Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 4 Part 1 Towards London. A fleeting friend is slain.

The plunge in the rock pool was exhilarating. The chill water provoked brisk exertion - the moonlight dramatised the shattering of the still surface. We felt cleansed by the rush of exercise and the shock impact of the cold on our bodies, and somehow the day's cares came to seem trivial by comparison with the sparkling dome of the night sky, the ragged black silhouette of the mountains, and the comforting sounds of domesticity from Jacob's family close by. Out of breath, as we slopped onto the poolside Jacob huffed, "Good eh? Makes all this evening before seem pathetic." 

"No contest - and I agree with you - let's forget it all till tomorrow." 

And we did, but tomorrow inevitably comes. The morning brought with it low cloud cover and the house was cocooned in cool fog and detached from the grandeur of its setting. Closed in upon itself it seemed to reflect our own mood as we ate breakfast in largely silent companionship. We just left a radio quietly on to monitor the news, but our own part in it and the ICBM fiasco did not come up. Jean and the children went to their schools, and Jacob and I took coffee into the lounge. 

I said, "I'm sorry but I must go on to my next appointment. There's two possible 'planes, one at noon and another at six. I need to keep to my schedule, if for no other reason than the presentation for Rosetta. It's been shoehorned in to get to the six week schedule." 

"I know - I'm puzzled myself as to what's best. I agree we need to do the context programme for Rosetta, but I feel that your visit has been spoiled. I've got to be with our people as much as possible for the next few hours so I think I'd best take you to the earlier plane. Talk to me when you get to - where are you stopping next?" 

"London. Don't worry about the visit - I'll be around again, and I'm sure that we'll escape the media's attention in the fullness of time. It depends on how much more the arithmetic reveals about orbits. Say my goodbyes to Jean and the kids." I hesitated, "And say my - goodbyes to Ellen. It would have been good to have seen her today." 

So I packed, and said goodbye to Jacob on the airport concourse. As I turned through the doors he didn't look quite so mountainous a man - I reflected sadly that the persona springs as much from the inside as the outside. 

I was somewhat surprised. His ebullience when in front of my cameras was the attraction of the programmes we made. Presumably in that environment he controlled the content, and depth of penetration to his innermost feelings. The invasion of his life by perverse human forces was at the moment intimidating him - and I could only hope that he and those close to him could tap inner resources to allow him to recover. 

My comfort was that he had some of the best at his side. 

Another plane trip. This time nearly ten hours in the air but likely to be twelve in the plane, unless we had a leg stretch in Vancouver airport, where we stopped to swap passengers. The plane was not running full, and I had not booked a meal in the saloon this time, so I stayed at my seat most of the time to Vancouver. 

I had an evening malt whisky by the panoramic window of the saloon bar to watch the setting sun. I looked at the news on the screen in front of my seat. Nothing leapt out. It seemed that having done our bit, NASA had decided to keep their source quiet. Maybe Jacob had been able to twist an arm or two. I thought we might be lucky and the thing would die down - at least until there was some real news, and we could get our context programme together. 

The stop in Vancouver was going to be an hour, so I decided to stretch my legs. I poked around the souvenir shops, although these days airports seemed to buy from the same parts box. I bought duty free drink, and had a coffee. There would be dinner on the plane. Whilst sipping coffee that was too hot, I was struck by a familiar face on the news TV across the counter. It was Peter de Lesseps, not live but a still picture in rather poor definition. I couldn't hear the TV over the bustle of the bar, and by the appearance of the subsequent pictures the news subject had changed. 

Intrigued, as Peter hadn't seemed to be a newsworthy person - although thinking about it the same was true of my friends in Hawaii and myself - I wondered how to follow this up. I had now only five minutes to get on the plane. I then remembered that first class had a news search terminal, and if they weren't busy the stewards usually allowed other passengers to use it. 

I had to contain my curiosity until after the evening meal. The news on the coach class screens was either fluffy gossip or longer term international headline stories, and as the tape had been compiled in Australia, it was well over seven hours out of date. Before the deck lights were dimmed for the notional night of the airline timetable, I slipped into first class and as I had hoped the saloon was almost empty. The steward happily let me use the news terminal and I bought us a drink to seal the transaction. 

The terminal was satellite linked to an international news agency so I soon found the article from a search for Peter's name. The story had been put together by a local Vancouver journalist using cuts from two security cameras, one in the lobby and one at the steps of the Sheraton Hotel, and police information. I had stayed at the hotel only a year or so ago, and the incident became real as I absorbed the story. 

The conference had proceeded without attracting attention until Peter and his co-author from Montreal, presented their paper. On the morning of the presentation a group of students from Montreal University had formed a demonstration outside the hotel. 

The slogans carried by the students included "Fascists say breed and be poor", "Politics perverted by Math", "Freedom captured by Computer", "Sums slay your birthright", and inevitably "Down with Economists." 

Like most student demonstrations it was good humoured and accordingly a small delegation carrying some of these banners was invited into the hotel lobby with the intention of meeting the authors of the paper. 

By the most bizarre mischance the latest military dictator of the war-torn Republic of Malawe was passing the hotel in a stretched limousine with an armed guard of police outriders, and another more serious and considerably unruly demonstration against him, became enmeshed with the Montreal contingent outside the hotel. 

A shot was fired from the crowd who surged into the path of the car which slewed to avoid them, two outriders were mown down and the heavy limousine careered onto the sidewalk and was stopped by crashing into a media shop window, full of screen sets and holograph projectors. Several bystanders and demonstrators were injured. 

The crowd grew in size and hysteria as passers by became demonstrators against the privileged abuser of power in the armoured limousine, and then those for whom riot and loot was red meat and strong drink, came hooting from the sidestreets. 

The distinction between the demonstrations outside and the delegation inside the Sheraton became blurred; control of the situation skidded away. In a short time police firing plastic bullets and choking tear gas and backed by a water cannon arrived to quell the riot, but only served to wind more turns onto the tension. 

Now there was no reason driving events. It will never be known what motivation provoked one man, red eyed, with long unkempt hair and face streaked black and grey with years of street dirt, Armalite in hand, to run across the elegant foyer of the Sheraton, through the milling delegation towards the conference suite, to crash through the doors, and spray the stage with automatic fire, before himself being bloodily gunned down by two pursuing armed police. 

The list of those killed included poor Peter. For all that his paper portrayed a terrible future for humanity, he was but a sincere academic, savaged by the hysteria of people under the pressure of city life. Even his murderer was anonymous for he carried no identification and no possessions except the gun, the serial numbers of which had been ground away. 

I took another and stronger drink back to my seat. I had met, shared wine, a meal, and some ideas with this man and now forty eight hours later he was wastefully slaughtered for no good reason. An innocent victim to happenstance. I looked at his card, and resolved to write to his partner. He had referred to her more than once as sharing his life and their having a child. I remembered the comfort I had derived from letters written to me when Beatrice died - some from people whose life she had touched, but whom I had never met. In some ways they were even more valuable for they filled in a little of the blank pieces of the jigsaw of her being, making the memory of her more complete. 

The nights when I cried for her pain and my loss had gone but I was close to it again that night. But the alcohol and the numbing giant vacuum cleaner noise of the plane's engines combined to send me into a period of unconsciousness - the quality of which hardly merited the term sleep.