Free Greenhouse Summer by Norman Spinrad Page A

it, other workmen were stringing lights, speakers, microphones, wiring. A circle of blue-painted fiberboard panels emblazoned with the white UN logo was in the process of going up, apparently to screen the conference auditorium from what was being set up in the rest of the Grand Palais.
    Large-scale booths and industrial displays in various stages of erection. Video screens. A scale model of an orbital mirror. A full-size plankton-seeding barge being hauled into place by a tractor. Cloud-cover generators. A silvery ovoid looking like a nuclear terrain-sculpting charge that Monique earnestly hoped was a replica. Cloud-seeding drones. Qwik-grow trees. Devices and bits and pieces of this and that being hauled around and put together that Monique couldn’t identify. Kiosks. Signs. Holos. Banners.
    “A bit of supplemental funding, Mr. Bendsten?”
    Lars Bendsten gave Monique a smarmy smile. “We are fortunate to have secured the generous support of quite a few private entities seriously concerned with stabilizing the planetary climate,” he admitted redundantly, as he led her across the bustle of the exhibition floor.
    “At a profit to themselves, of course.”
    “They could hardly continue to operate without sufficient funding,” Bendsten pointed out.
    “An unfortunate fact of life even in our postcapitalist world, as the United Nations and UNACOCS itself have annual cause to contemplate.”
    “And of course, in return for their idealistic support of the conference, they hope to secure lucrative contracts for their goods and services. . . .”
    “Enlightened self-interest must be a feature of any functional economic system, must it not?”
    “Bien sûr . . .”
    Something about this arch conversational fencing match was beginning to grate on Monique. She found herself giving the conference General Secretary her own version of smiling smarm.
    “And of course, their enlightened self-interest will in no way impinge upon the intellectual or political content of the conference,” she said. Maybe her grandparents had managed to get to her a bit after all.
    “The United Nations takes no advocacy position on the optimum goal of planetary climatic stabilization.”
    “Meaning that this UNACOCS will no more reach a meaningful conclusion than the previous ones?” Monique found herself blurting. “Allowing these conferences to continue into the indefinite future?”
    Lars Bendsten’s fair Scandinavian complexion reddened. Other than that, UN professional that he was, he displayed no emotion.
    “The United Nations provides the venue and the infrastructure for these scientific symposia,” he said. “We would hope that a scientific consensus on planetary climate goals will be reached as soon as possible, of course, but we do not set the technical agenda or influence the content, nor do we seek to.”
    “Of course not, Mr. General Secretary,” Monique said, backing off as she realized that she had gone too far. “No offense intended.”
    Bendsten’s Caucasian flush remained, but his expression softened, became more personal, turning it into a sigil of embarrassment rather than anger, or so it seemed.
    “None taken, Ms. Calhoun,” he seemed to say almost sadly.
    Monique found herself tuning out Bendsten’s patter as he showed her around the temporary auditorium, the state-of-the-art media facilities, the lighting, as he went on about the coverage B&C’s Paris branch had already secured. She found herself constantly looking back over her shoulder at the industrial display area, at what would seem to have become the real main event.
    UNACOCS had somehow metamorphosed into a trade show. The main order of business was going to be business.
    The climatic engineering business.
    That much was obvious.
    But something more seemed to be going on too.
    Monique found herself reading the names on the kiosks and banners and holos going up and doing a nose count.
    NASA. Erdewerke. Boeing. Bluepeace. ESA. Tupelov. Aerospaciale.