Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘Do you mean you regret that the option of another war was off the cards?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Incredible! The woman just wasn’t listening. ‘I was always vehemently opposed to war, and still am today. You just have to understand what a jam the United States was in. Asia’s hunger for raw materials, Russia’s gamble on resources, our disappointing performance in the Middle East, one great big disaster. Then 2015, the uprising in Saudi Arabia. The Stars and Stripes burning in the streets of Riyadh, the whole folklore of the Islamist seizure of power, except that we couldn’t just throw those guys out because China had lent them money and arms. An official military intervention in Saudi Arabia would have amounted to a declaration of war on Beijing. You know yourself how things look down there now. Nobody might be interested in it today, but in those days it would have been reckless to depend entirely on Arab oil. We had to take alternatives into consideration. One of those lay in the sea, the other in the exploitation of oil sand and shale, the third in the resources of Alaska.’

  Another journalist put her hand up. Loreena Keowa, environmental activist with native American roots, and reporter-in-chief for Greenwatch. Her reports were hugely popular on the net. She was critical, but Palstein knew that under certain circumstances he could see her as an ally.

  ‘I don’t think anyone can blame a company for declaring a corpse to be dead,’ she said. ‘Even if it means a loss of jobs. I just wonder what EMCO has to offer the people who are now losing their workplaces. Perhaps there’s no point crying over spilt milk, but didn’t the refusal of ExxonMobil to invest in alternative energies lead to their present disastrous situation?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘I remember Shell pointing out twenty years ago that it was an energy company and not an oil company, while ExxonMobil insisted that it didn’t need a foothold in the alternative energies. The end of the oil age, which many saw on the horizon, was, literally, a widespread misunderstanding.’

  ‘That assessment was clearly incorrect.’

  ‘And we are feeling the after-effects all the more painfully for that. Perhaps it’s true that no one could have predicted a turnaround in the energy market on the present scale. What is clear is that EMCO isn’t in a position to employ its people in alternative fields, because there are no alternative fields.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we want to change,’ said Palstein patiently.

  ‘I know you want to change it, Gerald.’ Keowa grinned crookedly. ‘But your critics see your planned involvement in Orley Enterprises as smoke and mirrors.’

  ‘Incorrect.’ Palstein smiled back. ‘You see, I don’t want to make excuses for anything, but in 2005 I was responsible for drilling projects in Ecuador for Conoco-Phillips, and only switched to strategic management in 2009. At that time the American oil and gas business was dominated by ExxonMobil. Prognoses about alternative energies were pretty much divided on either side of the Atlantic. ExxonMobil invested in the Arabian Gulf and tried to take over Russian oil companies, backed high growth-rates as the result of rising oil prices and disregarded things like ethics and sustainability. In Europe it looked quite different. By the end of the nineties Royal Dutch Shell had created a new commercial division for renewable energies. BP had been a bit shrewder, in opening up deep-sea projects and becoming involved in Russian projects, while at the same time using slogans like “Beyond Petroleum” and diversifying their commercial areas wherever they could.’

  Palstein knew that the younger journalists in particular were short of information. He outlined how the process of consolidation had peaked immediately before the seizure of power by the Saudi Islamists, when Royal Dutch Shell was absorbed into BP, producing UK Energies, while in America ExxonMobil had merged with Chevron and ConocoPhillips into EMCO.

  ‘In 2017 I assumed the position of deputy director within the strategic sector of EMCO. On the very first day a press release landed on my table, saying that Orley Enterprises had made a breakthrough in the development of a space elevator. I suggested entering negotiations with Julian Orley for a participation in Orley Energy. I also recommended that we purchase shares in Warren Locatelli’s Lightyears or, better still, buy the whole company. Locatelli’s market leadership in photovoltaics didn’t just come out of the blue; he would still have been open to negotiation in 2015.’

  He saw approval on their faces. Keowa nodded.

  ‘I know, Gerald. You tried to steer the EMCO juggernaut in the direction of renewable energies. Everybody knows that you are highly critical about your own sector. But they also know that none of your suggestions has been taken on board.’

