At night it had been no more than a sprinkle of lights, rocking gently to rhythmic tides. By day, however, the barge-city came alive with noise and commerce. And rumors. It was said that no place, not even the Net, spread gossip as swiftly or erratically.
Crat had no way of picking up most of the hearsay, though. Unlike the working ships, where discipline required a common language, floating towns were a chaos of tongues and dialects, whispered, murmured, bellowed. All the sea towns were the same. Miniature babels, sprawled horizontally across the nervous ocean.
Night-soil collectors called as they rowed the narrow canals between multistoried housing barges, taking slops lowered down by rope in exchange for a few devalued piasters. Competing to deliver odorous fertilizer to the garden boats, they regularly sped down unbraced passages at risk of being crushed between the rocking, bobbing hulls.
Clothing, washed in sea water, hung from cluttered lines alongside banners proclaiming ideologies and gospels and advertisements in a dozen alphabets. Each district was topped with flat arrays of solar cells linked to broad, winglike rainwater collectors, all tended by small boys who climbed the swaying frames like monkeys. Kite strings angled up into the sky toward generators dipped into high stratospheric winds. By this melange of artifice and gadgetry, the barge city managed to stay alive.
Crat hungrily inhaled the smells of cooking over seaweed fires. The aromas changed from one neighborhood to the next. Still, he kept his hands out of his pockets. His dwindling cash might be needed for bribes before the day was out.
Other aromas were even harder to ignore. Women—workers and mothers and daughters and wives—could be glimpsed through windows left open to catch a stray breeze, dressed in costumes native to countries that no longer existed, sometimes smothered in far too much clothing for these humid climes. Crat knew not to stare; many of them had menfolk who were jealous and proud. Still, at one point he stopped to watch a girl’s nimble fingers dance across a floor loom, crafting holo-carpets for export. It was a valued profession and one she had apparently mastered. In comparison, Crat knew his own hands to be clumsy things that couldn’t even knot a jute rope properly.
The young woman glanced over at him, her scarf framing a lovely oval face. Crat would have given his heart gladly when she smiled. He stumbled back, however, when another visage suddenly intervened, a crone who snarled at him in some strange dialect. Crat spun away to hurry forward again, toward the Governor’s Tower and the Admiral’s Bridge, twin monoliths that overlooked the center of town.
In a city rife with odors, the shaded bazaar was an especially pungent place where the fish was generally fresh but everything else was second hand, including the whores beckoning from a provocatively carved wooden balcony along the aft quarter.
Likewise the religions that were pitched from the opposite side, where a dozen midget temples, churches and mosques vied for the devotion of passersby. Here at least one was safe from one all-pervading creed, Gaia-worship. The few NorA ChuGa missionaries who tried preaching in Sea State were glad to depart with their lives. The lesson they took home with them was simple; it takes a full belly before a man or woman gives a tinker’s damn about anything as large as a planet.
Other types of outside recruiters were tolerated. The Resettlement Fund’s kiosk offered a third form of redemption, equidistant from sex and faith. Queued up there were men, women, whole families who had finally had enough … who would sign any document, have any surgery, swear any oath just to set foot on land again—in the Yukon, Yakutsk, Patagonia—anywhere there’d be steady meals and a patch of real ground to farm.
For Sea State this wasn’t treason. It was a population safety valve, one far less disturbing than another Crat had witnessed one dim twilight during his first stay on this drifting island-city.
He’d been lazing by one of the sidestream canals, picking away at a roast squid purchased from his shrinking purse, when a dark figure appeared slinking behind one of the shabbier apartment barges. It was a woman, he soon saw, wrapped in black from head to toe. The noise of clattering pots and shouting neighbors covered her stealth as she made her way to where the current was strongest.
Crat faded into a nearby shadow, watching her look left and right. There was a momentary flash of string as she tied two articles together, one heavy, the other wrapped in cloth. Crat had no inkling what was going on, though he thought for a moment he heard a faint cry.
