Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [59]
On the first plane Joe wanted to investigate every nook and cranny, and so Charlie followed him around, returning the smiles of those passengers who did in fact smile. Joe ran a route like a long figure 8, chanting “Airplane! Airplane! Airplane!” When the food and drink carts filled the aisles he had to be lifted into his seat, struggling as he declared “Airplane! Truck!” (the drink cart) “People!” Eventually he ran out of gas and fell asleep curled in his seat next to Rudra Cakrin, who nodded off over him, occasionally holding Joe’s wrist or ankle between two gnarled fingers. Anna sat on the other side of Joe, using up her laptop battery all in one go. Across the aisle from her Charlie sat down and pulled out the seatback phone to make some calls. Anna tried to ignore him and work, but she heard him say hi to Wade Norton, a colleague down in Antarctica, and listened in.
“You saw twin otters? How did you know they were twins? . . . Oh. Uh huh. You saw Roosevelt Island, nice. How could that be the first time anyone has seen it? . . . Oh! . . . How many meters? . . . Where’d all the ice go? . . . Wow. Jesus. That is a lot. . . . Is that the beginning of the . . . the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, right I know. Sea level and all. How big is this piece? Wow. . . . Yeah, of course. We’ll be fine. We won’t be there but a few days anyway.”
Charlie listened for a while. Then: “Hey, Roy! I’m glad you were able to click in. What’s up? . . . Andrea doesn’t? Hey does that mean you two are speaking to each other again? Ha ha. . . . No, I don’t suffer under any illusions there, but Phil doesn’t listen to you guys either. . . . Oh right. From the South Pole, I’m sure. . . . I thought you said she was a giant. . . . Six foot four sounds giant to me. . . . You are not, you’re six feet at the most! Elevator shoes. . . . She’d be what, six ten? Yeah. Ha. . . . No, I think it’s his to lose! The happy man is like Hoover, and none of the other Republicans are happy men. They’re Angry Men. They’ve had the White House and Congress for so long it’s made them bitter. It’s just such an effort making it look like their program makes sense. It makes them angry and resentful. No. It’s not a process you want to follow to its natural end. I agree. . . . No, Phil would be fine. He’d love it. It’s us who would suffer, you know. . . . Well, because I thought it was a good idea! What else are we going to do anyway? We’ve got to try something, and Phil is our best shot. . . . I know. I know. . . . Yeah, just ride it. . . . Well, the more fool you! I’m off to Shambhala and Wade is at the South Pole. You can have D.C., ha!”
He rang off, leaned back looking pleased.
“You’re making trouble,” Anna observed.
“Yes. Someone’s got to do it.”
Hours later they floated down over the green fields of Japan, a startling sight if you were expecting nothing but Tokyo-like cityscapes. Then out of their seats, up a jetway, feeling slightly deranged; running around an airport acting as marshal or warden to a two-year-old minimum-security prisoner; then they were in another plane and rumbling into the air again, with another long day facing them. Nick kept on reading Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution. Charlie and Anna kept trading off the pursuit of the indefatigable Joe, Anna having given up making Charlie do it all, as they had both known she would. Besides, her battery was too low for her to keep working.
Joe seemed intent on confirming what Anna kept telling him, that this plane was identical to the one they had been on before. Except on this one the passengers seemed less amused by an exploratory bang on the knee.
Bangkok’s airport hotel, tall and white, stood over its big pool in intense sunlight. Dazed wandering after Joe in the turquoise shallows, trying to stay awake and unsunburnt, trying to keep Joe out of the deep end. The water was too warm. Then back to a cool room, sleep, but then the alarm oh my, middle of the night, ultragroggy,