Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (352 page)

He hoped things would go well for her. He had respected her from the first. Now he was coming to like her, too.

Also he didn’t want to be ordered home.

* * * *

Officially Project Director Pao was in charge of the scientific and technical personnel at Green Phoenix.
De facto
he was the governor of the whole area. He was of a stamp Wang recognized on sight, wondering whether Sue did also: a loyal party hack who had engineered promotion to high rank at an early age and spent the rest of his career trying to make sure no one noticed how poorly qualified he was for his post. An incursion by scientists with UN backing, though it had always been a possibility, had caught him unawares. In a frantic attempt to make it appear as though he had been prepared for the visitors and was still in complete control, he had improvised for them and the project staff a dinner that he termed a banquet to be held in the little town’s single large building. Known as the Refectory, it was a relic of the desert days when the local population numbered few enough for all to eat under the same roof.

“Sort of Maoist,” Sue grunted when Wang asked what she thought of the invitation. “But I guess it shows willing.”

“Won’t we have to eat local food?”—thinking of Lin’s wife and her abdominal growth.

“Oh, it can’t be immediately poisonous.…Tell me, what do you make of Pao, or have you not had time to decide?” When he hesitated she added, “In confidence, of course!”

Baldly he expressed his opinion. Sue heard him out, then smiled. “I do agree! He reminds me of a woman I once heard about who drove into another car rounding a blind bend. She told the police in a hurt tone, ‘But there’s never been a car there before!’”

Wang chuckled. Yes, here was someone who could cope with China.

* * * *

On the whole the dinner was good, though one had to suspect that much of its ferocious spicing was a disguise for inferior ingredients rather than a display of Far Western cuisine. At any rate the variety was impressive; there was even local carp, raised in rainwater ponded by tree-roots. and water-weed. And there was plenty of wine. Grapevines had been among the plants first specified for inclusion in the mix.

This and other information was imparted as each course was delivered. Pao, sowing the seeds of future embarrassment, had jumped to conclusions on hearing that Sue Long hailed from America and assigned an interpreter who commentated in accordance with instructions. Disconcerted to find she was fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, he wound up talking to Wang instead.

Unfortunately most of what the guy had to say consisted of what he had been expecting to tell Sue. Wang’s mind wandered. So did his eyes. Eventually they settled on a man with a straggly beard, standing near the door, who didn’t look like a member of Pao’s staff. In general the latter were presentably dressed, so it was surprising to see a person in muddy overalls. Moreover he was not Chinese—not Han, at any rate. Part of Wang’s training had consisted in learning to recognize racial types. This man he guessed to be a Uighur. If so, he wasn’t all that far from home. On the other hand, muddy overalls at a formal dinner…

He interrupted a disquisition about the way bees had integrated into the Green Phoenix complex.

“Who’s that fellow in dirty clothes?”

The interpreter stumbletongued, but it was a sufficient definition. “A harmless simpleton,” he answered with a shrug. “Director Pao being a generous man, he lets the fellow work here in return for his keep. Like many of his sort he does have a way with plants.”

Sue had overheard these remarks, Wang realized. They exchanged wry glances. Director Pao was not the likeliest person one would expect to hear accused of generosity.

“What’s his name?” Sue inquired. The interpreter smiled.

“Oh, no one knows. He’s dumb. We call him Greenthumb—
Ah!”
He whipped out cigarettes. News of the dangers of smoking seemed not to have penetrated here; at some unnoticed signal half of those present were lighting up. And a microphone was being placed in front of Pao.

Speechifying time.

* * * *

Pao matched Wang’s stereotype perfectly. He was a classic devotee of statistics. Figure after number after figure flowed from his lips: so much barren land reclaimed, so many trees planted, so many non-tree species added, so much food supplied to towns and villages over so wide an area, especially mushrooms and nuts.… Incontestably it was an impressive achievement, even though Pao hadn’t heard about the dangers of tobacco either and promised that Green Phoenix’s next five-year plan would incorporate hectarage to supply a cigarette factory.