The heavier object splashed decisively as it hit the water, instantly dragging the other bundle after it. Still he didn’t catch on. Only when he glimpsed the woman’s tired, bleak face and heard her sob did the light dawn. As she hurried away he knew what she had done. But he could only sit in stunned silence, his appetite quite gone.
He tried to understand, to grasp what must have driven her to do such a thing. Crat remembered what old prof Jameson used to say about Sea State … how most families who fled there came from societies where all decisions were made by men. In principle, Crat saw nothing wrong with that. He hated the arrogant, independent way girls were taught to act in North American schools, always judging and evaluating. Crat preferred how a thousand older, wiser cultures used to do it, before Western decadence turned women into not-women-anymore.
Still, for weeks he was haunted by the face of that anguished young mother. She came to him at night, and in his dreams he felt torn between two drives—one to protect her and the other to take her for his own.
Of course no one was asking him to do either. No one was exactly clamoring to make him a chief.
It was in the bazaar’s fourth quadrant, beyond the fish stalls and junk stands and traders hawking enzyme paste, that Crat came at last to the “Meat Market.”
“There are opportunities in Antarctica!” one recruiter shouted, near a holo depicting mineshafts and open-pit works, gouging high-grade ores out of a bleak terrain. Icy glaciers loomed in the background.
The images looked stark and honest—showing hard work in a harsh environment. Still, Crat could feel the holo’s subsonic music cajoling him to see more than that. The men depicted in those scenes grinned cheerfully beside their towering machines. They looked like bold men, the sort who tamed a wilderness and got rich doing so.
“The greeners have been given their dumpit parks and preservation areas now.” The speaker cursed, causing the crowd to mutter in agreement. “Half the bloody continent of Antarctica was set aside for ’em, almost! But the good news is, now the rest is open! Open wide for brave souls to go and win with their own strong hands!”
The recruiter sounded like he truly envied such gallant heroes. Meanwhile, the holos showed spare but comfortable barracks, hot meals being served, happy miners counting sheaves of credit slips.
Huh! Maybe company men get to live like that. They can recruit for those jobs anywhere.
In fact, Crat had applied for positions like those before finally falling back on Sea State. And if he hadn’t been up to the companies’ standards in Indiana, why would they accept him here? You don’t fool me. I can just guess what kind of work you’ll offer Sea State volunteers. Work a robot would refuse.
Even the poorest citizens of the poorest nations were protected by the Rio Charter, except those whose leaders had never signed, such as Southern. Africa and Sea State. That gave them a queer freedom—to volunteer to be exploited at jobs animal rights groups would scream about if you assigned them to a pig. But then, every member of the Albatross Republic supposedly had chosen his own fate rather than accept the world’s terms. Rather than give up the last free life on Earth, Crat thought proudly. He departed that booth with aloof pride, preferring honest crooks to liars.
Over by the Climate Board, passersby scrutinized the fortnight forecast, of life-or-death interest to all floating towns. Two weeks was just long enough to evade bad storms. The Climate Board was also where the gamblers gathered. Whatever other exotic games of chance were fashionable, you could always get a bet on the weather.
Nearby, a small band played t
he style known as Burma Rag—a catchy mix of South Asian and Caribbean sounds with a growing following on the net, though naturally little profit ever made it back to Sea State. Crat tossed a piaster into the band’s cup, for luck.
The booths he sought lay near the gangway of a sleek little ship, obviously new and powerful and rigged for deep running. In front of the submersible a table lay strewn with rocky, egg-shaped objects, glittering with spongelike metallic knobs. Together, the vessel and ore nodules were probably worth half the town itself, but not many citizens loitered near the well-dressed company solicitors standing there. The real crowd clustered just beyond, where men in turbans jabbered into note plaques while bearded doctors poked and prodded would-be volunteers.
No holos proclaimed the virtues of life in the various Sea State salvage cooperatives. But everyone knew what it was about. It’s about dragging a frayed air hose behind you while you walk the sunken streets of Galveston or Dacca or Miami, prying copper wires and aluminum pipes out of tottering ruins.
