In the lounge, Gina rose from the couch and turned to study the view out of the picture window. She was a shade on the tall side of average, with a trim, firmly shaped figure that was right for the navy dress.
“Well, there was one I did awhile back about Earthguard and the no-growth lobby,” she said, without turning her head. “Have you had much to do with that?”
“Not a lot. I thought they went away years ago . . . Anyhow, haven’t the Thuriens pretty much blown them out of the water for. good?”
“I wrote it before the Thuriens showed up.”
“Okay. So what were the doomsday brigade into this time?”
“Oh, our expansion out into the Solar System. Numbers were growing too fast, resources being depleted. Earth wouldn’t be able to feed an unchecked spacegoing population, and off-planet alternatives were either inadequate or impractical, et cetera, et cetera.”
Hunt poured coffee into two fresh mugs. “If we paid too much attention to that lot, we’d still be conserving flint for our grandchildren to make axes. I’ve got other things to do.”
“The trouble is, a lot of people who matter do pay attention to them. And they’re the ones who shape what everyone else thinks.”
“Well, I think you’ll find all that’s changing.”
“But look what it took,” she said. “Yes, now at last, the world’s beginning to realize that by all the measures that mean anything, growing populations are a sign of things getting better.” She turned as Hunt came back into the lounge, carrying the mugs. “Everyone’s got two hands and one mouth, right? People produce more than they consume.”
“I had a grandmother from Yorkshire who used to say something like that: You should always listen twice as much as you talk. ‘That’s why God gave thee two ears an’ one mouth, lad.’”
Gina frowned at him suspiciously. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No. What you said just reminded me of it. There’s—” Hunt broke off and looked up at her suddenly as he set down the mugs. “Wait a minute. Was it you who wrote that book—something about people being precious?”
“People, Priceless People,” Gina confirmed, nodding. “Did you read it?’’
“Not all of it. Someone I used to work with showed me some of it—about how the real cost of just about every natural resource has been falling over the last couple of centuries, wasn’t it?”
“Which is a sign of a commodity that’s getting more abundant, not scarcer.”
“And how things like longer life expectancies and falling infant mortality add up to an environment that’s getting better, not worse. Yes, I remember it.” Hunt nodded and looked at her with greater
interest. “What other heresies have you committed?”
“Oh. . . that the nuclear weapons of the twentieth century were the main thing that prevented World War III from happening on at least four occasions between 1945 and final disarmament. In other words, the Bomb and the Pentagon probably saved more lives than penicillin did.”
“The Russians more or less admitted that,” Hunt commented. “It ruled out major war as an option, and that was all they understood.”
“But how much of the public knows that they admitted it? Most people still think it was the peace demonstrators that did it.”
Hunt nodded. “That would stir up a few waves on the port beam. What about the starboard side of the ship? Did you start any storms there, as well?”
“Oh, yes. . . by suggesting that sex is probably better for teenagers than religion, and drugs aren’t a problem. You know—the usual prime-time family-hour stuff.”
“That’d do it, right enough. You’ve been busy.” Hunt himself seemed comfortable enough with everything she had said. He sat down in the recliner and leaned back with his fingers interlaced behind his head. “But you never got to be a miffionairess out of it,
“Not that I noticed, anyhow.”
Hunt inclined his head to indicate the general direction outside, where her Peugeot was parked. “Not doing too badly, all the same, by the looks of things,” he remarked.
“Rented.”
“From the airport.”
“So you’re just visiting.”
“Right.”
“Where are you staying?”