"Kim Stanley Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

To do so, they had to keep trying to understand the environmental effects of:
1) the so-far encouraging but still ambiguous results of their North Atlantic salting
operation;
2) the equally ambiguous proliferation of a genetically modified “fast tree lichen” that
had been released by the Russians in the Siberian forest;
3) the ongoing rapid detachment and flotation of the coastal verge of the Western
Antarctic Ice Sheet;
4) the ongoing introduction of about nine billion tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere every year, ultimate source of many other problems;
5) the ensuing uptake of some three billion tons of carbon into the oceans;
6) the continuing rise of the human population by some hundred million people a
year; and, last,
7) the cumulative impacts of all these events, gnarled together in feedback loops of
all kinds.


It was a formidable list, and Frank worked hard on keeping his focus on it.
But he was beginning to see that his personal problems—especially Caroline’s
disappearance, and the election-tampering scheme she had been tangled in—were
not going to be things he could ignore. They pressed on his mind.
She had called the Khembali embassy that night, and left a message saying that she
was okay. Earlier, in Rock Creek Park, she had told him she would be in touch as
soon as she could.
He had therefore been waiting for that contact, he told himself. But it had not come.
And Caroline’s ex, who had also been her boss, had been following her that night.
Her ex had seen that Caroline knew he was following her, and had seen also that
Caroline had received help in escaping from him. He also knew that Caroline’s help
had thrown a big rock right at his head.
So now this man might very well still be looking for her, and might also be looking
for that help she had gotten, as another way of hunting for her.
Or so it seemed. Frank couldn’t be sure. He sat at his desk at NSF, staring at his
computer screen, trying to think it through. He could not seem to do it. Whether it
was the difficulty of the problem, or the inadequacy of his mentation, he could not
be sure; but he could not do it.



So he went to see Edgardo. He entered his colleague’s office and said, “Can we talk
about the election result? What happened that night, and what might follow?”
“Ah! Well, that will take some time to discuss. And we were going to run today
anyway. Let’s talk about it while en route.”
Frank took the point: no sensitive discussions to take place in their offices.
Surveillance an all-too-real possibility. Frank had been on Caroline’s list of surveilled
subjects, and so had Edgardo.
In the locker room on the third floor they changed into running clothes. At the end of
that process Edgardo took from his locker a security wand that resembled those
used in airports; Caroline had used one like it. Frank was startled to see it there
inside NSF, but nodded silently and allowed Edgardo to run it over him. Then he did
the same for Edgardo.
They appeared to be clean of devices.