17

There were days when Karen’s work frightened her. A superstitious voice inside her head whispered that no good could come from interfering with nature as profoundly as she was doing. But then the latest data from the Canadian and Siberian forests would arrive. New satellite photographs would reveal tens of thousands of additional acres of dead conifers added to the several million already wiped out by the incessant march of the humble mountain pine beetle. Winters a degree or two warmer meant earlier thaws and later freezes. Genetically programmed to survive six months of sub-zero temperatures rather than the four they were now routinely encountering, the beetles were proliferating. Viewed from the air, the once uniformly green forests of the north were a mottled patchwork of green and brown. In places whole hillsides and entire valleys had been wiped out. A few trees had been discovered to produce sap sufficiently concentrated that the beetles avoided them, but if the current decimation continued, it would take centuries for these few survivors to repopulate the landscape.

Human beings didn’t have a few centuries. They had only a few decades at most. If enough forest died, the carbon released into the atmosphere would accelerate global warming to the point at which ice caps would melt and coastal cities and existing nuclear facilities become submerged. Drought and floods, famine and huge movements of refugees would lead inevitably to wars and chaos on a level unimaginable except to the few scientists who spent their waking hours working on myriad ways to prevent it. The terrible irony was that Karen and her colleagues were people who loved and revered nature, but who in order to protect their own species now found themselves compelled to manipulate and even defy it.

The laws of nature dictated the rise and fall of populations as an inevitable consequence of the perpetual competition for survival in a changing environment. Dinosaurs existed for 160 million years but were wiped out within a few seasons by sudden cooling caused by dust thrown up into the atmosphere following a meteorite strike. Jungle turned to tundra. In their changed surroundings the large cold-blooded lizards froze and starved. Only insects, small mammals and a handful of reptiles survived. A mere 200,000 years into their existence, homo sapiens faced a similarly dramatic annihilation, although if it came to pass, it would be one almost entirely of their own making.

Karen rationalized her work by telling herself she was merely engaged in temporary emergency measures. If humankind could be persuaded to behave differently, it too could prosper for millions of years, just as the dinosaurs had. She was the fire brigade, quenching the flames before the edifice collapsed. Once the immediate crisis was over, sanity stood a chance. They could rebuild. And learn.

She had raised her hybrid trees in one of the department’s greenhouses sited just beyond the northern fringes of Oxford. The genetically modified lodgepole pines stood over twenty-five feet high but were only four years old. A tree growing from seed in the wild would be little more than waist height at the same age. Karen had achieved this feat by splicing in genes from the fastest-growing varieties and by controlling greenhouse conditions to trick the trees into believing they had passed through an entire annual cycle every three months. Further genetic modifications caused them to produce a pheromone-imitating compound that attracted the beetles as well as sap that was toxic to them.

What Karen had created were living flypapers with potential to prevent an ecological disaster, but they also posed a risk. How they would interact with naturally occurring species was unknown. There was no telling whether in the medium to long term they would thrive or die. But they were fast becoming a necessity, and that was what truly frightened her: human beings had passed the point at which they could rely on the balance of nature to sustain them. That balance had already tipped and if left unchallenged, nature would dictate that the future belonged to other species. Human survival meant interference on a dramatic scale. Playing God.

And all the while, the world went about its business as if there were no looming disaster. In her very darkest moments Karen wondered if perhaps this was the simple evolutionary test to determine whether humanity had a future. To know of the problem but not to act on it would be absolute proof that the species was defunct. Of no further use to the single project of life: survival.

She checked the thermostat inside the greenhouse entrance one last time and stepped outside into air ten degrees cooler. The sudden change in temperature brought her out in goosebumps. Pulling up the hood of her top, she fished her keys from her jeans pocket and locked the metal door behind her.

The greenhouse was one of three rented by the Department of Plant Sciences on the site of a former commercial nursery. Set among fields and shielded from the surrounding landscape by rows of poplar trees, there was nothing to indicate that it was home to a research facility of such critical importance. Only the twelve-foot-high chain-link fence surrounding the three-acre plot gave any clue to its sensitive purpose.

