusion of the afternoon program, but before the cocktail hour that would precede the big dinner party, he asked Saskia if she wouldn’t mind accompanying him down to the island’s airstrip to have a look at something she might find interesting. “Airstrip” maybe was the wrong word for a four-thousand-meter runway that the Soviets had dynamited out of the island’s southern plateau to accommodate heavy military transports. But there was no point quibbling over it. She had to send a message to Fenna, who was poised in the royal suite on the yacht, just waiting to get her hands on Saskia’s hair and face, letting her know that there would be this slight delay. Then it was off to the “airstrip” in a short motorcade consisting of three Bentleys: one for the gents, one for the lady, and one for the short-haired men with guns and earpieces. A few business jets were parked at the end of the runway, as well as a couple of 737s that had been chartered to bring various contingents in to the conference. Only one airplane, however, was adorned with a giant bow. Just like the ones that appeared on new SUVs in Super Bowl television ads. This bow happened to be bright green, which could have been taken as a symbol of Islam or of the global environmental movement. The plane was of an unusual configuration and it had weird-looking engines. Its stair had been deployed to the tarmac. At its base a uniformed pilot and a man in a business suit were waiting for them. They were trying to act all casual about it.

Saskia was glad to be alone in the ladies’ Bentley so that she could react with some amount of privacy. When you were a queen, people gave you things. Sometimes weird—very weird—things. Sometimes things that were inappropriate, in the sense of raising questions about conflict of interest and undue influence. She’d thought she’d put all that behind her by abdicating the throne. Apparently not, though. Apparently it only got worse from here, since she was no longer subject to the same level of scrutiny. So she laughed, groaned, put her face in her hands, and writhed in almost physical discomfort for a few moments before pulling herself together and putting on her fake, queenly smile just in time for the chauffeur to circumnavigate the Bentley and open the door.

One thing she absolutely couldn’t do was beg off. Frederika Mathilde Louisa Saskia had to play the role. Had to take the tour. Had to sit in the pilot’s seat and look fascinated as it was all explained to her by Ervin—the pilot—and Clyde, the guy in the suit. Both Americans. Clyde had founded the company that made this thing: a bizjet that was fueled by hydrogen, running it through fuel cells to power electric motors. The prince had invested in it. And now they wanted to give her the plane.

“Because of Waco,” she said to Alastair, a few hours later, “part of me just wants to say ‘fuck yes, I’ll take that plane.’”

Alastair, in black tie—for this was that kind of party—just gazed into his after-dinner whiskey and tried not to look any more amused than he already did. He’d already made the obligatory point that no one ever tried to give him jet airplanes. It would have been simply boring and stupid of him to have kept pounding away at that topic.

“Like karma. Good karma, I mean to say,” he said.

“Absolutely. I crashed that plane to be sure.”

Alastair raised an eyebrow. “Some would blame the pigs.”

“Or the alligator that chased the pigs. Or the refugees who chased the alligator. Or the fire ants that burned out the relays in their air conditioners. You can go on spreading the blame as far as you like. But I was flying the plane. The buck stops at the pilot’s chair.”

“Formally, it was your responsibility,” Alastair agreed. “And yet at some level you feel that the universe owes you a free jet airplane.”

“I’d never come out and say it like that. But yes.”

“Do you know how to fly it?”

“Absolutely not! Since the crash the only thing I’ve flown is the Beaver. Clyde would have to loan me Ervin until I could get certified.”

“So they’re throwing in a pilot. Probably just a round-off error at this point.” A thought occurred to Alastair. “Where does one gas it up? Can you buy hydrogen at airports?”

“I have no idea. Maybe the crown prince of Norway would know!”

Prince Bjorn had been edging closer, waiting for an opening. “Your Royal Highness,” he began, “I have been admiring you from the other end of the table all evening. You are magnificent.”

So Bjorn—unlike Alastair, who hadn’t said a word about her hair and gown—knew how it was done. Saskia accepted the compliment with a wink. “It’s amazing, I just sit there checking my Twitter and it’s all handled for me by people who actually know what they’re doing.”

She went on to introduce Alastair as a close adviser. Which was no longer technically the case; but whatever. The point was to signal to Bjorn that he could speak as though among friends, should he so choose. “I heard,” he said, “about your new plane.”