As the climax to his address he cited the fact that this was the sole part of China where there had been no difficulty enforcing the one-child policy. This proved that an adequate standard of living could outweigh people’s traditional desire for descendants to worship them when they became ancestors, ha-ha! He sat down looking smug.

Then they called on Sue.

She was trembling as she stood up, but during the time it took to adjust her microphone she overcame her nervousness. Her first words provoked a ripple of amusement that lasted just long enough.

“My apologies to the interpreters who were looking forward to a hard evening’s work.… Project Director Pao, members of the Green Phoenix staff, no one could fail to acknowledge your ambition, your sincerity and your dedication. It has been well said that one should not waste breath on repeating what must be known to everyone already. In compliance with that principle I’ll confine myself to asking why, Director, you omitted from your account of Green Phoenix’s achievements what people hereabouts have nicknamed ‘good-with-rice.’ It’s astonishing: a fruit containing as much protein as high-quality meat, even smelling and tasting like it, edible by humans and even wild carnivores. This is something the world has long been waiting for.… Director?”

A hushed and hurried consultation was in progress. At length not Pao but someone beside him declared, “You are mistaken! This has nothing to do with us! We know nothing about it!”

The hiss of indrawn breath was almost a gale. Scattered voices framed confused questions, tailing away amid a welter of second thoughts. Wang tensed, staring around the broad low-ceilinged room.

Sue, still on her feet, was perspiring visibly although it was cooler here than in Guangzhou. Plainly she had anticipated this reaction, for she was rehearsing words under her breath, but now that confrontation was upon her she was having difficulty uttering them.

During this hiatus, a distracting movement. Visibly bored, Greenthumb was sidling toward the door. On the way he groped in a pocket, produced something Wang could not see clearly, made to lob it toward the head table—

Bodyguard. They make bombs so small now. A grenade?

“Wang!” Sue cried his name. Too late. His gun was leveled. Had gone off. He saw red in the distance. Time shrank. The thing thrown had fallen to the floor. He hurled himself atop it and awaited death.

Cries of terror were replaced with nervous laughter. Bewildered, he rolled over and sat up, feeling an utter fool.

The “grenade” was a fruit the size of a turkey egg. His falling on it had burst the skin and it was leaking juice the way Greenthumb was leaking blood from his chest. It smelt no less like meat.

In the meantime Pao and his associates had fled like panicked pigs.

THE UNSEEN OCTOPUS

…of modern communications twitched its tentacles on every continent in response to the reports from China. Hitherto, though, there had been no such grand public reaction as Bin had sourly predicted, with sensational headlines announcing the abolition of hunger. Merely, certain scientists and politicians who had earlier decided against visiting Green Phoenix reconsidered on learning that what to those few who had heard about it seemed a promising new food might have undesirable side-effects—worse, was not as might have been assumed the end product of a rigorously supervised research program: the former sensing the chance of a paper for a prestigious journal, the latter in search of re-election clout.

It being a time of relative quiet on the international scene, the shooting of Greenthumb provided an extra impulse that translocated Pao’s domain from the science to the general news pages. Suddenly reporters from twenty countries were clamoring for Chinese visas.

* * * *

There would have to be an inquiry, of course. Pao wanted to mount it himself and at once, perhaps in hope of getting rid of an inconvenient intruder; however, the prospect of it being in progress during an influx of still more influential visitors proved daunting. In the end he was instructed to await a lawyer from Beijing, pending whose arrival Wang was to be released in Sue’s custody—a reversal of ro1es that might have been amusing had the situation not been so explosive.

Explosive.… How could I have mistaken a fruit for a bomb?

More embarrassed than he would have thought possible—in a sense, in shock himself—Wang begged Sue to accompany him to the infirmary where Greenthumb was awaiting transfer to a proper hospital where they would remove the bullet. They were allowed to see him, but he had been given massive doses of painkiller and his meager response was a blank, hurt expression: why?