Karen walked along the short paved path to the rack where she had stowed her bike while mentally rehearsing what she would tell her Canadian colleagues during their conference call later that evening. They were close to getting their government to allow experimental planting in British Columbia but needed assurances Karen couldn’t give. She would come under pressure to present her results in a way that played down the risk of unforeseen consequences. Politicians would take a gamble on her trees only if she were prepared to massage the truth to the point of lies and then take responsibility if the worst should happen. It was an absurd situation, but somehow she had to navigate it. Survival, she told herself. Ultimately, that was all that mattered.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden movement at the fringes of her vision. She glanced up towards the locked gates some twenty yards ahead of her with the impression that she had briefly seen a figure. But there was no one there. An overhanging branch perhaps, or the shadow of a passing cloud. Imagining things again. She had been anxious and on edge ever since Joel had walked out without warning, apt to startle at the slightest thing. She took a deep breath, leaned down to fetch her helmet from the pannier and felt the irrational sense of being observed intensify. Another nervous glance around the site confirmed that it was deserted. There was no man at the gateway, just a cock pheasant wandering across the farm track on its far side.

She fastened her helmet, climbed on to the bike and made her way over to the high gates. Beyond the wire mesh the verges of the access track were overgrown with nettles and cow parsley. After thirty yards or so it turned sharply right, then continued in a straight line for a third of a mile before it met the lane which connected with the main road into Oxford. The drone of bees from the hedgerows either side merged with the sound of the rustling poplar trees and the hum of distant traffic. At eight p.m. in early June it was still broad daylight.

Karen was all too aware that her anxiety was illogical and that the main cause of her fragile state was the difficult call she had to make to Canada, but that didn’t make it any less real. Since he had left, Joel had taken on a sinister aspect in her mind. He was a brooder, a man whose anger was cold and suppressed but occasionally revealed itself in dark, vindictive glances. Part of her harboured a fear that having stolen her money he wasn’t beyond intimidating her into giving up her claim on it.

Furious at allowing herself to succumb to such irrational thoughts, she took out her phone and dialled Leo’s landline. Of all her friends he had been the most understanding of her fragile state. While others had been full of well-meaning advice and platitudes he had simply accepted her as she was. He had also been a soldier. A man used to facing down danger. His words of encouragement would count for a lot.

The phone rang five times, then connected to voicemail. She tried again with the same result. She scrolled hurriedly back through her contacts and found his mobile number. Her call connected immediately to a message informing her that his phone was switched off. Typical. She guessed that he had probably unplugged the landline, too. He was like a hermit sometimes, never happier than holed up in a darkened room, cut off from the world.

There were other friends she could call, but all those within range were also friends of Joel’s. She didn’t want him to hear that she had become a nervous wreck. She still had some pride.

Get a hold of yourself!

Karen thrust the phone back into her rucksack, a burst of anger at her own weakness finally giving her the courage to unlock the heavy padlock on the gates and push her bike on through it. She locked the gates behind her and pedalled off along the track. Picking up speed, she channelled her frustration into exertion, her wheels clattering over the uneven surface. She rounded the corner and caught her first glimpse of the traffic passing to and fro along the road up ahead. She felt suddenly foolish, her cheeks reddening with shame.

The figure stepped out from an overgrown gateway to her left. He was dressed in black, a balaclava rendering him featureless. A jolt of fear like a powerful electric shock shot through Karen’s body. She swerved, but there was no room to avoid him. He ran straight at her, sending her and the bike flying into the verge. She flipped over the bars, saw a flash of sky, felt brambles tearing her cheeks and then he was on her. A knee drove into her sternum, pinning her to the ground. A gloved fist struck her hard in the face. A flash of stars briefly wiped out her vision. She couldn’t breathe. He punched her again, this time in the jaw. She felt the muscles of her limbs go into spasm. Her brain screamed at them to move but nothing responded.

He grabbed her roughly between the legs, then tore the small rucksack from her back and vanished as quickly as he had appeared.