The Year of Rice and Salt

And finally, very late in the night, when no more than a dozen of them remained, and the waiters of the restaurant looked as if they wanted to close down, Piali looked around the room, and got a nod from Abdol Zoroush, and said to Budur, 'Dr Chen here,' indicating a white haired Chinese man at the far end of the table, who nodded, 'has brought work from his team on the matter of alactin. This was one of the things Idelba was working on, as you know. He wanted to share this work with all of us here. They have made the same determinations we have, concerning the splitting of the alactin atoms, and how this might be exploited to make an explosive. But they have done further calculations, which the rest of us have checked during the conference, including Master Ananda here,' and another old man seated next to Chen nodded, 'that make it clear that the particular form of alactin that would be necessary for any explosive chain reaction, is so rare in nature that it could not be gath ered in sufficient quantities. A natural form would have to be gathered first, and then processed in factories, in a process that right now is hypothetical only; and even if made practicable, it would be so difficult that it would take the entire industrial capacity of a state to produce enough material to make even a single bomb.'

'Really?' Budur said.

They all nodded, looking quietly relieved, even happy. Dr Chen's translator spoke to him in Chinese and he nodded and said something back.

The translator said in Persian, 'Dr Chen would like to add, that from his observations it seems very unlikely any country will be able to create these materials for many years, even if they should want to. So we are safe. Safe from that, anyway.'

'I see,' Budur said, and nodded at the elderly Chinese. 'As you know, Idelba would be very pleased to have heard these results! She was quite worried, as no doubt you know. But she would also press again for some kind of international scientific organization, of atomic physicists perhaps. Or a more general scientific group, that would take steps to make sure humanity is never threatened by these possibilities. After what the world has just been through in the war, I don't think it could take the introduction of some super bomb. It would lead to madness.'

'Indeed,' Piali said, and when her words were translated, Dr Chen spoke again.

His translator said, 'The esteemed professor says that he thinks scientific committees to augment, or advise '

Dr Chen intervened with a comment.

'To guide the world's governments, he says, by telling them what is possible, what is advisable… He says he thinks this could be done unobtrusively, in the postwar… exhaustion. He says he thinks governments will agree to the existence of such committees, because at first they will not be aware of what it means… and by the time they learn what it means, they will be unable to… to dismantle them. And so scientists could take a… a larger role in political affairs. This is what he said.'

The others around the table were nodding thoughtfully, some cautious, others worried; no doubt most of the men there were funded by their governments.

Piali said, 'We can at least try. It would be a very good way to remember Idelba. And it may work. It seems it would help, at the very least.'

Everyone nodded again, and after translation, Dr Chen nodded too.

Budur ventured to say, 'It might be introduced simply as a matter of scientists doing science, coordinating their efforts, you know, as part of doing better science. At first simple things that look completely innocuous, like uniform weights and measures, rationalized mathematically. Or a solar calendar that is accurate to the Earth's actual movement around the sun. Right now we don't even agree on the date. We all come here in different years, as you know, and now our hosts have resuscitated yet another system. Right now there must be constant multiple listings of dates. We don't even agree on the length of the year. In effect we are still living in different histories, even though it is just one world, as the war taught us. You scientists should perhaps gather your mathematicians and astronomers, and establish a scientifically accurate calendar, and start using it for all scientific work. That might lead to some larger sense of world community.'

'How would we start it?' someone asked.