There must be something I can do to make amends.…
As they were leaving Wang checked in mid-stride. “Sue!” he burst out. “Can you get someone to take a photograph of Greenthumb?”

“I guess so. Why?”

“I can’t help wondering what he’s doing here. A dumb simpleton that Pao gives work to out of charity? How much charity can you imagine Pao displaying in an average year? And he was the one who not only knew what you meant but had evidence to—to throw at you. Maybe you should have his picture scanned and circulated.”

Even as he uttered them Wang found his words unconvincing. With so many people in the world …

Yet Sue was nodding. “You’re no fool, are you?” she said cordially. “I’d been wondering about Greenthumb too, but that didn’t occur to me. Now where do we find a Polaroid?”

And by the time pictures of the Uighur had been transmitted to the world’s police agencies along with his fingerprints and DNA type, just in case, they were due to explore the body of the Phoenix.

* * * *

On the hillsides mist had lingered well past dawn, but it cleared soon after Sue and Wang set forth in a convoy of three cross-country vehicles, leaving Bin to monitor incoming messages at the comms center. Their group included one of Pao’s staff as a guide and a platoon of soldiers escorting technical equipment and the day’s rations.

At first their route took them through small towns that had sprung up because of the new forest. Not long ago they had been mere villages, but despite the success hereabouts of the one-child policy their population had ballooned thanks to reverse emigration; unhappy in strange cities, thousands of local people who had moved away had applied to return, and permission had in general been granted. So many trees having been felled, most of their homes were burrowed into hillsides.

Inevitably hordes of the curious attended the visitors wherever they went. Inevitably that included markets, of which there was one in each little town. Inevitably Sue decided in the end to ask why she saw no “good-with-rice” on sale, risking a rebuff from their guide who would inevitably declare that it wasn’t one of the Green Phoenix projects.

Wang saved her from embarrassment. He tapped her arm and pointed left, right, ahead, behind: low bushes, branches laden, before every house, thriving equally in the ground or in pottery tubs.

She whistled as she had back in Guangzhou. Why pay for what—as their guide grumpily admitted under pressure—grew anywhere and everywhere faster than a weed, yet, astonishingly, never seeded itself but needed to be planted by human hand?

Several late risers were emerging from their homes and culling the fruit for breakfast. No charge.

“Don’t they know about the risk of cancer?” Wang whispered. “There must have been enough cases by now for someone to make a connection.”

“False sago,” was Sue’s reply.

He shook his head uncomprehendingly.

“The starchy food we call sago comes from a palm-tree. There are other plants that yield something similar but aren’t palms. They’re cycads, a kind of giant fern. If you eat the wrong sort you fall ill, become paralyzed and finally die. That’s been known for years. Yet people go on eating the stuff.”

“Because they’re starving?”

“More because they don’t think it will happen to them.”

“I see.… We’re a short-sighted species, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

* * * *

Beyond that point their route took them deeper and deeper into the forest. There were no more villages or even settlements, only isolated buildings where half-trained “scientists” strove to keep track of the biological explosion taking place around them. Their equipment was old and ill maintained; they reminded Sue, she said, of priests rehearsing rituals whose purpose was forgotten. No wonder something like “good-with-rice” could emerge without anybody grasping its significance … although oddly enough they saw no sign of it within the forest.

Wang would have wished to inquire further. By now, however, he had been overwhelmed by the majesty of their improbable surroundings, and he was not alone. Earlier the soldiers had been arguing via the radio, the subject being why strangers were suddenly making such a fuss about “good-with-rice,” which they had so long been accustomed to, but at length even the most talkative of them had been shamed into silence by the monstrous actuality of the Green Phoenix. He had had it in mind to make a good impression by commenting intelligently on what they were seeing—the intertwined branches that screened the sky, the creepers and mosses draping them, the birds, the insects, the snakes, the fungi, that pullulated deliriously amid moist heavy-scented air a good five degrees warmer than at their starting-point. Sue, however, ignored him and everyone else, ordering the soldiers to take samples of this, that and the other, meantime recording comments of her own.