They walked across the courtyard to join Michiel, Chiara, and Cornelia for a light, informal dinner in what had formerly been the convent’s refectory. Also with them was Marco Orsini, the leader of the Vexital movement, sometimes called “the Doge” by the tabloid press. He was in his forties, conservatively attired, with an earnest, approachable manner that probably came in handy in his role of trying to promulgate what most would consider a daft idea. And Marco had brought with him his friend Pau, an activist from Barcelona—a city that, like Venice, was trying to get free of the country it had been lumped into.
The table looked a thousand years old; the molecular-cuisine tapas being carried in by the waitstaff had been prepared in a kitchen that looked like it had been refurbished by NASA. Art, mostly quite old, adorned those parts of the walls not covered by cracked and faded frescoes. Saskia could only imagine what this family’s art collection must look like. She saw paintings she supposed were knockoffs of Titians or Tintorettos until she got it through her head that they were the real things.
The most prominent work on display was a Renaissance painting of Ceres in her winged chariot. The very goddess after whom cereals were named. She was flying over an idealized Tuscan landscape looking for her lost daughter Proserpina. Saskia knew the story perfectly well. The grief of Ceres over the loss of contact with her daughter—taken away to be the unwilling queen of the underworld—was the cause of seasons. Crops withered and died at the bidding of Ceres. But she was also the goddess of growth and fertility when she was in a more generous frame of mind. The choice of this painting to hang above this dinner table could not have been an accident, any more than the “Queen of Netherworld” banner.
“I wonder what the Romans would have made of that myth,” Saskia reflected, “if they had understood the workings of the hemispheres and the fact that winter in the north was summer in the south? That you can’t have one without the other?”
It was meant as a light conversational gambit, but Daia didn’t take it that way. “Let’s be clear about what you’re getting at,” she said. “Saving Venice from the sea might mean famine in the Punjab.”
“That’s actually
“No one wants famine in the Punjab, or anywhere else,” Cornelia said. “It’s not as simple a trade as that—fortunately for everyone.”
“The Indian Academy of Sciences has published some climate simulations that suggest otherwise.”
“In the scenario where Pina2bo is the
“How does that help us?”
“Historically, volcanic eruptions south of the equator are associated with stronger monsoons.”
It turned out that Daia had never heard of Vadan. Saskia could hardly blame her. She’d never have known any of this had Cornelia not made her aware. So they took a minute to explain the basics: it was a rocky isle off the remote Albanian coast, formerly an outpost of the Venetian Empire, later a Soviet chemical munitions factory, and—as of about a year ago—the site of a project to build a clone of Pina2bo. From Venice, Vadan lay about eight hundred kilometers to the southeast. Along with other attendees, Saskia was scheduled to visit the place for a conference in a few days.
“You people are full of surprises,” Daia mused. “Who knew that Albania was going to become a player?”
“North Macedonia?” Chiara guessed.
“You joke, but what’s to prevent it? Why shouldn’t North Macedonia build one, if Albania’s doing it?”
“Because they don’t need to. The effects spread out over a wide area,” Michiel reminded her, “so North Macedonia gets a free ride. What’s good for Albania is good for them, and everyone else downwind.”
“In this hemisphere, prevailing winds are from the west,” Daia pointed out. “Vadan’s in the wrong direction from Venice, is it not?”
“Yes, if all we cared about was cooling the weather here,” Michiel said. “Vadan won’t do that. Instead it will cool down Turkey, Syria, and Iraq—places that are in danger of becoming uninhabitable because of rising temperatures.”
“Just as Pina2bo has already made a measurable difference in Austin and Houston,” Chiara put in.
“Well, that gives me a hint as to how you financed Vadan,” Daia said.
This connection hadn’t occurred to Saskia. She’d vaguely assumed that Vadan was all financed by mysterious Venetian oligarchs. But the look on the faces of Michiel and Chiara made it clear Daia had guessed correctly.