  ‘That is regrettably the case. The old Exxon management who still had EMCO in their clutches were only interested in our core products. It was only when the oil market went into free fall, when even the hard-liners had to step aside and the new chairman put me in charge of strategic management, that I was able to act. EMCO has been transformed in the meantime. Since 2020 we have done everything we can to make up for the shortcomings of the past. We have moved into photovoltaics, into wind and water power. Perhaps people aren’t generally aware, but we are in a position to transfer our staff into future-oriented commercial sectors. Except that when mistakes have been made for decades, we can’t sort them out overnight.’

  ‘Can it still be repaired?’

  Palstein leaned back in his chair. Basically he didn’t need to reply. Helium-3 was establishing itself as the energy source of the future, there was no doubt about that. Orley’s fusion reactors were working reliably around the clock, and in terms of the balance between energy and environment everything was fine; the transport of the element from the Moon to the Earth was no longer a problem. Palstein’s sector, however, seemed to be traumatised. The oil companies had reckoned with everything – except the end of the oil age, without oil and gas running out! Not even the boldest visionaries of Royal Dutch Shell or BP had been able to imagine that their sector could be wiped out so quickly by an alternative energy source. Only ten years before, UK Energies had calculated the market share of alternative technologies at thirty per cent, nuclear energy included. Equally, it had been clear to everyone that most of those technologies could only be offered at competitive prices by companies operating on a global level. The photovoltaic sector, for example, got a good market share in sunny countries, but it required complex logistical infrastructures. And who was capable of doing that, if not the big multinational oil companies, who only had to make sure that they could make a quick getaway and switch to a different area when it came to the crunch?

  That most of the companies weren’t even ready to make this shift was down to prognoses about when oil and gas would actually run dry. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses constantly changing the date of the end of the world, throughout the 1980s various prophets of doom had predicted that the oil age would come to an end in 2010; in the 1990s it was 2030; at the start of the new millennium, in spite of increased consumption, it was 2050. But now it was clear that the existing reserves would last until 2080, even though production had already peaked, while the resources available suggested an even longer life. There was only one point on which they had all agreed: there would never be cheap oil again. Never again.

  But in fact it had become very cheap.

  So cheap, in fact, that the sector had started to feel like the Incredible Shrinking Man, for whom a house spider represented a deadly threat. The most likely survivors were those who had invested in renewable energies early on. UK Energies had succeeded in reversing their fortunes, the French Total group had diversified enough to survive, even though personnel downsizing was rife. High-efficiency solar technology, as developed by Locatelli’s Lightyears, was considered the most trustworthy fuel, alongside helium-3, and there was also money to be made in wind power. On the other hand the Norwegian association Statoil Norsk Hydro was in its death-throes, while China’s CNPC and Russia’s Lukoil gazed dispiritedly into an oil-free future, clearly in culpable ignorance of the now legendary sta
tement of Ahmed al Jamanis, the former Saudi Arabian oil minister: ‘The Stone Age didn’t end for want of stones.’

  The problem wasn’t so much that petrol wasn’t needed any more: it was used for plastics, fertilisers and cosmetics, in the textile industry, in food production and pharmaceutical research. Orley’s new-fangled fusion reactors were still thin on the ground; most cars ran on combustion engines, aeroplanes were fuelled with kerosene. The United States was the chief beneficiary of the new resource. The global switch to a helium-3-based energy economy was still years away, that much was clear.

  But not decades away.

