"It isn't used for anything, that's the irony," Chase said. "Dioxin is simply a by-product in the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T. Its proper chemical name is tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin, or TCDD. There are seventy different dioxins but TCDD is the deadliest. One of the first symptoms of dioxin poisoning is cloracne, which is a particularly nasty skin complaint." He looked at Ruth, his eyes clouding. "What I can't understand is how you come to have three cases of cloracne when there's been a worldwide ban on the manufacture of 2,4,5-T since 1989. They can't still be using it on farmland around here."
"The big combines aren't, because we've checked up on them." Ruth told him. "But there are hundreds of smaller farms and thousands of people with plots of land, and it's going to take months to carry out a complete investigation and pinpoint the source."
There was something that didn't quite fit, an inconsistency that Chase couldn't put his finger on. Cloracne was a symptom of dioxin poisoning, which in turn pointed to 2,4,5-T. That part made sense. What didn't?
"Could be a leak from a chemical plant," Frank Kollar suggested.
"No, we thought of that," Ruth said. "The nearest chemical plant is two hundred and fifty miles away, and it processes oil-based products, not herbicides."
"Isn't that the stuff they used in Vietnam to defoliate the jungle?" Binch asked Chase. "A lot of the guys who served out there developed symptoms of dioxin poisoning."
"That's what led to the ban. There was a whole range of genetic disorders caused by--" Chase stopped abruptly, realizing what Binch had just said. Of course! 2,4,5-T was used as a defoliant in Vietnam because it checked the growth of broad-leaved plants in jungles and forests; it had little effect on the narrow-leaved grasses such as were found in croplands. Hence, farmers in this part of the country wouldn't use 2,4,5-T anyway; it would be worse than useless for inhibiting weed growths. "Are there any military bases in the area?"
Binch was thrown by the question, and it took him a moment to think. He scratched his ear. "Well, there's NORAD--that's the North American Air Defense Command--at Colorado Springs, underground inside Cheyenne Mountain. But it's the combat operations center, which is nonoperational in military terms."
"Don't forget the space center near Cheyenne," Ruth put in. "That controls all the spy satellites and military shuttles launched from the Vandenberg Spaceport in California."
Chase recalled that ever since the Reagan administration in the early eighties the United States had been spending billions of dollars developing space platforms for beam weapons and killer-satellite launch pads. The Vandenberg Spaceport north of Santa Barbara on the Cali-fornian coast was a miniature city with its own schools, shops, and housing projects, costing three billion dollars to set up and around one billion a year to operate. How far they'd actually got with their beam-weapon program was a matter of speculation, though it was rumored that shuttle launches were now running once every seventeen days.
But Vandenberg was nearly half a continent away. He said, "Do they launch anything around here, say within fifty miles?"
Ruth glanced uncertainly at Binch. "I believe they carry out test firings of experimental prototypes from the Martin Marietta Space Center."
"Where's that?"
"Near Denver. Look, I don't follow this," Ruth said perplexedly. "What's it got to do with 2,4,5-T and dioxin poisoning?"
"Nothing that I know of," Chase said, which was what he devoutly hoped was true.
He lay quite still, though from the sound of his breathing, shallow and irregular, Nina knew that her husband was awake. She moved her hand underneath the blankets, found and gripped his.
"There's nothing anyone can do," she murmured in the darkness. "Even if there was, it isn't up to you."
"Then who?"
"Somebody else. Somebody younger."
Boris laughed, a rumble deep in his chest. "The younger people are committed to party and progress," he told her emptily. "And those who aren't are either powerless or afraid."
"Aren't you afraid?"
"Yes."
"Then
His hand returned the pressure. "Nina, dearest, I've worked on the project for over ten years now. The work I've done has contributed to the development of a weapon of environmental warfare."
"Which you didn't know about. You were ignorant of its--"
"It's there, it exists, and I helped. I didn't know about it because I chose not to think about it, to open my eyes, to ask questions." He turned his head on the pillow. "Why do you suppose they planted Malankov in my laboratory all those years ago? It was to find out what I knew and if I suspected anything."
"You did the work in good faith."
"No," Boris said bitterly. "In blind faith."
"It isn't your fault!" she insisted.
"You talk about fault? What does that matter? Don't you see? This madness, this barbarity, exists, it's real. It's no longer a question of apportioning blame."
"But you blame yourself."
