Green Earth

Phil laughed and then shook his head, growing more serious. “Well, it’s too bad, I guess. But what could you do. You were ambushed. He loves to do that. Hopefully it won’t cost us. It might even help. But I’m late, I’ve got to go. You hang in there.” And he put a hand to Charlie’s arm, said good-bye again to the Khembalis, and hustled out the door.

The Khembalis gathered around Charlie, looking cheerful. “Where is Joe? How is it he is not with you?”

“I really couldn’t bring him to this thing I was at, so my friend Asta from Gymboree is looking after him. Actually I have to get back to him soon,” checking his watch. “But come on, tell me how it went.”

They all followed Charlie into his cubicle by the stairwell, stuffing it with their maroon robes (they had dressed formally for Phil, Charlie noted) and their strong brown faces. They still looked pleased.

“Well?” Charlie said.

“It went very well,” Drepung said, and nodded happily. “He asked us many questions about Khembalung. He visited Khembalung seven years ago, and met Padma and others at that time. He was very interested, very sympathetic. And best of all, he told us he would help us.”

“He did? That’s great! What did he say, exactly?”

Drepung squinted, remembering. “He said—‘I’ll see what I can do.’”

Sucandra and Padma nodded, confirming this.

“Those were his exact words?” Charlie asked.

“Yes. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’”

Charlie and Sridar exchanged a glance. Who was going to tell them?

Sridar said carefully, “Those were indeed his exact words,” thus passing the ball to Charlie.

Charlie sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Drepung asked.

“Well …” Charlie glanced at Sridar again.

“Tell them,” Sridar said.

Charlie said, “What you have to understand is that no congressperson likes to say no.”

“No?”

“No. They don’t.”

“They never say no,” Sridar clarified.

“Never?”

“Never.”

“They like to say yes,” Charlie explained. “People come to them, asking for things—favors, votes—consideration of one kind or another. When they say yes, people go away happy. Everyone is happy.”

“Votes,” Sridar expanded. “They say yes and it means votes. Sometimes one yes can mean fifty thousand votes. So they just keep saying yes.”

“That’s true,” Charlie admitted. “Some say yes no matter what they really mean. Others, like our Senator Chase, are more honest.”

“Without, however, actually ever saying no,” Sridar added.

“In effect they only answer the questions they can say yes to. The other questions they avoid in one way or another.”

“Right,” Drepung said. “But he said …”

“He said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’”

Drepung frowned. “So that means no?”

“Well, you know, in circumstances where they can’t get out of answering the question in some other way—”

“Yes!” Sridar interrupted. “It means no.”

“Well …” Charlie tried to temporize.

“Come on, Charlie.” Sridar shook his head. “You know it’s true. It’s true for all of them. Yes means maybe; I’ll see what I can do means no. It means, not a chance. It means, I can’t believe you’re asking me this question, but since you are, this is how I will say no.”

“He will not help us?” Drepung asked.

“He will if he sees a way that will work,” Charlie declared. “I’ll keep on him about it.”

Drepung said, “You’ll see what you can do.”

“Yes—but I mean really.”

Sridar smiled sardonically at Charlie’s discomfiture. “And Phil’s the most environmentally aware senator of all, isn’t that right Charlie?”

“Well, yeah. That’s definitely true.”

The Khembalis pondered this. Drepung was now frowning.

“We too will see what we can do,” he said.

CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_d2a02efc-ee92-5050-aba7-2334ffe85c38)

THE CAPITAL IN SCIENCE (#ulink_d2a02efc-ee92-5050-aba7-2334ffe85c38)

Robot submarines cruise the depths, doing oceanography. Finally oceanographers have almost as much data as meteorologists. Among other things they monitor a deep layer of relatively warm water that flows from the Atlantic into the Arctic (ALTEX, the Atlantic Layer Tracking Experiment).

But they are not as good at it as the whales. White beluga whales, living their lives in the open ocean, have been fitted with sensors for recording temperature, salinity, and nitrate content, matched with a GPS record and a depth meter. Up and down in the blue world they sport, diving deep into the black realm below, coming back up for air, recording data all the while. Casper the Friendly Ghost, Whitey Ford, The Woman in White, Moby Dick, all the rest: they swim to their own desires, up and down endlessly within their immense territories, fast and supple, continuous and thorough, capable of great depths, pale flickers in the blackest blue, the bluest black. Then back up for air. Our cousins. White whales help us to know this world. The data they are collecting make it clear that the Atlantic’s deep warm layer is attenuating. And so the Gulf Stream is slowing down.

The rest of Frank’s stay in San Diego was a troubled time. The encounter with Marta had put him in a black mood that he could not shake.

He tried to look for a place to live when he returned in the fall, checking out some real estate pages in the paper, but it was discouraging. He saw that he would have to rent an apartment first, and take the time to look before trying to buy something. It was going to be hard, maybe impossible, to find a house he both liked and could afford. He had some financial problems. And it took a very considerable income to buy a house in north San Diego these days. He and Marta had bought a perfect couple’s bungalow in Cardiff, but they had sold it when they split, adding greatly to the acrimony. Now the region was more expensive than a mere professor could afford. Extra income would be essential.

So he looked at some rentals in North County, and then in the afternoons he went to the empty office on campus, meeting with two postdocs who were still working for him in his absence. He also talked with the department chair about what classes he would teach in the fall. It was all very tiresome.