Steel Birds Read online

  PROLOGUE

  Eve was an environment scientist and like many thousands of her contemporaries the world over was convinced that the Earth’s inhabitants and plant life were about to suffer an environmental disaster, the inevitable consequence of global warming, and at every opportunity she spoke out against the lack of concern by people and governments. But she was not alone in her vocal condemnation of man’s wasteful and extravagant use of fossil fuels. Millions of concerned people world-wide strove to convince others that they could make a significant difference to the rate degradation of the fragile environment by making small adjustments to their life style. Eve, however, had an advantage that ensured that the message was heard clearly and constantly. Her social position and wealth meant that she was able to campaign effectively for new laws to compel industry and individuals to behave in a manner that reduced the volume of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

  Unfortunately the scientific community was divided as to the exact cause of the sudden temperature increase. The data left in sediments and rocks proved that solar activity had in the past raised global temperature more than once. In fact, there had been four major extinction events in the great experiment to create a viable life support system that favoured the majority of life forms, and after each disastrous event, life had continued albeit for a minority of Earth’s species. Life was very robust and adaptable and simply moved between environments to survive…even modifying their anatomy to ensure their continued existence. What was different this time was that the increase was more rapid than at any other time in the history of the Earth, and while man might be able to alleviate the impact on his own species, there was no time for other animals and plants to adapt. Extinction for many was a certainty.

  Eve was just twenty when she met Steve Mayden in 2030. He was ten years older and his family were the owners of American Build, a giant manufacturing conglomerate, and one of the ten richest families in America. Eve’s family too was among the wealthiest of the great entrepreneurial families that had created the wealth of the country and proved the American dream, and it was at a seminar to discuss the efforts industry was making to reduce emissions that they first met. The thrust of her lecture to an audience of politicians and business people was a barely veiled condemnation of the lack of initiative from the industrial state to promote and finance a more responsible attitude towards the impending demise of many of Earth’s vital environments. To her great surprise Steve had spoken in support of her views and informed the meeting of the strenuous efforts being made by American Build to limit the volume of carbon gases released into the atmosphere. It was his sympathetic attitude and sensitivity had impressed her, and even before he had switched off his lecture notes, she felt a bond between them and knew that Steve was to be her partner for life. They both cared passionately that the environment of the planet was deteriorating and that, sadly, too few people seemed to understand that many species of plant and animal would soon become extinct.

  It was late autumn and during the lecture a cold mass of air had drifted in from the north and chilled the warm moisture laden air from the Atlantic to create another of the dense fogs that had in recent years had plagued the east coast. All aircraft were grounded and street traffic was forced to cease its progress. Not even the wizardry of car radar or infra-red cameras on board most cars could penetrate the blanket of moisture. Those who thought they could proceed with the aid of satellite navigation usually crashed into a stationary object of one sort or another. But experienced drivers knew exactly what to do as there was really only one cause of action, and that was to run their cars against the curb and abandon them. On days such as this the hotels in the city filled to capacity.

  Eve had turned off her cell net phone during the lecture and only became aware that her driver could not collect her after the lecture as arranged when she read the message he had sent her. She realised then that she would have to seek accommodation in one of the many hotels in the area and searched for available rooms with her phone. But the inclement weather had forced others to attempt the same search and for a short time she thought she would be unsuccessful. After nearly an hour of searching she finally found a hotel with just two rooms left for rent, but the hotel was four block away, a daunting walk for a stranger to the area, and the fog was getting colder and beginning to freeze on the sidewalk.

  She exited the warm foyer of the building and was immediately chilled by the penetrating moist air. She was not dressed adequately for this venture and felt her hands and feet immediately begin to freeze. Worse, she felt very alone. Everyone else seemed to have organised their travel arrangements or found rooms for the night. There had been three hundred persons in the audience, but the sidewalk was now deserted. Looking into the gloom of the fog she knew that once she had left the comforting glow of the foyer lights she would be lost and would suffer sensory deprivation, and walking blindly into the fog could be dangerous if she accidentally stepped off the curb. The muffled sound of a vehicle crashing somewhere in the distance bore testament to the fact that some drivers were foolish enough to believe they could navigate in a neighbourhood they knew well. The occasional glow of lights from shop windows was unhelpful and the street lights were just aerial glows that cast little light on the sidewalk, and just one metre from the kerb was nothing but a forbidding darkness.

  ‘Can I help you, Eve?’ she heard a gentle voice ask from the gloom.

  She turned towards the sound and saw the outline of a man, a ghostlike figure that emerged from the light of the foyer. She could not recognise him as he was just a silhouette, but she felt no fear. There was something about his voice that assured her that he was going to be helpful and a friend.

  ‘It’s me, Steve Mayden…American Build!’

  ‘Oh! Steve…You startled me. I thought I was the last to leave…I was just about to make my way to the Excelsior hotel…a few blocks away.’

  ‘That’s a long walk in these conditions…and I don’t think you’re adequately attired for the journey’. He was stating the obvious but was preparing the ground for his next sentence. He also omitted to tell her that he had been waiting to meet her.

