Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

“What are they pissed off about now?” T.R. asked.

“The monsoon.”

T.R. cackled. “The monsoon that’s in full swing right this minute?” He pulled his phone back out. “Hang on, let me check the weather in Amritsar. Oh, look!” He held it up so that Willem could see a pictorial weather forecast. “Right now it’s raining cats and dogs in Amritsar.” He put his phone back in his pocket. “So what’s India got to be pissed off about?”

“Perhaps,” Willem said, “they regret you did not consult with them before building a giant machine that fucks with the weather.”

It was almost midnight. The view from this corner was as good as it got, in Tuaba. The nighttime cityscape was spread out before them, and they could see part of the airport’s single runway. The most prominent thing on the skyline was the half-collapsed ruin of the Sam Houston Hotel, lit up by work lights that had been trucked down from the mine. All the fires had long since been put out, but recovery and demolition work were putting enough dust into the air that the ruin appeared to be wreathed in smoke.

The signal to eat was given. Most of the restaurant clan cleared out, though the matriarch stayed for a minute while Willem switched into her language to express his gratitude for their staying up so late, and to remark on the astonishing beauty of the dishes’ presentation.

When she had finally taken her leave, beaming, Willem turned to see T.R. appraising him.

“That’s what you do, ain’t it?” T.R. said.

“What? Talk to people and make them feel seen and appreciated? That’s part of it.” He sat down and reached for his napkin. “I can also be a cold-blooded son of a bitch.”

“And under what circumstances, pray tell, would you allow that side of your personality to come out?”

“When it was necessary to achieve the goals of the state.”

“Would that be . . . Netherworld ?”

Willem laughed. “Seems everyone has heard of it.”

“Is that why you’re here? To bring Papua into Saskia’s orbit?”

“It’s fascinating,” Willem said, “that people have such inflated notions about Netherworld, which a few days ago was just a word painted on a bedsheet in Venice.”

“It’s fascinating to me that you’re so clueless about marketing. If I saw a hashtag go viral that fast, I’d have a hundred people on it the next day.”

“For all I know, Cornelia has done just that. It’s all her doing.”

“Mm!” T.R. exclaimed. “We Texans brag about our tolerance for spicy food but our stuff is child’s play compared to Indonesian! This is fiery!”

Willem let the remark pass without comment. T.R. had been born here. The hotness of Indonesian food could not actually have come as a surprise to him.

“Look, man,” Willem said, after they had spent a few moments enjoying the meal, “you have to have known from the beginning of all this that the great powers of the world weren’t just going to sit by and watch while you implemented a scheme on your ranch that was bound to alter the climate everywhere.”

“I would remind you,” T.R. said, “that I convened a group of people last year, including you and Saskia, to start the conversation.”

Willem was irritated by T.R.’s offhand use of the familiar name “Saskia,” but decided to let it go. She had encouraged people to call her that during their sojourn in Texas. “Start it, yes. But you chose small countries. Microstates. Venice, for god’s sake.”

“Gotta start somewhere. I invite China and India to such a meeting, what do you think’s going to happen?”

“Nothing,” Willem admitted. “They’d find ways to stop it.”

“My point exactly.”

“And now you’ve gone and done it . . . and they are stopping it by other means.”

“Is that what you think is happening? To me it looks like they are demanding a seat at the table. Now that I gone and done something. They’re happy someone did it.”

“They’ve a funny way of showing it.”

T.R. scoffed and waved him off. “It’s just full-contact football,” he explained, in a helpful tone. “Like when the linebacker comes through and lays a good lick on the quarterback. A sign of respect. Game on!”

Willem was only beginning to organize, in his mind, some of his objections to this metaphor, when there was a light knock at the door. Then it opened a bit and Sister Catherine stuck her head in. She had a shy-schoolgirl look about her very different from the bus driver avatar in which she had manifested yesterday. Both men threw their napkins down and stood up. Willem was closer to the door; he got to it first and held it open for her as she bustled into the room. Looking over the top of her habit—not difficult, for she was of not very great stature—he saw the anteroom, and the corridor leading to it, now populated by at least a dozen Papuan men slinging weapons ranging from AK-47s down to the machetelike choppers known as parangs. Engulfed in them was Amelia, looking at him wryly. Willem gave what he hoped was a polite nod to the one who looked oldest and best equipped, then gently closed the door. T.R. was greeting Sister Catherine, even trying out a few words in one of the local languages.

She took a seat at the table and partook of the meal. The conversation that followed was polite, awkward, and peculiarly dull in the way that important conversations sometimes had to be. Everyone here must know that something was up. But they couldn’t yet talk about it directly. Ultimately it was about copper and gold mines—not really of interest to Willem. As Sister Catherine had made crystal clear yesterday, these people would worry about climate change later.

“It is my recommendation,” Sister Catherine said, when they’d got through the polite stuff, “that you get out of here.”

“What do we know about conditions at the airport?” Willem asked. He directed the question at T.R., supposing that T.R. might actually know something. But—a bit disconcertingly—T.R. just looked across the table at Sister Catherine. She made a gesture indicative of her mouth being full, so T.R. looked back at Willem. “Need a lift?”

“Now that you mention it, if you could find room for me and Amelia . . .”

“Certainly. As long as you don’t mind going to Texas.”

“We’ll find a way to make the most of it.”

> Going to Texas apparently Willem texted Princess Frederika.

Sister Catherine washed down her food with a swallow of beer and said, “Now would be a bad time. Indications are that the airport will be up and running by mid-morning. You might need special clearance to take off, but . . . arrangements can be made.”

T.R. nodded. “For the benefit of my people who are trying to wrangle the logistics of it all, who do we need to talk to about that?”

“You need to talk to me.”

Willem’s phone vibrated and he glanced down to see a cowboy hat emoji.

> C U there.

The meal didn’t reach a firm conclusion but sort of devolved into what showed every sign of becoming a slumber party. Sister Catherine basically lived here, albeit in another part of the complex. The compound where T.R. had been staying was across the river, not convenient to the airport, and so if they really were looking at a departure in less than twelve hours there was no point in his risking the drive back just so he could then risk a separate trip to the runway a few hours later. For the night had become lively with sporadic exchanges of gunfire and occasional deep booms audible through the conference room’s windows. More than once, Willem looked at those askance, wondering if they might at any point turn into a horizontal storm of glinting cubes propelled into the building on a shock wave. But Sister Catherine seemed to think it was in God’s hands. So it turned into a game of chicken, which Willem was not about to lose to a five-foot-tall nun.