Free The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel by Randy Wayne White Page A

orangutans lives in the same small valley for a hundred years. In. say, Sumatra, feeding on a few big mango trees. Then one day. one of the orangs discovers that he can knock all the mangoes off the tree using a stick. Doesn't have to climb. But the mangoes they can't cat rot on the ground. Soon they're starving."
    "Uh-huhmmh," said Tomlinson. "A destructive catalyst."
    "No, it's a process. We exist as a species because we adapt our environment to fit us. Ants and bees have the same ability. Nothing ugly about bees, is there? Very few species travel through history in a straight line. There are a few exceptions: horseshoe crabs, certain sharks, maybe tarpon. A few others. But most go banging back and forth, traveling blind alleys, making special mistakes, then finding new ways to survive. The orangutans leave the valley and become solitary nomads. See? We're the same way. It's not a matter of it being ugly or greedy or sinful. It's a process, a way of evolving."
    Tomlinson pondered that, then looked at his empty bottle. "You want one?"
    Ford said, "I meant to have a beer yesterday. So sure. Tonight I had dinner with Dewey and she's got a thing about alcohol. I think her father had a drinking problem." Ford switched slides as Tomlinson went across the walkway to the refrigerator, letting both screen doors bang behind him, thinking his way back as he handed Ford the beer. "So explain this," he said. "Thirteenth century, Genghis Kahn conquers China, and his grandson Kublai Khan, same thing in Russia. Scorched earth. At the very same time, the Seventh Crusade is preparing in
    France. Same phenomenon occurs off and on throughout history. The Seeond World War; Hitler. That's fucking inimical, man, not a process."
    Looking up briefly, amused. Ford said, "What the hell does that have to do with what we're talking about?"
    It had become a game with them: present a single concept, then follow that concept through its various branchings, induce the narrowing arteries of thought until they exited out onto larger platforms of truth or nonsense.
    Tomlinson, who spent his days reading esoteric books on world history and doing God knows what else, was prone to make intuitive leaps, forgoing linear thought; leaps that produced some interesting conclusions. Which is why Ford kept beer in the refrigerator for Tomlinson.
    Tomlinson said, "Those blind alleys you were talking about. Special mistakes. Spee-shell, as in species?"
    "Yeah."
    "You agree that worldwide killing is a special mistake?"
    "Well ... sure."
    "Happens when one or more leaders takes a group down one of your evolutionary blind alleys. Right? Like Hitler led the Germans."
    Ford said, "Okay."
    "So replace the guns with earthmovers and replace the bullets with nuclear-waste dumps, pollution, oil spills—"
    "I see what you're getting at."
    "—and instead of just the population of a society following along, make it the entire world population because of advances in communication. Replace Kublai Khan with technology. Technology is the world's new dictator. And everyone following it right down a blind alley, picking up the mango stick. Trouble is, we're not just taking the fruit, we're killing the entire valley. That's not a process; it's a kind of hysteria. Like world war."
    Ford said, "You're taking the analogy too far." Tomlinson said, "Nope, nope; damned if I am. A destructive force sparked by a catalyst, that's what I'm talking about. The catalyst can be a man, or an idea, or a method—like the orangutan with a stick. You don't see the parallels in nature? Introduce an unstable cell into a body of living tissue, and the result may be cancer. Introduce an unstable atom into a chain of atoms, and you have a nuclear holocaust. The microcosm and the macrocosm, man. What's true of the tiniest unit is true of the whole. A basic principle."
    "All I was trying to do was explain red tide, Tomlinson—
    But Tomlinson was standing now, walking around the room, flapping his arms, thinking