Read Online Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson - Free Book Online Page A

reached a height, and paused in space, just before falling the other way. People began to think that something might really happen.

    I T SEEMED TO FRANK that with such a president as Phil Chase coming into office, in theory it ought to be very interesting to be the Presidential Science Advisor, or an advisor to the advisor. But there were aspects of the new job that were disturbing as well. It was going to mean increasing the distance between himself and the doing of science proper, and was therefore going to move him away from what he was good at. But that was what it meant to be moving into administration. Was there anyone who did policy well?
    His intrusion on the Khembalis was another problem. Rudra’s failing health was a problem. His own injury, and the uncertain mentation that had resulted (if it had), was a very central problem—perhaps
the
problem. Leaving NSF, meaning Anna and the rest of his acquaintances and routines there (except for Edgardo and Kenzo, who were also joining Diane’s team), was a problem.
    Problems required solutions, and solutions required decisions. And he couldn’t decide. So the days were proving difficult.
    Because above and beyond all the rest of his problems, there was the absolutely immediate one: he had to—
had to
—warn Caroline that her cover was insufficient to keep even a newcomer on the scene like Edgardo’s friend from locating her. He had to warn her of this! But he did not know where she was. She might be on that island in Maine, but unless he went and looked he couldn’t know. But if he went, he could not do anything that might expose her (and him too) to her husband. His van was chipped with a GPS transponder—Caroline was the one who had told him about it—so its identity and location could be under surveillance, and tracked wherever it went. He could easily imagine a program that would flag any time his van left the metropolitan area. This was a serious disadvantage, because his van was his shelter of last resort, his only mobile bedroom, and all in all, the most versatile room in the disassembled and modular home that he had cast through the fabric of the city.
    “Can I dechip my van?” he asked Edgardo next day on their run, after wanding them both again. “For certain? And, you know, as if by accident or malfunction?”
    “I should think so,” Edgardo replied. “It might be something you would need some help with. Let me look into it.”
    “Okay, but I want to go soon.”
    “Up to Maine?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay, I’ll do my best. The person I want to talk to is not exactly on call. I have to meet them in a context like this one.”
    But that night, as Frank was settling down in the garden shed with Rudra, who was already asleep, Qang came out to tell him there was a man there to see him. This caused Frank’s pulse to elevate to a disturbing degree—
    But it was Edgardo, and a short man, who said “hello” and after that spoke only to Edgardo, in Spanish. “Umberto here is another porteño,” Edgardo said. “He helps me with matters such as this.”
    Umberto rolled his eyes dramatically. He took Frank’s keys and went at the van as if he owned it, banging around, pulling up carpet from the floor, running various diagnostics through a laptop, complaining to Edgardo all the while. Eventually he opened the hood and after rooting around for a while, unbolted a small box from the crowded left engine wall. When he was done he gave the box to Frank and walked off into the dark, still berating Edgardo over his shoulder.
    “Thanks!” Frank called after him. Then to Edgardo: “Did I see how he did that, so I can put it back in?” He peered at the engine wall, then the bolts in his hand there with the box, then the holes the bolts had come out of. It looked like a wrench kit would do it. “Okay, but where do I put it now?”
    “You must leave it right here where it would be, so that it seems your van is parked here. Then replace it when you