Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

The battery of viral tests that Willem had gone through at Schiphol had come back with generally favorable results that had been duly piped into PanScan, which had deemed it acceptable for him to sit under an umbrella at a canal-side pub, provided it wasn’t too crowded, and have a beer with his husband.

But he just couldn’t bring himself to tell Remi about ERDD. The sudden intimacy of being back with him, the norMALness of the pub, the canal traffic gliding to and fro—the very smallness and neatness of this old Dutch town—just made it inconceivable. To mention this insane Internet stuff would be like tossing garbage into the canal.

“This thing in Texas, Remi. It is all about geoengineering. You are going to hear about it eventually.”

“Sounds as if I’m hearing about it now!” Remigio quipped.

“I mean, on the news. Internet.”

“I know what you mean, Wim.”

“What does that make you think of?”

“What, geoengineering?”

“Yes.”

“Are you using me as a focus group?” This was an old joke between them. Willem ignored it and let the question dangle. Remigio gazed out over the canal, took a sip of beer, then grimaced and cocked his head from side to side in an on the one hand . . . on the other hand way. “I recoil.”

“How so?”

“I feel like the Greens are going to give me an earful about how terrible it is.” With comically exaggerated paranoia, Remi looked around to see whether any university folk were in earshot. “It is terrible, right?” His eyebrows were raised in mock horror.

“It cools things down, but it doesn’t fix ocean acidification, which is a real problem. People don’t approve of even talking about it.”

“Ahh, I’ve lost track of all the things I can get in trouble for even talking about.”

“Exactly, so it creates a bubble. One goes for years without hearing it mentioned. Because it is such a strict taboo. But then, one goes to Texas and . . .” Willem pointed both index fingers up in the air and pretended to fire six-guns with abandon, à la Yosemite Sam, while making “Kew! Kew!” sound effects.

Remigio nodded. “Texas. Nice boots, by the way.”

“Thank you. Yes. You’ve never been there, have you?”

“No.”

“It is this whole vast country-within-a-country where some people don’t have the slightest compunction about . . .”

“Discussing the forbidden topic?”

“ Fuck discussing it, they’re actually doing it. Actual geoengineering. It’s happening. The queen and I saw it.”

“These Texans want her to support it?”

“I don’t exactly know. They’re not stupid. They understand that her role is ceremonial.”

Remigio considered that. “All right, let’s consider the alternative. These Texans could have pored over the Grondwet and then invited the minister of climate policy. Or the prime minister, even.”

Willem shook his head. “Impossible. The committees that would have gotten involved . . . the leaks . . . the politics . . . just unthinkable.”

“So,” Remi said, “when politics reaches that point where so many things are unthinkable . . . impossible . . . taboo . . . does, maybe, the queen begin to have real power again?”

“Yes. That’s the simple answer. Yes. But she shouldn’t .”

“Because Saskia is such a terrible and irresponsible tyrant?” Remi asked. Just teasing him.

“Of course not. Nor will Princess Charlotte be when it’s her turn. It’s just that this is not how it’s supposed to work.”

“And yet,” Remigio said, “we have a queen. And she has your loyalty.”

THE LINE OF ACTUAL CONTROL

Laks had at least done enough research by this point to expect the PowerPoint deck, so that was no surprise. And Ravi had found online crib sheets for the quiz, which looked pretty easy once you knew how to spot the trick questions.

The deck, making no effort to put a cheerful face on the business, opened with old stock footage of mushroom clouds rising from nuclear detonations. The voiceover was in English with Hindi and Punjabi subtitles. Dates and words were superimposed on the fireballs: USA 1945, USSR 1949, China 1964, India 1974. “Nuclear bombs have existed for the better part of a century, and yet they have only been used in battle twice, at the very beginning of the atomic age, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Pictures now of devastated Japanese cities and maimed civilians. “It is extraordinary in all of human history for man to have developed a weapon but then voluntarily refrained from its use. Why? Because it was understood that the consequences were undesirable.” Pretty dry understatement there, as they were now watching clips of old sci-fi movies showing grisly post-nuke effects and horror-show makeup.

The next slide was an abrupt transition to a series of images depicting guns of various kinds down through the ages, starting with Chinese hand cannons and fast-forwarding through Western flintlocks, six-shooters, and twentieth-century military rifles to culminate in Kalashnikov and Armalite variants. “Much less powerful than nuclear bombs, but responsible for far more deaths, are conventional firearms.”

Now a map of Asia, with China in red and India in blue, zooming in slowly on the border region between them in the Tibetan plateau. As it got closer, Laks was able to pick out the bent Chinese salient that had come to be known as the Yak’s Leg, crossing over the long boomerang-shaped lake of Pangong Tso (right now they were only a short distance west of the “knee” in the leg, above the lake’s northern tip). A simple animation showed the border moving this way and that, like a sail luffing in the wind. Old grainy footage of Chinese and Indian military units trudging through snow and shooting rifles completed the picture. Shooty and explody sound effects echoed harshly from the hard floor of the room. But then suddenly it went silent, except for an old-time trumpet fanfare. In huge black numerals, “1962” covered the map. The red/blue frontier froze. An animated line snaked along the boundary and a label appeared: LINE OF ACTUAL CONTROL. “The cease-fire of 1962 put an end to armed conflict between India and China along their shared border—which remains disputed to this day. A peace agreement signed by Zhou Enlai and Jawaharlal Nehru referred not to the border but to the Line of Actual Control—a diplomatic phrasing that enabled the cease-fire to be formalized without either party acknowledging the other’s territorial claims.” This bit was helpfully illustrated by stock footage of the respective leaders inking documents. “Since 1962 the position of the Line of Actual Control has shifted this way and that. However, the cease-fire itself—the mutual agreement not to use firearms—has remained as perfectly unbroken as mankind’s collective agreement not to use nuclear weapons. Three-quarters of a century has passed without a bullet disturbing the high mountain border zone. This in spite of the fact that it is heavily militarized on both sides by units of the Indian and Chinese military. This does not, however, mean that no conflict has taken place in the area—only that no firearms have been used. Occasionally, patrolling units of the two opposing sides have come into direct contact in areas where the exact position of the Line is not precisely charted. Indian military has respected the Line but Chinese have taken advantage to make small invasions of Indian territory. Added up over time, if allowed to endure, these move the Line, causing major loss of strategic high ground to our aggressive neighbor to the north. How to punish the invaders and move them firmly back to where they belong, while still preserving cease-fire? With sticks and stones, and, if need be, fists. Incidents of this type, once rare, became common in first decades of the twenty-first century. It is not known when volunteer units first began to arrive at the front. Now it is commonplace on both sides. By stepping out yonder door you are entering a zone of low-intensity but very real warfare that can become a hot shooting war at any moment should a combatant on either side discharge even a single bullet from a firearm. We, the men and women of the Indian Army, welcome volunteers from all over our great country, and indeed the world, who come to this place to push back the invaders and stabilize the Line in its rightful spot. However, we must always be on the alert for hotheads who do not respect the rules, or foreign spies who would seek to infiltrate volunteer ranks in the role of agent provocateur. Hence the procedures enacted in this facility. Thank you and good luck in your adventures at the front!”