Concentration on his specialty had made Philpott narrow and cold in his dealings with other human beings, but he was an intelligent man, and he was capable of sympathetic and emotional responses to other individuals when his attention had been caught. At this moment, his attention was caught.
Basmyonov, Philpott suddenly remembered, glad to have retained the name from the television reports. “Mr. Basmyonov,” he said, with passable Russian inflection, the accent on the penultimate syllable, “the world is a rather well organized place, all in all. The damage you can do here is, at its worst, infinitesimal in comparison with the planet, with all the hundreds of nuclear power plants producing electricity around the globe, with the thousands of power plants of other types. In human terms, more people are being conceived at this moment than you and this plant could possibly kill. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make light of your situation, but what you people are doing is a very small blip on the screen. They can afford to outwait you. Stall, talk, negotiate, never come to any conclusion. And meantime, your food is running low. It certainly is in here. We’ve eaten just about every bit of junk food we had in the lounge.”
The thin black woman slid slowly down the wall behind her and sat on the floor, head lolling, like a doll left behind when the family moved. The other woman stooped as though to help her, but there was nothing to be done, so she straightened again. The black woman’s eyes were glazed, mouth slack. She seemed to take no interest in anything that was being said.
The Russian said, “But why isn’t it easier for them to negotiate?”
It was the exotic-looking woman who answered before Philpott could, turning her attention away from the woman seated on the floor. “Authority,” she said, with such disgust it was as though the word were a dead mouse she had found on her tongue. “Their authority must be unquestioned. They must be permitted to do what they want with their world. In Brazil, they killed entire valleys, killed the people, the trees, the waters, the ground, and no one was permitted to question their right to do so.”
So that’s your bugbear, Philpott thought, and said, “I wouldn’t phrase it quite the same way, but yes, that’s essentially it. All of this was thought out, worked out, in the capitals of the world, years ago. I was on some of the preliminary working panels myself, and I know the decisions, and I know the thinking behind it. No nation can afford to give in even once to nuclear blackmail. It can never be seen to be a paying proposition, or it will proliferate, and the carnage would be unbelievable.”
The man with the gun said, scornfully, “They’d let us wreck this place?”
“If you’re that mindless, yes. Listen, there are five billion human beings on this Earth. How many do you think you could kill with this plant? I mean, if every circumstance went exactly your way. Thirty thousand? This lady mentioned dead valleys in Brazil. How many more dead valleys could the human race create, and still survive on the planet? Hundreds.” To the Russian, he said, “Your nation has managed to destroy an entire sea, the Aral. A huge inland salt sea, mismanaged to a brackish puddle the size of this room. The salt floats in the air. Infants are dying there, because there’s salt in their mothers’ milk and they can’t eat. A vast expanse of your own nation destroyed, with everybody and everything on it, but the Soviet Union goes on. The planet goes on. The human race goes on.”
The Russian said, “We’re too unimportant, you mean.”
“All of us are,” Philpott agreed. “You, I, the negotiators, all of us.”
The man with the gun said, “What if we start shooting hostages?”
Philpott frowned at him. “I don’t think you will,” he said, “but you might. If you do, communication will stop. They would write us all off, and just wait.”
“For us to wreck the plant.” That false scorn was there again, the man trying to convince himself of his potency; but of course, failing.
Philpott said, “I’ll tell you what I think is happening out there right now. I believe the area in front of the gate is full of fire trucks and other emergency equipment. I believe there are hundreds, perhaps even more than a thousand, people in radiation suits, poised and ready. The instant you give any indication that you are damaging the plant, they will pour in here to contain that damage as best they can. As the weather reports on television have been telling us, civilization has been getting a lucky break and you an unlucky one—”
“Civilization,” the exotic woman spat, and her scorn was no affectation.
Philpott looked at her. “I can see civilization has harmed you,” he said. “It does that. I can’t feel your pain, of course, but I still believe human civilization is worth the price we pay.”
“The price you pay, or the price I pay?”
Philpott spread his hands. “We all make that decision for ourselves.” Turning back to the armed man, he said, “What I was saying about the weather. There are neither high winds nor rain anywhere in the forecast, and those are the two weather modes that would spread radiation and destruction the farthest. Given the current weather, and given the emergency teams no doubt waiting outside the perimeter, there’s a very good chance they can contain the damage to this immediate area only.”
“You’ll die,” the armed man pointed out, “along with the rest of us.”
Philpott sighed. “I know that. But what am I to do? It frightens me, naturally, and it saddens me, just when I’ve—” He glanced toward the storage bottle with its invisible S-drop. His triumph; too late?
Suddenly he realized he shouldn’t draw their attention to it. “That’s why I hope,” he said, more loudly, looking at the armed man, “I can convince you to give this up. So far, I believe you’ve harmed no one. Two of your partners here are in desperate need of hospitalization, and—”
The thin black woman on the floor roused herself, from what had seemed like a drugged sleep, to say, “No hospital help me. Nothing help me. I’m dead meat.”
Philpott pushed forward, concentrating on the armed man. “If you’re willing, I could try to negotiate your surrender, terms, lawyers—”
The armed man pointed the gun at Philpott, but not as a threat. It was as though he were pointing a finger. He said, “I’m not going back. I already promised myself that.”
The exotic woman wrapped her arms around herself. She looked cold, and utterly bitter. “It’s no good,” she said. “Nothing ever works. They always win. You can’t fight them. It’s their world.”
“I’m not going back,” the armed man repeated.
Philpott wasn’t sure exactly what he meant — back to a madhouse? — but he could see that this was no bluff or braggadocio. He said, “I’m sure we could negotiate some sort of press conference as part of the surrender. You could get your story out, we could at least make sure of that much.”
The exotic woman said, “That’s what they told Li Kwan.”
“That’s what I’m remembering, too,” the armed man said. He looked meaner, colder. He’s made a decision, Philpott realized, and I’m not going to like it.
The Russian suddenly said, “Is that the experiment you were talking about on television?”
He saw me look that way, Philpott thought. The Russian was pointing directly at the storage bottle on the table on the other side of the room. Philpott’s mouth was very dry, his palms wet. He said, “We’re still trying to find the particle.”
“Are you?” The Russian kept peering at the storage bottle. “Then what is the camera looking at?”