  ‘I have rooms just one block from here…I mean I have a suite… that is my company has a suite that’s permanently booked for clients visiting to discuss contracts. You could have your own room, if that…if you’re worried.’

  As he spoke, Steve moved closer and Eve suddenly felt her body warm and her anxieties melt.

  ‘I think it would be sensible to accept your kind offer, Steve. I’m sure to get lost if I’d tried to find the Excelsior, and besides, as you have so rightly pointed out, I’m not dressed for a trek in this cold…and my feet are freezing and beginning to hurt.’

  Steve offered his arm which Eve took gladly, her women’s instincts now to the fore. She felt she walk forever with this man.

  ‘I liked your lecture, Eve. I’m glad you reminded people of the inevitable consequences of global warming. People still think there is a magic panacea…a wonderful scientific cure that will stop our planet over-heating. They don’t realise that even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow it would only have the effect of slowing the temperature increase. That is of course desirable, but the important thing is that we should start to make provision for the inevitable degeneration of our global environment.’

  Eve smiled. It was a good to know that Steve approved. It seemed important that he should.

  ‘The tragedy, Steve, is that we can’t stop adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. It is the product of our life style…being civilised in effect. We can’t shut down the power stations…we can’t stop using combustion engines, and we certainly can’t shut down all our factories. I’m afraid you’re right Steve, the temperature of the atmosphere and oceans is going to increase for many years yet, and the blanket of carbon dioxide we have created is not going away. Many of my friends who are scientists and have a special knowledge of the effects of warmer seas on the atmosphere, tell me that another three degree increase in the next thirty years is certain. Our beautiful planet is going to change quite dramatically and never return to what is was a hundred years ago.’ She tightened her grip on Steve’s arm as if to express her unhappiness. ‘People, animals, the very plant life that sustains us will suffer. Even the fish will be affected. Warm water holds less oxygen and the food chain will collapse if small creatures like plankton can’t maintain their present abundance. Whales could starve! And when the arctic ice cap melts, polar bears will certainly starve. Do you know that these magnificent animals were once forest dwelling bears, but over many thousands of years changed their very physique to survive in the arctic. It is now impossible for them to re-enter the forest to survive. They have no other hunting skill to employ when the sea ice disappears and they can no longer ambush their prey. Did you know that the huge saber-toothed tiger became extinct for the very same reason. Its prey moved from the forests to the plains and it was too slow to give chase.’

  Eve looked at Steve as if to say ‘what are we going to do to help? Do you have a solution?’ But he did not have to answer as he knew that Eve was simply expressing an emotion…a cry from her heart.

  Steve placed his hand on Eve’s. It was not only a gesture of support and understanding but an acknowledgement of his admiration for her and her organisation and its values. He was also aware that Eve was fighting a losing battle and he realised Eve knew it too. He knew that her crusade to save the forests and their millions of life forms could not be entirely successful. Fa
ilure was inevitable and it would be dramatic and lamentable. But her efforts to inform people and get them to alter their way of life would be unremitting. Such determination…such commitment was laudable.

  ‘You can’t save everything, Eve. It’s nature’s way.’ Steve was trying to be kind, but even as he spoke he knew his words would hurt.

  Eve stopped walking and turned to face Steve. It seemed incongruous that two people standing in a freezing fog should think that a few words could alter the course of an evolutionary event, but history has always be created by those who believed they could make a difference. It was not fanciful to believe that a thousand years from this moment, historians would acknowledge that their few words prevented a great deal of misery and averted a global disaster.

  ‘But we can help the most vulnerable, Steve. We can’t just let a species become extinct for lack of food or a breeding environment, especially as we do have the resources to help.’ Eve paused to gather her thoughts…control the emotion that was increasing as she spoke. ‘Oh! I know we can’t maintain the huge numbers that exist at the moment, but we can support a breeding population until humans come to their senses and acknowledge their plight. And that’s all I’m trying to achieve, Steve, and with the help of all those millions of concerned people all over the planet I think that goal is achievable.’

  Steve put his arms around Eve and drew her in close to his body. Neither spoke but the action was in itself a communication more powerful than any words. It signified trust, protection and love…a love that would bond them together, regardless of the unhappiness that surrounded them.

  Their marriage was the event of 2030 and immediately blessed with the arrival of a daughter, Julia. This happy addition to the family meant that Eve had to curtail her vigorous campaigning to save sensitive environments, but motherhood did not stop her spreading the message that the people of planet Earth must moderate their demands for diminishing resources. By every electronic means at her disposal, she continued her efforts to rally others to pressure their governments to pass good laws and make funds available to protect beautiful and magical Earth.

