ICONB: Part 1

Professor Henderson closed the lid of his laptop, reassured by the sound it made, like a door latching in a tiny car. The computer fit neatly onto the white aeroplane tray that folded down from the seat in front of him. He was flying east, almost over Europe by now. Outside the oval windows the day hurtled by. At the moment it was mid-afternoon, stainless blue above the clouds; but when he touched down in Warsaw in a little under three hours time, the night would already be well underway. Tired from working and re-working his presentation, he rested his eyes on the sparkling pattern of frost on his window. It had been spreading as the plane crossed the Atlantic — growing, it momentarily seemed to him, like a futuristic breed of lichen that had evolved to thrive on cold the way way its cousins thrived on damp and heat…

*

"Would you like tea or coffee sir?"

Professor Henderson broke from a dizzy, irresistible sleep. The windows were full of black, the cabin lights blazed. His head had lapsed against the reclined headrest and his neck felt stretched and vulnerable when he lifted it to answer the air hostess's question.

"Well," he began, voice still syrupy with sleep, "I guess I could use a cup of coffee. Do me good to wake up a little — don't you think?"

He had to struggle to make himself heard over the thin white roar of the plane.

He placed his cup in the round indentation in the air hostess's tray and she began to pour. Together they watched the brown liquid swirl and rise to a couple of centimetres below the rim. He looked up just as she finished, judging this a good moment to meet her eyes.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome."

He believed there was a more than professional warmth in her smile.

The plane began to descend and his face tingled with the changing pressure. He sucked one of the boiled sweets he had brought with him for this purpose. Lemon flavour, naturally. Anything else would have been like drinking fruit juice with water added, or wearing underpants that did not fit snugly around the thighs.

The plane banked and the pin-pricked streets of Warsaw slid across his window.

Half an hour later he wheeled his trolleybag through the big revolving door of the arrivals hall to the parking lot outside.

"Taxi?" asked a stocky middle-aged man who had been talking so heatedly to his friend that Professor Henderson had assumed they were having a brawl.

Professor Henderson nodded.

"Great Western Hotel."

"You come for conference?" asked the taxi driver, as the professor settled into the black leather seats in the back.

"Yes, da. For conference."

"Many people here for conference tonight. People clever like you."

Professor Henderson glared at the taxi driver's eyes in the rear view mirror.

"It's the most prestigious symposium in the field," he said, turning his attention to the half-lit buildings drifting past the window.

The porter at the front desk of the hotel, who did not look more than twenty years old, was visibly tired. Professor Henderson made a mental note to set the alarm on his mobile phone. He feared jetlag like a neurological disease. He hoped his tactic of working non-stop for forty eight hours before the flight would pay off.

"Professor Henderson? Yes sir, I have your reservation. Your room is number three one seven on the third floor. The elevators are at the end of the lobby, on your left as you are passing the bar. Breakfast is being served from seven until ten and checkout time is eleven thirty. Enjoy your stay at the Great Western."

Pull the string, G. I. Joe talks, thought Professor Henderson.

On his way to the elevator he paused at the entrance to the bar. It was the usual sterile affair, bland modern furniture, glitter-ball hanging from the ceiling, barman leaning over the bar, looking bored to death, lots of metal, lots of bright yellow metal. A thousand yellow sparkles grew and blurred and overlapped, snowflakes and dandelion heads of blurred golden light. Professor Henderson's legs trembled. It's possible that he would have passed out there and then had he not noticed the two women sitting at the high round table near the bar. One of them caught his eye and smiled. The sparkles returned to their rightful place on the metalwork. The other woman, the blonde, waited her chance and smiled too. Professor Henderson glanced at the barman, trying to say with his indecisive face that although he was exhausted from his long flight he was tempted to stop for a quick nightcap. He was answered by a lugubrious, black-eyed stare that clearly didn't care either way. He looked back at the women and his first impressions were confirmed: they were giving him the eye. Maybe the conference wouldn't be so dull after all. The only problem would be getting them up to his room without the other attendees noticing. Unless of course they were there for the same purpose.

*

Next morning he woke up far too early and was unable to get back to sleep. He lay stoically in the dark, listening to the neverending shush of the air-conditioning unit, trying to hear in it the soothing blanket of sound that crickets had sewn for him each summer night of his childhood. He finally managed to drop off again — about fifteen minutes before his phone began its flatulent buzzing and ringing on the bedside cabinet, propelling itself across the veneered wood. He flipped up the lid and stabbed the alarm off, feeling as if he hadn't slept at all. It took a huge force of will to throw the covers back and sit up in bed. Even then he almost caved in, telling himself he had nothing to learn from the keynote speech and the conference address, that the whole morning session would be nothing but a waste of time, as the crisp white linen flopped across his chest.

In front of the mirror in the ensuite bathroom he wiped a damp cloth over his hairless head.

After breakfast he went to the lobby to register for the conference. He recognised faces in the milling, ruminant crowd; but fortunately not well enough that he had to speak to them. He found the registration desk and picked up his conference pack and complementary shoulderbag from the pretty girl below the board marked Surnames H-N. Then he followed the crowd to the presentation rooms, flicking through the programme. The tenth biannual assembly of the International Conference of Neurobotany. Twenty years of ICONB. Who would have thought it? He had been there at the inaugural meeting — a makeshift, excitable affair, populated by the thirty or so scientists perceptive enough to realise that vegetable intelligence was no passing fad, no ill-conceived marriage of scientific buzzwords, like quantum mechanics or solar power. He had even had a hand in choosing the name — though of course his supervisor had taken the credit. ICONB. He turned the acronym over on his tongue, enjoying the delicate aftertaste of science fiction, the rich body of computer interfaces and religious art. Only thing was you had to be careful not to say Zyklon B instead. Especially around here. Know it's over when they stop screaming and all that.

The keynote speech was the usual stick of self-congratulatory cotton candy. The invited speaker was a world renowned expert on intestinal diseases. Professor Henderson used the interlude to run through his presentation a few more times. When he thought of the bombshell he was going to drop he could hardly breathe. After the coffee break — iced cakes and unconvincing laughter — there was a choice of sessions. Spore methods or inter-aphid communication. It had to be the aphids; everyone knew spores dried up years ago.