It’s working in stinking shit-mud to help raise blocks of sunken Venice … hoping a chunk will come up whole so it can be sold off like St. Mark’s Square was … to some rich Russ or Canuck theme resort.
It’s hauling dredges up the bloody Ganges, hired by the Delhi government, but shot at by the local militia of some province that doesn’t really exist anymore, except on hilltops.
Crat fingered the note Peter Schultheiss had given him. He edged alongside one queue and tapped a turbaned interviewer on the shoulder. “Can … can you tell me where …” he peered at the writing. “… where Johann Freyers is?”
The man looked at Crat as if he were some loathsome type of sea slug. He shouted something incomprehensible. Undeterred, Crat moved to another station. Again those in line watched him suspiciously. This time, though, the gaunt, sunken-chested fellow in charge was friendlier. Clean shaven, his face showed the stigmata of many long hours underwater—permanently bloodshot eyes and scars where breathing masks had rubbed away the skin.
“Freyers … over at …” He stopped to inhale, a desperate-sounding whistle. “… at …” With amazing cheerfulness for one who couldn’t even finish a sentence, he smiled. Snapping his fingers brought a young boy forth from under the table. “Freyers,” he told the boy in a wheeze.
“Uh, thanks,” Crat said, and to his surprise found himself being dragged away from the recruiting booths, toward the gangway of the sleek submersible. There, two men in fine-looking body suits conversed quietly with folded arms.
“Are you sure …?” Crat started asking the boy.
“Yes, yes, Freyers. I know.” He snatched the note out of Crat’s hand and tugged the sleeve of one of the men, whose sandy hair and long face made Crat think of a spaniel. The mainlander looked bemused to receive such a token, turning the paper over as if savoring its vintage. He tossed a coin to the little messenger.
“So you were sent by Peter Schultheiss, hmm?” he said to Crat. “Peter’s a landsman known to me. He says you’ve good lungs and presence of mind.” Freyers looked at the note again. “A Yank, too. Have you a full reliance card, by any chance?”
Crat flushed. As if anyone with a card would emigrate to this place. “Look, there’s some mistake …”
“Well, I assume you at least have high school.”
Crat lifted his shoulders. “That’s no plishie. Only dacks don’t finish high school.”
The long-faced man looked at him for a moment, then said in a soft voice. “Most of your fellow citizens have never seen a high school, my young friend.”
“Of course they have—” Then Crat stopped, remembering he wasn’t an American anymore. “Oh. Yeah, well.”
Both men continued regarding him. “Hm,” the shorter one said. “He’d be able to read simple manuals, in both Common and Simglish.” He turned to Crat. “Know any written Nihon or Han? Any kanji?”
Crat shrugged. “Just the first hundred signs. They made us learn simple ideo, uh—”
“Ideograms.”
“Yeah. The first hundred. An’ I picked up some others you guys prob’ly wouldn’t care about.”
“Hmm. No doubt. And silent speech? Sign language?”
Crat couldn’t see the point to this. “I guess, grade school stuff.”
“Tech skills? What kind of Net access did you use at home?”
“Hey, you an’ I both know any tech stuff I got is just pissant shit. You wanted someone educated, you wouldn’t be here, for Ra’s sake. There must be three fuckin’ billion college graduates out there, back in the world!”
Freyers smiled. “True. But few of those graduates have proven themselves aboard a Sea State fishing fleet. Few come so well recommended. And I’d also guess only a few approach us with your, shall we say, motivation?”
Meaning he knows I can’t say no to a job that pays good. And I won’t complain to no union if they give me tanks with rusty valves or an air hose peeling rubber here an’ there.
“So, can we interest you in coming aboard and taking some refreshment with us? We have cheese and chocolates. Then we can talk about getting you tested. I cannot promise anything, my boy, but this may be your lucky day.”
Crat sighed. He had long ago cast himself to fate’s winds. People looked at him, heard him speak, and figured a guy like him couldn’t have a worldview—a philosophy of life. But he did. It could be summed up in five simple words.