  Tragically, in 2035 Eve’s father died, five short years after she had married Steve, and his loss affected her deeply, reshaping her views and thoughts. Her mother had died when she was a child and she was once again reminded of life’s vulnerable and transitory nature. It was shocking and alarming to Eve that her father, once a loving and loved member of the family, no longer existed, all his devotion and kindness at an end. The impact on her thoughts was an awakening to the fact that her dreams stretched far into the future, dreams and needed more than a life-time to realise, dreams that would become a reality long after her own death. As an intellectual and a scientist she began to consolidate her beliefs into a single pure philosophy to explain the fleeting presence of herself and the people she loved. Life only made sense if the purpose of life was continuity, each generation behaving in a manner that ensured the survival of the next. Without this simple thought, everything and everyone she loved and cherished would not have existence or importance She realised that a life-time was a vital link between generations and another step in the great experiment by nature towards the goal of perfecting a species that was able to thrive in any environment, regardless of the seasons. But for man there was the added complexity of culture and its resultant behaviour, a system of living that did not always prove beneficial, and was in fact proving to be a disaster for him and other life forms.

  By 2035 many species had become extinct in the wild, but in zoos and ranches, their gene bank was sustained. But this kind of operation required massive resources and a huge commitment from people in those countries where the environment was favourable to the species, but preserving these environments was extremely difficult. Even with great care and effort, species that had taken millions of years to evolve a symbiotic relationship with plants could not be reintroduced. Diversity was the result of an ancient and delicate teamwork. Aerophytes needed the canopy of the tall trees and the trees themselves needed the moulds and fungus to release nutrients locked in the leaf litter. This was the great tragedy of the lost forests; the ease with which a million years of experimentation by nature to create a harmonious home for thousands of species could be wiped out by the carelessness of a single species, man.

  Eve and Steve were both committed to doing whatever they could to promote a better stewardship of the world’s resources. But the battle was not being won. Somewhere a cease-fire was in place or a moratorium agreed, and progress was painfully slow. Her adversaries were numerous as many believed that the state of the world was natural, and what appeared to be unwarranted and distressing carnage, was meant to be. It was inevitable, they argued, that humans must dominate the environment. Man’s ascendancy necessitated a terrestrial re-shaping, and that the existence of other species served little purpose. Mankind could survive quite well, they argued, without butterflies or flowers, and if all the world’s primates were to become extinct and giant tortoises were just a pictures in a book, what of it. But Eve never lost heart. When a rain forest was spared from being cleared by the chain saw and bulldozer, and a small group of natives saved from becoming slum dwellers of a new urban development, she was happy and felt her faith rewarded. And when a swamp was drained and a species of frog became extinct, she felt the pain of failure. This was how it was, a mixture of success and failure, but her resolve never wavered because she cared too much and too many looked to her for leadership.

  In 2042 Eve was thirty-two years old, Julia was twelve and Steve was forty-two, but in the same year a drunk driver drove head-on into his vehicle as he made his way home. Only metal survived the fireball. Eve was devastated. She had known no other man and her love for Steve was as strong and pure as the first day they had met. Once again her beliefs were shaken. Steve had so much to offer, so many good thoughts that would benefit mankind and the environment, and now he was silent…silent forever.

  After the funeral rites she remained in her mansion, overcome by the void created by Steve’s absence. To the public she was a grieving widow, unsmiling and unhappy, but her family and friends knew the truth. She had lost first her father and now her husband. The pain was too much for such a loving and sensitive woman, and those close to her became concerned. She withdrew from public life and refused to allow visitors to her home. American Build was organised by the most competent managers money could attract, and did not need her input to function, but the millions who needed her thoughts and guidance were suddenly denied access to her. But the word soon spread that Eve was grieving, and they understood. For someone who could care that a small animal had died in a hunter’s trap, her pain she could only be imagined, and those who loved her tried to comfort her as best they could. Some hoped her strength would help her through the emptiness she felt, while some prayed, believing their combined thoughts would sustain her while she searched for a way back from the darkness in her mind.

  For a whole year Eve isolated herself on her estate, the only visitors allowed were the company lawyers who needed her signature on legal documents. The media speculated on her state of mind and some even compared her to a famous aviator and recluse a century earlier. The winter of 2042 was severe, the worst for a hundred years. It started to snow in late autumn and continued for three months. No road was passable in the north American states and the sea froze along the coast of New York. In Canada life simply ground to a halt. Not even the hardy Canadians could cope with the volume of snow and fifteen thousand died as cities and towns froze. In Siberia the great stands of trees froze and shattered when they were struck or subjected to wind pressure, and in northern China two million rural workers and their farm animals froze to death. But this situation had been predicted by scientists. Global warming was now a fact and as the jet stream shifted south, wind systems responded to the changing insolation pattern. Precipitation patterns had been upset, and a new phase of extinction in the great experimental process of life was about to begin. Extinction was inevitable for some, though there were many other species waiting to exploit the new environments, and in the summer of 2043 the cereal crops failed due to a plague of pests and an attack of brown rust, and for the first time in a hundred years North America did not export grain. The consequences abroad were immediate and long term and a drought-ridden Europe lost half its own cereal crop. In the east millions died as the rice and wheat crops withered before producing seed, and Africa, always dependent on foreign food imports, lost a quarter of its population.