Slow River

Lore laughs out loud. “Then all we have to do is swap sixty or so from one to the other. Once we’ve got everything functioning, we don’t need much maintenance. Labor costs will be minimal.”

“Ah, but don’t forget that projects like this, for small countries, are as much about politics as pollution.” He raises his eyebrows, sips.

“I don’t understand.”

“Jobs.”

Lore sighs. Jobs. People. Votes. Much harder to deal with.

“However, that does not make the problem insurmountable. If you take the time to examine your budget sheet-”

“I’ve only just got here.”

“I wasn’t criticizing. If you take a look, you’ll see there’s a two million set-aside, labeled ‘misc.’ Some project leaders will use that as an emergency reserve, some will use it as a carrot in the form of bonuses to their labor force, others will use it in discreet bribes to local officials. Whatever is most expedient.”

“And you know some amenable local officials?” Lore is realizing that reality is not the same as designing systems on her screen. She is glad she is only the deputy.

“Let’s just say I know of them.”

“And you’ll… soothe their worries and smooth their palms?”

“No. You will.”

Lore knows she has asked for this responsibility. She also knows that her mother would not have given it to her if she was not ready. She does not feel ready, but she grits her teeth and begins.

She sweeps the minister for labor and the commissar of the treasury up in a whirl of lunches and dinners, gifts them with the latest in personal transport technology, and even gets one of her assistants to find the male minister a female companion. All the time that she nods and smiles and soothes and explains, while she dabs at her mouth or takes another sip of champagne, she frets. She wants to be working, to be building something, seeing her ideas take shape.

It takes nearly three days to get them both to sign off on the budget changes, and even then she has to promise to “forget” to post the changes with the relevant Kirghizi departments.

“Is it always like this?” she asks that evening in Marley’s tent.

“Usually worse,” he says. “It’s impossible to get everyone to agree. To get things to move and change, we need to bend the rules a little. Some of us enjoy it.”

“Do you?”

“No, but your uncle Willem-”

“Just call him Willem. You know he hates being an uncle.”

“-but Willem, I think, gets a secret pleasure from the wheeling and dealing. As does your sister Greta.”

“Greta?” Lore is astonished. “She always seems like such a…” She hunts for a polite synonym for nonentity.

“Greta is a much more powerful force in this company than most people realize,” Marley says seriously. “Your future might be smoother if you bore that in mind.”

Lore knows that Marley is trying to tell her something but she has no idea what. “What about the rest of my family?”

“Katerine does not wheel and deal. She cuts to the heart. That’s her enjoyment.”

“And my father”

“I don’t know what your father enjoys.” Nor does Lore, these days.

Although she is up the next day well before dawn, she does not want to be perceived as inexperienced and overeager. She spends an hour walking the desert. She hears no birds, sees no rodent tracks, senses no slither-and-hide of lizard or snake. Here, the desert is barren.

When it has been light for nearly an hour, she calls together her managers.

The solution is easy enough in theory—they will use an advanced oxidation process, a combination of ultraviolet, hydrogen peroxide, and titanium oxide to break the dioxins down to relatively harmless weak acids and carbon dioxide, which can then be further remediated with biological agents—but in practice, the task is massive. There will be factors unanticipated simply because of the scale. Lore reminds her managers of this and tells them that every detail, no matter how small, must be overseen, whether by them or by trusted assistants. Meticulousness might not eliminate problems, but it will reduce them. She outlines the preliminary schedule of shifts and leave for the next few months, but warns them this may have to change when they hit snags. She orders herself a new project tent, one with more amenities; she does not mean to leave the project HQ until everything is online.

It takes five months to get the vast UV-reflecting troughs built. It should have taken two, but the glass coating on the contractors’ first load is substandard, and has to be done again. Then there is some kind of ethnic conflict between the Muslim Kirghizians and their Orthodox neighbors, and many of the local workers are conscripted. Lore has dinner with the minister and manages to get her labor force exempted from the draft.

“Is it always as bad as this?” becomes Lore’s standard question.