Oh, well. What the fuck.
In the end, he let hunger lead him up the gangway after the two recruiters. That and a powerful sense that he had little choice, after all.
Given their declining petroleum reserves and the side effects of spewing carbon into the atmosphere, why were twentieth century Americans so suspicious of nuclear power? Essentially, people were deeply concerned about incompetence.
Take the case of the Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant. The developers knew full well that its foundations straddled the San Andreas fault, yet they kept it quiet until someone blew the whistle. Why?
It wasn’t just hunger for short-term gain. Enthusiasts for a particular project often create their own mental versions of reality, minimizing any possibility things might go wrong. They convince themselves any potential critic is a fool or cretin.
Fortunately, society was entering the “era of criticism.” Public scrutiny led to an outcry, and the Bodega Bay site was abandoned. So when the great northern quake of ’98 struck, half the State of California was saved from annihilation.
The other half was preserved four years later during the great southern quake. Only a few thousand were killed in that tragedy, instead of the millions who would have died if the nuclear facilities at Diablo Canyon and San Onofre hadn’t been reinforced beforehand, thanks again to the free give and take of criticism. Instead of adding to the calamity, those power plants held fast to assist people in their time of need.
Other “nuclear” examples abound. Just a few small pumps, installed to placate critics, kept Three Mile Island from becoming another Chernobyl—that catastrophe whose radioactive reverberations bridged the interval from Nagasaki to Berne and delay-triggered the first cancer plagues.
Many still seek uranium’s banishment from the power grid, despite its present safety record and improved waste-disposal situation. They warn we are complacent, demanding each design and modification be released for comment on the net.
Ironically, it is precisely this army of critics that inspires confidence in the present system. That plus the fact that ten billion people demand compromise. They won’t stand for ideological purity. Not when one consequence might be starvation.
—From The Transparent Hand, Doubleday Books edition 4.7 (2035). [ hyper access code 1-tTRAN-777-97-9945-29A.]
• MANTLE
Sepak Takraw finished his third circuit of the ASEAN perimeter that day and verified that there was still no way out of the trap. Elite Indonesian and Papuan troops had secured this little plateau deep in rain-drenched Irian Jaya. Nothing got in or out withou
t sophisticated detectors tracking and identifying it.
Actually, Sepak was impressed by the troops’ professionalism. One hardly ever got to see military craftsmanship up close, except the presidential band on Independence Day. It was fascinating watching the sentries meticulously use pocket computers to randomize their rounds, so what might have become routine remained purposely unpredictable.
The first few days after finding his own rat-hole path to the surface, Sepak had his hands full just keeping out of the soldiers’ way. But then, for all their sophistication, they weren’t exactly looking for anyone already inside their perimeter. That meant George Hutton’s techs had kept mum about him, damn them. Their loyalty planted an obligation on him in return.
So once a day he squirmed through his tiny rocky passage to check up on the Kiwis. For the first few days things looked pretty grim. The boys and girls from New Zealand slumped against the limestone walls, staring at their captors, speaking in monosyllables. But then things changed dramatically. Inquisitors were replaced by a swarm of outside experts who descended on the site in a storm of white coats, treating the New Zealanders with utter deference. Suddenly, everything looked awfully chummy.
Too chummy. Sepak didn’t want any part of it. He especially took to avoiding the caverns during meal times, when he’d have to peer over a high gallery and smell civilized cooking. He, meanwhile, had to make do with what his grandfather had taught him to take from the forest itself.
By the bank of a trickling stream, Sepak dabbed streaks of soft clay across his brows, renewing the camouflage that kept him invisible to the soldiers … so far … and just so long as he didn’t try to cross those unsleeping beams at the perimeter. He chewed slowly on the last bits of a juvenile tree python he’d caught yesterday. Or the last bits he intended to eat. Grandfather had shown him how to prepare the entrails using some obscure herbs. But he’d been too nauseated to pay much attention that time. Reverence for your heritage was fine. Still, some “delicacies” pushed the limits.