Limit of Vision Read Online Free PDF Page B

Before you say anything, try to understand why—”
    “You think I don’t understand?” Nash shouted. “That I don’t think the way you do? Dream the things you dream? I’m fat and balding and middle-aged, Virgil, but I’ve seen as far as you! Farther! I’ve felt the temptation, but never, never would I have pulled a stunt like this.”
    “Nash, please. It’s not like it was harmful—”
    “Gabrielle is dead! You used her for a test animal. And you have the balls to tell me it wasn’t harmful?”
    “We don’t know what killed her. This is not like Van Nuys.”
    Nash just stared at him, his face damp, his brown eyes half-gone behind heavy lids, but still piercing, still potent. Virgil glanced over his shoulder. Kanaha had followed them, his farsights recording every word as he waited for the puzzle to resolve itself.
    Panwar seemed to have given up. Virgil could see him in his office, hunched over his desk, head bowed against his hands. Nash followed his gaze, and nodded. “You’ve done it to yourselves too, haven’t you? You and Randall. I’ve seen his pretty glitter, but you’re in it too, aren’t you, Virgil? All three of you were in it, tucked in here together, so close and so quiet.” He stepped forward. With startling speed his hand reached up to sweep the slim cords of Virgil’s Egyptian-wrapped hair back from his brow. Caught off guard, Virgil stumbled, but a single step brought his back against the wall.
    For some immeasurable time Nash stared at the L ov s on Virgil’s brow. Then his hand dropped stiffly to his side. Tears stood in his pinched eyes. “I want to protect you,” he whispered. “I do. But I can’t. It would be wrong. Don’t you understand? We have systems to regulate development. Necessary regulations. They don’t exist to stymie the careers of brilliant youth. No. It’s to give ourselves, as a society, time to think . You’ve trashed that system, Virgil, and it’s an act that will hurt everyone who’s ever done, or ever hopes to do, cutting-edge research.”
    “We’re not Van Nuys,” Virgil said again. “The L ov s are not infectious. They’re not dangerous. They are utterly under control.”
    Nash shook his head. “You reached too far, son. My God. What a waste.”

chapter
    4
    Hunger lay beyond the river mouth.
    Ela Suvanatat stood at the side rail of Cameron Quang’s boat, staring in disbelief at a vast fleet of motley vessels cluttering the glassy surface of the South China Sea. The boats must surely number in the hundreds. She crossed to the other rail. It was the same. Most of the vessels were old: tiny, battered skiffs, their paint faded or gone. Their crews worked the water with nets and poles and wire traps: dark-haired men with skin like polished wood, or women swaddled in worn colors to cheat the sun. The boats filled the bright blue water out to a hazy horizon where oil-drilling platforms walked in ghostly steps, winking into view, only to fade into the haze before appearing again farther down the coast.
    In the heat, in the brilliant sunlight, Ela had a wavering sense that none of this was real. These fisherfolk were not people, they were spirits, human desire endlessly drawing in empty nets.
    But hunger could not be dreamed away.
    Ela tapped her fingers, summoning Kathang to record the view through her farsights. A panoramic would be needed somewhere early in the article—but she felt sick thinking about what that article would show. The Coastal Society wanted an exposé on the ravages of overfishing. They did not want to ponder these people who must make a life where life had been all used up.
    At least it was going to be easy to get dramatic material.
    She clipped goggle cups to her farsights, then she made her first dive. It was a short foray, ten minutes to get some video of the stripped bottom. Lost nets and tangled fishing line were everywhere, half-buried in the mud or floating ghostlike in the murky water near the seafloor. As she returned