Cheryl gave a cute little bunny dip. "Coming right up, sir."
Boris Stanovnik shook his head in a perplexed fashion, though he was half-smiling. "I like your daughter very much, Theo, but I do not understand her. She dictates to life, not life to her."
Yet another coincidence, Chase was thinking. That he should be sitting in Theo Detrick's hotel room with Boris Stanovnik, the man he had come all this way to meet. It gave him a prickly feeling on the back of his neck and he was conscious of a vague sense of unreality. But the glass of Scotch in his hand was real enough, and the taste reassuringly familiar.
The big Russian leaned forward, elbows on knees, a glass of beer looking tiny in his clasped hands. "You think what happened is to do with what we were discussing?" he asked Theo.
"Of course it is." Sitting in the bright halo of light from the corner lamp Theo Detrick's face seemed darker and craggier than ever. "They warned me officially, through the proper channels, and then thought it necessary to make the warning more direct. More personal."
"They?" Boris said in amazement. "The conference committee?"
"No, the people acting through the committee."
"But who
"The State Department. The CIA. Some political lobby or other. I don't know, Boris. Somebody with something to lose."
Boris was still frowning. "It's possible that the man who attacked Cheryl was with your State Department?"
Theo nodded.
"He would make the threat so openly?"
"Sure, that's nothing," Cheryl said, making herself comfortable on the foot of the bed nearest the window. "I'm surprised he didn't shoot me in the back and leave a note pinned to my panties. Threats, coercion, blackmail, frame-ups, these people are experts." She gave a sardonic smile. "America is a democracy, don't forget. You're free to threaten anybody you want to."
Chase was mystified by all this. He said, "That paper of yours must be pure dynamite, Dr. Detrick. What were you intending to speak about?"
"Its title is 'Back to the Precambrian,' Dr. Chase," and when he saw Chase's blank expression, went on, " 'Precambrian' is the term I have given to describe the reversion of the earth's atmosphere to what it was two billion years ago when the constituents were principally a highly corrosive mixture of hydrogen, ammonia, and methane. But no oxygen," he added significantly.
"You believe the earth is reverting to that state?"
"Unfortunately, I do," Theo said gravely. "I wish I could draw other conclusions from the work I've done, but . . ." He shook his head sadly.
"Your work on diatoms, you mean?"
"On the phytoplankton species in general. In the equatorial Pacific, which is normally one of the most productive regions of the ocean, all classes of phytoplankton are in drastic decline. As the oceans provide most of the oxygen requirement there must inevitably come a time when ths level of oxygen produced is reduced. Possibly within the next twenty to fifty years. Within a hundred years all the free oxygen at present circulating in the atmosphere will either have been consumed or will be locked up in various oxidation compounds, such as rocks, decaying matter, and so on. When that happens we shall be left with an atmosphere similar in composition to what it was in the Precam-brian period, two billion years ago." He gave a wan smile. "Man is a most arrogant species, Dr. Chase. He forgets that for millions of years this was a sterile planet with a poisonous atmosphere. It was only with the liberation of oxygen into the air that our form of organic life was able to evolve--but the biosphere doesn't owe us a living. We take it as a God-given right that oxygen is there for us to breathe, when in fact it is an accident, a biological quirk, so to speak, of nature."
Chase said diffidently, "I don't question the validity of your research, Dr. Detrick, but frankly I find your prognosis hard to take. I don't know the actual figure, but the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is immense--" "1,140,000,000,000,000 tons," Theo said.
"Surely that's more than enough to meet our needs for the foreseeable--indeed, the unforeseeable--future? I assume that phytoplankton growth won't cease altogether, so presumably the oxygen level will continue to be 'topped up.' And there are the green plants on land that supply a sizable proportion of oxygen, at least thirty percent."
Theo sipped his drink, sunk for a moment in thought. "I take your point, Dr. Chase," he said finally. "You are absolutely right to make it. But in considering the oxygen yield of the biosphere and whether it is sufficient for our long-term needs, there are two sides to the equation. Let us call them 'profit and loss' and draw up a global balance sheet.
