Ruth nodded, watching the blur of road through the windshield. "We still don't know precisely how or why. It could be a hereditary factor, some weakness or deficiency that's triggered by the deterioration in the environment. It's probable that these kids were genetically damaged to begin with and lacked the normal defense mechanisms to withstand pollutants in the air and water. We know from studies as far back as the eighties that environmental factors can cause abnormalities --the white blood cells contain broken fragments of chromosomes that jumble up the genetic message. This can cause cancer, spontaneous abortions, miscarriages and birth defects. The miscarriage rate over the past fifteen years has jumped from a national average of eight and a half percent to over thirty percent. The women who don't abort or miscarry produce offspring who are ripe candidates for pollution sickness. The poor little bastards can't win," Ruth added without emotion. "They're either aborted or born damaged."
"What about anoxia?" Chase asked, thinking of Cheryl. "Is it as common as pollution sickness?"
"Less so in people below the age of twenty-five." Ruth propped the rifle between her knees and eased back in the bucket seat. "It tends to affect the older age groups, presumably because they've been exposed to oxygen deficiency over a longer period and their tissues aren't as flexible and can't cope with the additional strain. It's a far more complex problem than pollution sickness and the medical background is sketchy. For one thing we don't have any reliable figures on the number of people affected and how many survive." Her mouth twisted sourly. "That's what I've devoted the last seven years of my life to finding out. Or maybe it's more accurate to say wasted the last seven years."
"You did all you could. You're not to blame."
"Oh, no, I don't blame myself," Ruth corrected him. "I just feel so fucking angry. How could we do this to ourselves? How could we have been so stupid and shortsighted?" She shook her head, gripped by a kind of impotent amazement. "You know, it was all in your book, every last damn word of it? Not just the stuff about environmental war, as if that weren't bad enough, but how we've crapped in our own nest, polluted the air we breathe with chemicals and turned the oceans into toxic soup. And Christ, we've known for at least half a century what we were doing and we kept right on doing it! What kind of species are we, for God's sake? Are we crazy or just plain stupid?"
"There are no votes in sewage," Chase muttered.
"What?"
"Something Theo Detrick once said. He meant you can't blame the politicians, because they'd never get elected to office on an ecology ticket. Cleaning up the environment, much less protecting it, doesn't have the instant easy appeal the public demands. More production, more growth, more cash in the pocket, more goodies--those are what people vote for. Certainly not for some earnest do-gooder preaching the doctrine that consumption is bad and will lead to ruin."
"So who is to blame? Is it us, each one of us individually? Is that what you're going to say?"
Chase looked across at her grim pale face. He smiled and shrugged. "Hey, don't get angry with me, Ruth. I've done my share of consuming --and preaching if it comes to that. If I knew the answer I'd have spit it out long ago. But I don't."
Wheeler Peak was behind them now, the road curling downward in a series of spirals to Connors Pass. Forest stretched on either side, lush and thick and green. At certain points along the road were shaded recreation areas with wooden tables and benches set in concrete.
On a day such as this, not many years ago, Chase reflected, cars would have been parked between the diagonal yellow lines and families would be eating at the tables and kids pitching baseball and chasing one another on the neat smooth grass. No families today. No kids. No baseball. The scene was eerily empty, like a vast, lavishly expensive sound stage complete with cyclorama of mountains and forests and sky waiting for shooting to begin. But Equity was on strike. There were no actors. All this beautiful setting had been built for no purpose, a complete and utter waste.
Was this how the future would be? Empty? A deserted planet?
In dreams he'd had visions of what the end would be like (it was how he imagined New York had become: steel and glass towers poking out of shit-colored murk), but this was worse, infinitely worse, because the beauty remained like a mocking taunt.
Yes, much worse, like a direct reproach from God. The planet had been entrusted to mankind, given into its care, and in just a few thousand years out of a four-and-a-half-billion-year history the species had succeeded brilliantly in transforming a paradise into a cesspool.
They were on highway 50 in the heart of the Humboldt Forest. Up ahead a white-lettered green sign announced a small town, and Chase pointed it out with a grin. The town was called Ruth.
