The big man stopped suddenly. He stood up, shaking his head. At the window, Hutton stared down at the city of Auckland, its evening lights beginning to spread like powdered gemstones across the hills. Beyond the metropolis lay forested slopes slanting to Manukau Bay. Twilight-stained clouds were moving in from the Tasman Sea, heavy with fresh rain.

The scene reminded Alex of a time in childhood, when his grandmother had taken him to Wales to watch the turning of the autumn leaves. Then, as now, it had struck him just how temporary everything seemed… the foliage, the drifting clouds, the patient mountains… the world.

“You know,” George Hutton said slowly, still contemplating the peaceful view outside, “back when the American and Russian empires used to face each other at the brink of nuclear war, this was where people in the Northern Hemisphere dreamed about fleeing to. Were you aware of that, Lustig? Every time there was a crisis, airlines suddenly overbooked with “vacation” trips to New Zealand. People must have thought this the ideal spot to ride out a holocaust.

“And that didn’t change with the Rio Treaties, did it? Big War went away, but then came the cancer plague, greenhouse heat, spreading deserts… and lots of little wars of course, over an oasis here, a river there.

“All the time though, we Kiwis still felt lucky. Our rains didn’t abandon us. Our fisheries didn’t die.

“Now all those illusions are gone. There’s no safe place any longer.”

The big man turned to look at Alex, and despite his words there was no loathing in the tycoon-engineer’s eyes. Nor even bleakness. Only what Alex took to be a heavy resignation.

“I wish I could hate you, Lustig, but you’ve obviously subcontracted that job quite ably yourself. And so you deprive me even of revenge.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex apologized sincerely.

Hutton nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.