‘I’m hoping so,’ Stanley replied. ‘Things aren’t going exactly to plan though.’
‘From what I’ve heard about cold fusion, they never have.’
‘It’s not cold fusion,’ Stanley uttered angrily. ‘It’s Low Energy Nuclear Reactions.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Look,’ Stanley persisted, ‘cold fusion has become a byword for pseudoscience, but they clearly witnessed something or the scientists behind it would not have dared to go public. Those still researching the subject think that rather than nuclear fusion, what Fleischmann and Pons really observed was the conversion of one element into another, a transmutation that releases energy in the process: a low energy nuclear reaction.’
‘You mean like alchemy, lead into gold? You can’t be serious?’
‘I’m serious,’ Stanley said, ‘and so is NASA. Both their Langley Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are studying the conversion of stable elements like nickel, carbon, and hydrogen to produce stable products like copper or nitrogen, along with heat and electricity. They have already demonstrated the ability to produce excess amounts of energy, cleanly, without hazardous ionizing radiation and waste.’
‘And that’s the same process your fusion cages uses?’ Ethan asked.
‘Precisely the same, except I’ve added a fuel cell that massively increases the yeild,’ Stanley explained. ‘I’ve calculated that just one percent of the nickel mined each year around the world could produce the entire world’s energy requirements at a quarter of the cost of coal, if my fusion cage was adopted globally.’
Ethan blinked, surprised at how plausible the whole thing sounded.
‘Doesn’t that mean you’re in a race against NASA?’ he asked.
‘In a sense. They’ll wish to commercialize the technology, whereas I wish to give it away. The science isn’t even that radical. NASA researchers rely heavily on the Widom — Larsen Theory published in 2006, which speculates that low energy nuclear reactions already occur on Earth in lightning, and may be responsible for occasional fires in lithium — ion batteries, which highlights that even low — energy nuclear reactors can produce dangerous amounts of energy. I’ve heard of several explosions in laboratories researching this LENR technology, which is another danger.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Like any energy source, they could easily be weaponized in the wrong hands,’ Stanley replied.
The interior of the SUV was plush, black leather and dark wood panelling with chrome trim. Through the tinted windows the sunrise was visible breaking across the distant desert wastes, the whisper of the SUV’s tires on the asphalt road distant as though Amber were in a dream, all sound muted and vague.
‘As soon as we get you to Damman, you’ll be safe. To be brutally honest few women are safe in this country, especially Americans.’
Amber turned from the panoramic view to look at Huck Seavers, who was sitting in the opposite seat with his hat in his lap and watching her with interest.
‘You call this safe? Abduction?’
‘Liberation,’ Huck corrected her without taking offence. ‘You were under attack from protesters, and I can’t imagine what would have happened had they gotten hold of you.’
‘They got hold of Ethan and Nicola,’ Amber shot back. ‘I don’t suppose you’re concerned about what happened to them?’
‘They’re adults and they’re journalists, always poking their noses where they don’t belong,’ Huck snapped dismissively. ‘I had my people track them down to a lousy two — bit bail bondsmen service operating out of Chicago, Illinois. They haven’t been within a hundred miles of the Defense Intelligence Agency and they’re fools for having brought you here. I won’t be happy until you’re back in America.’
‘Like you care,’ Amber muttered and turned back to looking at the sunrise.
‘You’ve got me all wrong,’ Huck insisted.
‘Sure I have.’
‘You think I’m the bad guy in all this, but for no reason.’
Amber rubbed her temples wearily with one hand and shook her head. ‘No reason? The disappearance of three hundred people with whom I shared the town of Clearwater? The pursuit of my father, Stanley Meyer. Threats, violence, corruption and payoffs in order to keep people silent. Legal challenges quashed by lawyers too expensive for anybody else to fight, just so you can tear the tops off of mountains for profit.’ Amber looked at Huck for a long moment and then looked away again.
Huck Seavers sat quietly for a moment before he replied.
‘I have a family, you know?’ he said finally. ‘My wife and I have been married fifteen years and we have a son and a daughter, twelve and eight years old respectively. My parents died a decade ago and I have no siblings, so my family is everything to me. You say that I used expensive lawyers to quash legal challenges and you’re right, I have. That’s because often the challenges are from environmentalists who have absolutely no understanding of how important it is for people, for our country, to have power. Have I made villages disappear or murdered countless people? No, I challenge them in the courts, and I win. I win because our country can’t face an ever — growing energy demand with nobody to fulfil it. I win because my business is a legitimate one and because I want to provide for my family in the future. This is a business, the business of supplying energy for the things you want in your own home; your lights, your television, your hot water and your heating. Without companies like Seavers Incorporated, you’ll have none of that.’
Amber shot him look of pure disgust.
‘At what cost? The poisoning of the atmosphere and the water table and of countless species, the destruction of habitat that can never be replaced, the warming of the oceans and the atmosphere that will change the face of our planet forever, all just to see your kids go to a more expensive school or own a more powerful car? You can’t use the excuse anymore that there is no other option, that we can’t power our world by other means. Even before my father devised his fusion cage he already understood, as I do, that we could power our entire world off the back of either solar or tidal power if the world’s governments simply got their act together and committed to it. But they won’t of course, because capitalism demands profit: if something can be done for profit but is too expensive to initiate, then it is ignored. You’re not the solution Huck, you’re the disease. My father is the cure, and because his solution didn’t involve profit you’re trying to shut him down. Don’t you dare sit there and try to justify the things that you’ve done with a plea for sympathy and understanding, when more sympathy and understanding on your part might have turned this into the best thing that ever happened to our planet, the planet that your son and daughter will inherit.’
Huck remained silent for a moment.
‘You’re living in a dream world,’ he uttered finally. ‘You’re right that there’s enough energy falling on the planet every day from the sun to power our world for a year, but without anywhere to store that power it’s useless to us. Likewise tidal power, which no country can afford to implement on the scales required to power everything. You people, you always seek a singular answer to complex questions when no such answers exist. The environmentalists cry that nuclear power is dirty and dangerous, when in fact it is clean and safe. Any kind of coal burning is considered heresy, even though clean coal is now available to us. Oil is the sworn enemy of any environmentalist seeking to ban motor vehicles, and yet only a tiny fraction of the oil that we buy goes into our vehicles — the vast majority is used in manufacturing and lubricants. Aeroplanes are hated by the green movement, and yet now one of the most efficient forms of travel available to humanity. Left to you and your kind we would all be living in mud huts, our children suffering from hideous diseases long since cured by science, unable to read or write, but hey, at least we’d be able to hug a tree or two.’