“It’s not a jungle planet we’re after here!”

“You’re making a hidden assumption that people can be genetically engineered to tolerate higher CO2 levels, but it’s ridiculous!”

Very soon it became clear that they were accomplishing nothing. No one was really listening, and everyone had their opinions, which were tightly aligned to their employers’ interests. It was unseemly, really. A mutual distaste for the tone of the debate caused all but the immediate participants to withdraw— around Sax people were folding programs, turning off lecterns, whispering to their companions, all while people were still standing and speaking . . . bad form, no doubt about it. But it only took a moment’s thought to realize that they were now arguing over policy decisions that were not going to be made at the level of working scientists anyway. No one liked that, and people actually began to get up and leave the room, right in the middle of the discussion. The overwhelmed panel moderator, an overpolite Japanese woman who was looking miserable, spoke over the rising voices, and suggested that they close the session. People trooped into the halls in little knots, some still talking heatedly to their allies, making their cases decisively now that they were only complaining to their friends.

• • •

Sax followed Claire and Jessica and the other Biotique people across the canal and into Hunt Mesa. They took the elevator up to the mesa plateau, and had lunch at Antonio’s.

“They’re going to flood us with CO2,” Sax said, unable to hold his tongue any longer. “I don’t think they understand what a fundamental blow that will be to the standard model.”

“It’s a different model entirely,” Jessica said. “A two-phase, heavy-industrial model.”

“But it will keep people and animals in tents more or less indefinitely,” Sax said.

“Maybe the transnat executives don’t mind that,” Jessica said.

“Maybe they like it,” Berkina said.

Sax made a face.

Claire said, “It could just be that they’ve got this soletta and lens, and they want to use them. Like playing with toys. It’s so much like the magnifying glass you use to start fires with when you’re ten. But this one is so powerful. They can’t stand not to use it. And then calling the burn zones canals, you know . . .”

“That is so stupid,” Sax said sharply, and when the others stared at him in some surprise, he tried to lighten his tone: “Well, it’s just so silly, you know. It’s such a kind of fuzzy romanticism. They won’t be canals in the sense of usefully connecting one body of water with another, and even if they tried to use them, the banks would be slag.”

“Glass, they’re claiming,” Claire said. “And it’s just the idea of canals, anyway.”