  The mere fact that the so-called aneutronic fusion of helium-3 with deuterium worked in reactors had sent already sickly oil prices through the floor. At the end of the first decade it had turned out that people were not in fact prepared to pay just any sum for oil; if it became too expensive, their ecological conscience sprang to life, they saved electricity and encouraged the development of alternative energies. The notion popular among speculators that the barrel price might be driven up by panic buying had not become reality. There was also the fact that most countries had set aside strategic reserves, and had not had to make any new purchases, that new generations of cars had batteries with generous storage capacities and filled up at sockets on environmentally friendly electricity which, thanks to helium-3, would soon be available in ample quantities. The United States of America, which had turned a deep dark green in the years after Barack Obama’s terms as president, was urging an international agreement on emission reduction, and had discovered the devil in CO2. A few years after the first helium-3-fuelled fusion reactor had gone live, it was also clear that astronomically high profits could be achieved with environmental-oriented thinking. In the course of these developments, EMCO had slipped in the ranking of the world’s biggest mineral-oil companies from first place to third, while the entire sector was threatening to shrink to a microverse. Atrophied by ignorance, EMCO increasingly found itself stumbling, like King Kong just before the fall and, dimly aware that it was doomed to failure, clutching around for something to hold on to, and grasping only air.

  Now they’d lost Alaska too.

  The drilling plans won through years spent battling against the environmental lobby had to be abandoned because no one was interested in the huge natural gas deposits there any longer. This press conference was barely different from the one they had had to hold in Alberta, Canada a few weeks before, where the exploitation of oil sand was coming to an end, an expensive and environmentally harmful procedure that had given the conservationists nightmares for ages, but which had been feasible as long as the world was still crying out for oil like a baby for milk. What use was it that certain representatives of the Canadian government shared EMCO’s concerns, when two-thirds of the world’s oil resources were stored in this sand, 180 million barrels on Canadian soil alone? The overwhelming majority of Canadians were glad that it would soon be all over. In Alberta, mining had permanently destroyed rivers and marshes, the northern forest, the complete ecosystem. In view of this, Canada had not been able to stick to its international obligations. Greenhouse emissions had risen, the signed protocols were so much waste paper.

  ‘It can be repaired,’ said Palstein firmly. ‘We’re about to conclude negotiations with Orley Enterprises. I promise you, we will be the first oil company to be involved in the helium-3 business, and we are also in discussion about possible alliances with strategists from other companies.’

  ‘What concrete offers do Orley Enterprises have to make to you?’

  ‘There are a few things.’

  The man wouldn’t let go. ‘The problem with the multinationals is that they haven’t a clue about the fusion business. I mean, some of the companies have pounced on photovoltaics, on wind and water power, bioethanol and all that stuff, but fusion technology and space travel – you’ll forgive me, but that’s not exactly your area of expertise.’

  Palstein smiled.

  ‘I can tell you that at present Julian Orley is looking for investors for a second space elevator, not least to develop the infrastructure for the transport of helium-3. Of course we’re talking about vast amounts of money here. But we’ve got that money. The question is how we want to use it. My sector is in a state of shock at the moment. Should have seen it coming, you might say, so what do you think we should do? Go down in flames, feeling sorry for ourselves? EMCO isn’t going to achieve supremacy in solar energy, however much we might try to get a foothold in it. Other people are historically ahead of us there. So either we can watch one market after another breaking away until our funds are devoured by social programmes. Or we put the money into a second elevator and organise logistical processes on the Earth. As I have said, discussions are almost concluded, the contracts are about to be signed.’

  ‘When’s that due?’

  ‘At the moment Orley is staying with a group of potential investors on the Isla de las Estrellas. From there he will go on to OSS and the opening of Gaia. Yeah.’ Palstein shrugged in a gesture somewhere between melancholy and fatalism. ‘I was supposed to be there. Julian Orley isn’t just our future business partner, he’s also a personal friend. I’m sorry not to be able to take this journey with him, but I don’t need to remind you what happened in Canada.’

  With these words he had rung the bell for round two. Everyone began talking at the same time.

  ‘Have they discovered who shot you?’

  ‘Given the state of your health, how will you get through the coming weeks? Did the injury—’

  ‘What are we to make of conjectures that the attack might have something to do with your decision to put EMCO and Orley Enterprises—’

  ‘Is it true that a furious oil worker—’

  ‘You’ve made loads of enemies with your criticism of abuses in your sector. Might any of them have—’

  ‘How are you generally, Gerald?’ asked Keowa.

