Chase knew of Lucas, though they'd never met. A small, round-shouldered man with neatly parted gray hair and a neat gray moustache to match, it was Lucas, Chase recalled, who'd abruptly resigned--or been dismissed from, it was never made clear--the position of the president's senior scientific adviser sometime back in the nineties.
Hanamura, still a young man, had already established a brilliant reputation for his work on the biosphere, with specific reference to the effects of urban and industrial pollution. He was of mixed parentage, having been born in Kyoto of a Japanese father and an American mother. His father had died when Frank was thirteen after collapsing in a Tokyo street, stricken by the pollution that a few years later would make world headlines as the "Tokyo Alert," when thousands choked to death. It was this that had inspired him to take up his career. Tall and slender, with glossy jet-black hair, he had inherited the best physical attributes of both races, with dark expressive eyes in a strong, intelligent face. He was almost too perfectly handsome.
After outlining the program's format ("Mainline" always concerned itself with "a major talking point of the day," they were informed), Claudia Kane led them into the studio and seated them in a cozy circle in comfortable armchairs, with herself in the center on a revolving chair that could be spun around by remote control to face any of the participants. This was "media interrogative debate," as the jargon had it.
True to her breed, Claudia Kane astutely picked up a point of contention between Lucas and Hanamura, and she zeroed in on it like a shark scenting blood. Gene Lucas was given first crack.
"We're paying the price for two hundred and fifty years of indiscriminate growth brought about by greed, selfishness, and crass stupidity," he expounded gloomily. "And the truly frightening thing is, we refuse to learn from past mistakes and mend our ways. You can't save the world from what 1 see as inevitable destruction without changing human nature, and let's face it, you're never going to change human nature."
"But you speak as though we're helpless, Professor." Claudia Kane whirled around to take in Frank Hanamura's contribution. "I don't think we are. I also think, with respect, that you are underestimating the regenerative capacity of our planet. There have been literally
"But you do believe there
The handsome Japanese spread lean brown hands. "Sure I do, most definitely. Everyone can see that the biosphere is undergoing a fundamental change. Where I part company with Professor Lucas is in believing that we can do something about it."
The camera picked up Lucas's gentle smile. He was hearing an echo of his former self. At sixty-three he didn't consider himself old, but he wondered that with hardening of the arteries, did advancing age also stiffen hope into despair?
"And what about you, Dr. Chase?" Claudia Kane spun around, flashing him her wide bright smile. Frank Hanamura might be conventionally handsome, but Chase's saturnine looks, set off by a close beard streaked with gray, had a far stronger appeal to a woman of her age. The shape of his lips entranced her. "Which side are you on?"
"Is it a contest?" Chase inquired mildly.
"The two views we've heard expressed are diametrically opposed, I would have thought."
The camera featured Chase full frame in close-up as he said, "It's easy to score points and engage in a slugging match. The three of us could do that all night because no one knows for certain what the future holds. But if you want a serious debate--"
"Yes, of course I do," said Claudia Kane, completely unruffled. She flicked back a stray lock of silver-tinted hair with a red-clawed hand. "So what I'd like to ask
Chase smiled. "We don't aim for the impossible. No, the idea originally was to unite those people who share a common belief, a common hope. Perhaps 'unite' is too forceful a word, because the movement doesn't exist in any formal or organized sense. It's more a commitment to a philosophy--to the feeling, the emotion if you like, of what it is to be just one form of life coexisting peacefully and in harmony with all the other forms of life that share this planet with us."
Claudia Kane nodded, watching his mouth. "That has almost the sound of a religious belief."
Chase said lightly, "If it is, it's pantheistic."
"In the sense that you identify God with the universe, as one and the same thing," said Claudia Kane, quick to demonstrate that she hadn't got the job on the strength of her pearly smile and chest measurement.
