Last Gasp полностью

And while all this was going on, what was he doing? Sitting in an air-conditioned television studio in Washington, D.C. Talking. Talking. Talking.

Endlessly Talking.

Afterward, in the bar, Claudia Kane said, "I think it went splendidly, don't you?"

Splendidly seemed such an odd choice of word that Chase wondered if she'd used it as a concession to his being English. He'd done the same thing himself with swell and sure when talking to Americans. What was it, a desire to merge with the local fauna, a wish to be accepted?

Lucas turned to him. "I read your piece on Calcutta in the Herald-Tribune. Five hundred suicides a day. That's terrible."

"The situation's even worse in Bangkok," Chase said. "Twenty-five million people, more than half of them living without water or adequate sanitation. It's one huge refugee camp."

"No sealed enclosures?" Hanamura said.

"Government buildings and the business sector are sealed, but the streets are open to the air. People drop down on the pavement and literally choke to death."

Claudia Kane shuddered and swirled the whiskey in her glass. "That's my idea of hell on earth."

"That's exactly what it is," Chase said gravely. "If you can imagine an updated version of Dante's Inferno, that's it all right."

"Do you have any plans to visit Japan?" Hanamura asked.

"Not at the moment. I was there last year for six weeks on a lecture tour. Those new measures you've introduced seem to be having an effect. It's an encouraging sign."

Hanamura nodded agreement. "At long last our politicians are waking up. They've passed legislation to limit population and the decentralization policy is being implemented. The big stumbling block is industry. Trying to break down the tradition of paternalism is very difficult."

"At least you've got sixty percent nuclear power, which is a real achievement in curbing atmospheric pollution," Chase said. "In Britain it's less than twenty percent."

"Ah," said Hanamura, nodding sagely. "But Britain has reverted to cottage industry."

Whether he regarded this as being to Japan's advantage or not, Chase couldn't tell. "You mean souvenir rubbish suppliers to the world --cardboard Big Bens and plastic busts of the king and queen. It's turning into a bargain-basement historical joke shop."

Lucas was interested to know what Frank Hanamura was working on, and the tall elegant Japanese gave an enigmatic smile. "A pet project of mine. I've been trying to get it funded for the last five years, but I suspect they think it's crazy, an impossible scheme. I want to give the world its oxygen back, that's all.".

"How do you propose to do that?" asked Lucas with a half-smile, half-frown.

"By using a process that every schoolboy learns in the first grade. The electrolysis of seawater."

"On what kind of scale?" Chase asked.

"Well, yes, that really is the crux of the problem," Hanamura admitted wryly. "As you know it's easy enough in the laboratory and the process has been used to a limited extent for industrial purposes. But producing the large tonnages of oxygen that would make any appreciable difference to the biosphere is one hell of a problem. So far unresolved." He seemed quite cheerful about it.

"My first-grade science isn't all that hot," Claudia Kane said. "What process is that again?"

Chase said, "Electrolysis of seawater. You split H_zO into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electrical current through brine. As Frank says, nothing is easier in theory, and we've been doing it for years on a small scale. But for the amounts he's talking about there are problems of corrosion and--" He stopped, realizing it was getting technical, and said, "Well, there are problems, and pretty daunting ones."

"It's the obvious solution when you think about it," Hanamura enthused. "Seven tenths of the earth's surface is seawater. There's a virtually unlimited supply from which we can obtain the oxygen we need to replenish the atmosphere. It's never been done before because we've never needed to do it. And also, of course, because electrolysis has one major drawback." He glanced keenly at the two men.

"Power," Lucas said.

Hanamura nodded briskly, his sallow face with its delicate cheekbones becoming more animated. "I've done some preliminary computer studies and I'm convinced it's technically feasible, given--"

There was a distracting flurry of movement as a bald-headed man in a bow tie came in. He was flushed and agitated. He spoke to a group near the door, whose faces registered numbed, open-mouthed disbelief. The word spread. AP had filed a report that Carl Redman, director of the World Meteorological Organization, had been the victim of pyro-assassination while on a visit to New Mexico. He was the fourth government official to have been killed by the gruesome method of being doused in gasoline and set alight. As with the previous cases, the assassins and their motives were unknown.