  ‘Thanks, Loreena, not bad in the circumstances.’ Palstein raised his left hand until silence returned. His right arm had been in a sling for four weeks. ‘One at a time. I’ll answer all your questions, but I would ask you to show understanding if I avoid speculation. At the moment I can say nothing more except that I myself would love to know who did it. All I know for certain is that I was incredibly lucky. If I hadn’t stumbled on the steps up to the podium, the bullet would have got me in the head. It wasn’t a warning, as some people thought, it was a botched execution. Without any doubt at all, they wanted to kill me.’

  ‘How are you protecting yourself at the moment?’

  ‘With optimism.’ Palstein smiled. ‘Optimism and a bullet-proof vest, to tell you the truth. But what use is that against shots to the head? Am I supposed to go into hiding? No! Was it Tschaikovsky who said you can’t tiptoe your way through life just because you’re afraid of death?’

  ‘To put it another way,’ said Keowa, ‘who would benefit if you disappeared from the scene?’

  ‘I don’t know. If anyone wanted to stop us merging with Orley Enterprises, he would destroy EMCO’s biggest and perhaps only chance of a quick recovery.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the plan,’ a voice called out. ‘Destroying EMCO.’

  ‘The market’s become too small for the oil companies,’ said someone else. ‘In fact the company’s death would make sense in terms of economic evolution. Someone eliminating the competition in order to—’

  ‘Or else someone wants to get at Orley through you. If EMCO—’

  ‘What’s the mood like in your own company? Whose toes did you tread on, Gerald?’

  ‘Nobody’s!’ Palstein shook his head firmly. ‘The board approved every aspect of my restructuring model, and top of the list is our commitment to Orley. You’re fumbling around in the dark with assumptions like that. Talk to the authorities. They’re following every lead.’

  ‘And what does your gut tell you?’

  ‘About the perpetrator?’

  ‘Yes. Any suspects in mind?’
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br />   Palstein was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Personally I can only imagine it was an act of revenge. Someone who’s desperate, who’s lost his job, possibly lost everything, and is now projecting his hatred onto me. That I could understand. I’m fully aware of where we are right now. A lot of people are worried about their livelihoods, people who had confidence in us in better years.’ He paused. ‘But let’s be honest, the better times are only just beginning. Perhaps I’m the wrong man to say this, but a world that can satisfy its energy needs with environmentally friendly and renewable resources makes the oil economy look like a thing of the past. I can only stress again and again that we will really do everything we can to secure EMCO’s future. And thus the future of our workforce!’

  * * *

  An hour later Gerald Palstein was resting in his suite, his head cradled on his left arm, his legs stretched out as if it would have taken too much effort to cross them. Dog-tired and raddled he lay on the bedspread and stared up at the canopy of the four-poster bed. His delegation was staying in the Sheraton Anchorage, one of the finer addresses in a city not exactly blessed with architectural masterpieces. Anything of any historical substance had fallen victim to the 1964 earthquake. The Good Friday earthquake, as it was known. The most violent hiccup that seismologists had ever recorded on American territory. Now there was just one really beautiful building, and that was the hospital.

  After a while he got up, went into the bathroom, splashed cold water into his face with his free hand and looked at himself in the mirror. A droplet hung trembling on the tip of his nose. He flicked it away. Paris, his wife, liked to say she had fallen in love with his eyes, which were a mysterious earthy brown, big and doe-like, with thick eyelashes like a woman’s. His gaze was filled with perpetual melancholy. Too beautiful, too intense for his friendly but unremarkable face. His forehead was high and smooth, his hair cut short. Recently his slender body had developed a certain aesthetic quality, the consequence of a lack of sleep, irregular meals and the hospital stay in which the bullet had been removed from his shoulder four weeks previously. Palstein knew he should eat more, except that he barely had an appetite. Most of what was put in front of him he left. He was paralysed by an unsettlingly stubborn feeling of exhaustion, as if a virus had taken hold of him, one that occasional snoozes on the plane weren’t enough to shake.